The scarred knight's stare was the kind that tried to peel a man apart.
Behind him, the other two shifted their weight, gauntlets tapping hilts, eyes flicking to the tree line where Halric and the others waited unseen.
Kael weighed his choices.
Fight — and spill blood before dawn had finished warming the air.
Run — and leave tracks any fool could follow.
Talk — and risk the wrong word sending him in chains to Blackspire.
The abyss's voice curled through his skull like smoke through cracks.
You can silence them before they take another breath. They will not even have time to scream.
Kael's jaw tightened. "Not yet," he murmured under his breath.
The scarred knight's eyes narrowed. "What was that?"
Kael forced a lazy half-smile. "I said, you can escort us to the next town if you're so eager to ask questions."
The knight didn't smile back. "I think we'll start with you alone."
He stepped forward, one gloved hand reaching for Kael's shoulder. That was the mistake.
The moment the hand touched leather, Kael moved. His own hand shot up, clamping around the man's wrist. The abyss surged eagerly into his muscles, turning the simple motion into something monstrous. Bone cracked under his grip; the knight's eyes went wide.
The two others shouted, drawing steel.
Kael spun the scarred knight between them like a shield as a sword hissed through the air, sparking off chainmail. The abyss whispered a rhythm in his ear — step, twist, cut — and he obeyed without thinking. His dagger flashed once, twice, opening a gap in the first attacker's guard, then driving deep into the man's side.
The smell of blood was sharp, almost sweet. The abyss drank it in.
More.
The second knight lunged, blade aimed for Kael's ribs. Kael dropped low, the world slowing to the heartbeat he could hear pounding in the man's chest. When he came up, it was with the knight's own sword in his hands and the man choking on his breath, clutching at a wound he hadn't seen coming.
The scarred knight, still half-shielded in Kael's grip, bared his teeth. "You… you're not—"
Kael slammed the hilt of the sword into the man's temple. He went limp.
The forest was silent again, except for the rasp of Kael's breathing.
He let the bodies fall. For a moment, he stood there with the abyss thrumming in his veins, stronger than any man had a right to feel. His pulse felt like a drumbeat from another world.
Then Elara's voice cut through it. "What did you do?"
He turned. She stood on the edge of the road, eyes wide, the boy clinging to her skirt. Halric was behind her, hand on the haft of his hammer, but his gaze was on Kael like he didn't recognize him.
Kael's mouth was dry. "I kept them from finding you."
"That's not all you did." Elara's voice was steady, but her hands were trembling.
Kael searched for something to say, something that would bridge the gap between what they'd seen and what they thought they knew about him. Nothing came.
Halric stepped forward. "If the Warden's men find these bodies—"
"They won't," Kael said, sharper than he meant.
He moved quickly, dragging the corpses into the underbrush. The abyss urged him to feed, to take the lingering warmth of their lives and make it his own, but Kael forced the hunger down. Not now. Not in front of them.
By the time the bodies were hidden, the air smelled faintly of iron and disturbed earth.
"We need to move," Kael said. "Double pace. If they were scouts, there'll be more."
No one argued.
They marched hard through the day, the shadows deepening as they pushed north. Every so often, Kael caught Elara watching him when she thought he wasn't looking. Not fear exactly — but wariness.
That night, when the camp was set and the fire burned low, the abyss spoke again.
You hesitated.
"I had to," Kael muttered, keeping his voice low so the others wouldn't hear.
Hesitation will kill you. If you had taken their essence, the next fight would be easier.
Kael's hands tightened around the whetstone he was using on his dagger. "And how long before I stop being me if I do that every time?"
That depends on how much of "you" there is worth keeping.
He didn't answer.
Instead, he stared into the fire and thought about the scarred knight's last look — not fear, not even pain, but recognition. Like he'd seen what Kael was becoming before Kael himself had.
When sleep finally came, it was thick with dreams of wings blotting out the sun and voices calling from somewhere deep below the earth.
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