*
"You asked me what way there was to save yourselves,"
Thalia had said, the night wind lashing at the ruined stones around them.
She hadn't hesitated. She never hesitated.
"You must become a sworn demon subjugator."
Ian had frowned then — not in fear, but in the sharp, wary way a man does when sensing the edge of a knife he doesn't yet see.
Thalia's voice had been a low, merciless thing:
"Unlike a common subjugator who may renounce the path at any time... a sworn subjugator binds themselves by blood oath. Forever. Until the tenth reach of the Hellscape is cleared."
Her gray eyes had glinted like the sea under stormlight.
"Every reach must be faced. Every demon slain. You may not remain away from the Hellscape for longer than fifteen months before you must descend again — or the gods themselves will tear you apart."
Ian had said nothing. But the truth of it cut deeper than iron.
