The chair had been stolen from a lord's manor, its carved oak soaked in wine and blood until the grain turned black. Noah Veyne sat with one leg draped over the armrest, his white hair catching the torchlight like spun silver. The purple of his eyes—unnatural, unsettling—reflected the kneeling man without a flicker of emotion.
"Please." The word came broken, ragged. The man, once a magistrate of some small territory, pressed his forehead to the mud. "My lord, please. I beg you. My wife—my daughter—they're innocent. They knew nothing of what was done to you."
Around them, the camp breathed with the disciplined silence of soldiers who had seen worse. Twelve men, armored in dark leather and stolen steel, moved through the conquered village with the efficiency of wolves circling a kill. They dragged bodies, stripped valuables, corralled survivors. None looked toward their commander and his guest. They knew better.
Noah tapped a finger against the pommel of the dagger at his belt. The motion was slow, deliberate. "Innocent," he repeated, tasting the word like sour wine. "Tell me, Magistrate Voss, do you truly believe I will let you live after everything you did to me?"
Voss's hands trembled as he lifted his head. His face was bruised, one eye swollen shut from the interrogation. "Then kill me. Take my head, my lord. But spare them. My daughter is eight years old. She—she called you a hero once, when you first came to the village. She doesn't understand what happened."
A hero. The word almost made Noah smile. Almost.
"I have a little surprise for you," Noah said, his voice soft as a blade sliding from its sheath. "Before you die."
He raised a hand. One of his men—a veteran named Kael, scarred and silent—vanished behind a row of supply wagons. The wheels creaked. Not the groan of wood on dirt, but something heavier. Something that made the torches flicker as if shrinking from its presence.
The cage carriage came into view.
It had been built for transporting war hounds, bars thick as a man's wrist, but the things inside were far smaller. Far uglier. Four goblins, green-skinned and wiry, hissed and clawed at the iron. Their yellow eyes fixed on Voss with a hunger that had nothing to do with food. These were the scouts his men had captured in the hills—feral, starved, and now completely mad with confinement.
Voss's breath hitched. "No. No, no, please—"
Noah slid from the chair, his boots making no sound in the mud. He produced a small vial from his coat, the glass tinted blue, the liquid inside thick and shimmering. "Do you know what this is, Magistrate?"
Voss could only shake his head, his throat working soundlessly.
"It's called exlaxior. The alchemists in the south brew it from wyvern glands and nightshade. Expensive. Rare." Noah held it up to the torchlight, watching the bubbles rise. "It doesn't heal. It doesn't wound. It simply... amplifies. Takes any urge—hunger, rage, lust—and turns it into a scream that drowns out all reason."
He tossed the vial to Kael, who caught it without looking away from the magistrate's face.
"Give it to them," Noah ordered. "All of it."
Kael uncorked the vial. The goblins went still, nostrils flaring at the scent. They knew. They always knew. He poured it through the bars, the liquid vanishing into gaping mouths. For three heartbeats, nothing happened.
Then the cage exploded with sound. Screeching, clawing, bodies slamming against iron with a new, terrible urgency. The bars bent. The carriage rocked. The hunger in those yellow eyes was no longer simple—it was a promise.
Voss tried to scramble backward, but another soldier—Soren, quiet and efficient—placed a boot on his back, holding him in the mud.
"The thing about goblins," Noah said, crouching now, bringing his face level with the magistrate's, "is that they're not picky. Age, beauty, innocence—none of it matters to them. Only the urge. Only the need."
He stood. Nodded.
From the crowd of prisoners huddled near the supply tents, two figures were dragged forward. The woman—Voss's wife—had her hands bound, her mouth gagged with a blood-soaked rag. She fought, but the soldier holding her was twice her weight. The girl, small and pale, was too terrified to struggle. Her eyes found her father in the mud.
"Daddy?" she whispered.
Noah turned his back. He heard Voss's scream, muffled as they gagged him too. Heard the cage door scrape open. Heard the wife's shriek, cut short by a thud.
"Burn the village when you're done," he told Kael. "Leave nothing for the carrion birds."
He walked toward his tent, the purple of his eyes darkening to near-black in the shadows. Behind him, the goblins shrieked their triumph. Behind him, Voss's muffled sobs became something broken and animal.
Noah did not look back. He had learned, in this life and the one before, that some lessons could only be taught in blood. And some vengeances—some little surprises—were the only mercy he had left to give.
The cage door clanged shut.
The screaming began.
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