The Nithgard wastes had no mercy for those who moved through them after dark.
Kaelen had learned this lesson in his first winter here, when he had been foolish enough to believe that his skills as a general, his strength as a warrior, his connection to powers beyond mortal understanding would protect him from the simple, brutal truth of this land.
He had nearly died that night. A frost-bite that had cost him two fingers on his left hand, a fall into a crevasse that had shattered his shoulder and left him with a limp that still haunted his steps on cold mornings. He had survived because the land had not killed him quickly enough, because his body had been forged in fires that most men could not imagine, because somewhere in the depths of him there burned a stubborn, desperate will to live that refused to be extinguished.
Tonight, he walked with the cold as an old enemy, one he knew and understood. He had dressed for it—layers of fur and treated leather, boots stuffed with dried grass, his face wrapped in strips of cloth that left only his eyes exposed to the biting wind. He moved with a rhythm that conserved heat, his strides measured, his breathing controlled.
But the cold was not his enemy tonight.
He stopped at the crest of a ridge, dropping to his belly to silhouette himself against the sky. Below him, the valley stretched away into darkness, a frozen river winding through it like a scar. And on that river, moving with a purpose that had nothing to do with the hunt for food or shelter, was light.
It was not torchlight. Torches flickered, danced, cast shadows that shifted and changed. This light was steady, unwavering, a cold blue-white that seemed to drink the darkness rather than push it back.
Valdris, Kaelen thought. The Iron-Willed.
He knew her, though he had not seen her in five years. She had been Valkara's greatest champion, a woman who had risen from the ranks of the Bronze Cohorts through sheer force of will and the strength of her convictions. She had fought beside Kaelen in the First War, had saved his life on three separate occasions, had called him brother and meant it.
And now she hunted him.
The light moved closer, and Kaelen could see the figure at its center. Valdris wore no furs, no protection against the cold that would kill a normal man in hours. She walked through the frozen wastes in the armour of her office—bronze plate chased with silver, a helm shaped like a snarling wolf, a cloak of deep crimson that moved as if stirred by a wind no one else could feel.
She was beautiful, in the way that a blade was beautiful. There was no softness in her, no warmth. She was purpose given form, duty made flesh.
Behind her, the ice of the river cracked and split, steam rising from the wounds her passage left in the world. The Aethyr burned around her, the power of her pact made visible, and Kaelen felt the familiar pull of it—the call that had once been his, the song that had lived in his blood for thirty years.
He pushed the feeling down, buried it beneath the pain that was his constant companion.
She's alone, he thought. That's good. That's... wrong.
Valdris was a hunter, yes, but she was also a soldier. A commander. She would not have come into unknown territory without support, without a strategy, without some plan beyond walking through the snow until she found her quarry.
Where were the others?
He scanned the valley, searching for any sign of movement, any flicker of light that would betray a second hunter. The night was dark, the sky above him a bruised purple shot through with the faint glow of distant stars, but there was nothing. No fire, no Aethyr-light, no sound beyond the whisper of the wind and the crack of ice beneath Valdris's feet.
She's the bait.
The realization hit him like a blow. Valdris was walking through the wastes, making no effort to hide her presence, because she wanted him to see her. Wanted him to come.
And somewhere out there, in the darkness beyond his sight, the other Hounds were waiting.
Kaelen began to move, crawling backward from the ridge, keeping his body flat against the frozen ground. He would not take the bait. He would circle around, find another path, lead them away from the pass Theron was even now racing toward.
He had made it twenty feet when the ground beneath him exploded.
He was in the air before his mind caught up, his body reacting to the threat with instincts honed by decades of war. He twisted, caught himself on a rock outcropping, and dropped into a crouch, his blade already in his hand.
The thing that rose from the broken earth was not Valdris.
It was larger than a man, larger than any creature Kaelen had ever seen, its body a nightmare of fused flesh and twisted metal. It had been human once—he could see the shape of it, the suggestion of arms and legs and a head—but that humanity had been burned away, replaced by something else. Something forged.
"Malkor," Kaelen breathed.
The thing turned toward him, and in the faint light, Kaelen could see the runes that covered its body—not scarred into flesh, but carved into metal, glowing with the sickly yellow light of a forge-fire that never died. The face was a mask of bronze, featureless except for the thin slit where a mouth should have been.
"Kaelen." The voice that emerged from that slit was not human. It was the sound of grinding gears, of metal on metal, of something that had forgotten what it meant to be flesh and blood. "The Shattered Oath. We have waited so long to find you."
Kaelen moved without thinking, his blade cutting toward the thing's neck. The metal screamed as the edge bit into it, and Malkor staggered back, a sound like tearing iron coming from his chest.
But the wound sealed itself before Kaelen's eyes, the metal flowing like water, reforming, strengthening.
"The pact has made us more than we were," Malkor said. "More than you ever were. The flesh is weakness. The soul is a prison. We have been freed from such limitations."
Kaelen circled, his mind racing. Malkor had been a general once, a man named Theron—the irony of the name was not lost on Kaelen—who had commanded the legions of Korr-Valeen. He had been brilliant, ruthless, a master of siegecraft and industrial warfare. And he had been dying, some slow poison of the blood that the healers could not cure.
The Skylord Volkar had offered him a solution. Immortality, in exchange for service. Eternal life, in exchange for everything that made him human.
"Volkar sent you," Kaelen said. "Not Valkara. Not Thalrik. This is personal for you."
"All of us hunt you," Malkor said. "All of us have our reasons. Valdris hunts for duty. Sera hunts for pleasure. I hunt because I want to understand."
"Understand what?"
"How you survived." The bronze mask tilted, as if studying him. "The pact was shattered. You should be dead. Your soul should have been torn apart, consumed by the backlash. But you live. You walk. You breathe. How?"
Kaelen's hand tightened on his blade. "I was too stubborn to die."
"A poor answer. But I will have the truth from you soon enough." Malkor raised his arm, and the metal of his forearm split open, revealing a blade that pulsed with the same sickly yellow light. "Volkar wishes to study you. To understand what makes you unique. You will be taken alive, if possible."
"And if not?"
"Then you will be taken in pieces. Either way, we will have our answers."
The attack came without warning—a blur of metal and light that Kaelen barely managed to deflect. His blade screamed against Malkor's, the force of the blow driving him back across the frozen ground. He felt something crack in his wrist, felt the familiar burn of his damaged flesh screaming in protest.
He fought anyway.
They moved across the ridgeline like dancers, Kaelen's blade meeting Malkor's again and again, sparks flying into the darkness. The cold was forgotten, the wind was forgotten, everything was forgotten except the fight, the desperate need to survive, to buy time, to—
To what?
He had said he would lead them away from Theron. But he had not planned to survive this night. He had not planned anything beyond the next hour, the next minute, the next heartbeat.
And now, facing a creature that could not be wounded, could not be slowed, could not be stopped, he realized the depth of his mistake.
I should have stayed with him. Should have fought. Should have died with my son beside me.
The thought was a blade in his chest, sharper than any Malkor could wield.
He stumbled, his leg giving way beneath him, and Malkor's blade came down—
And stopped.
Kaelen looked up, and saw Valdris standing behind Malkor, her hand on his shoulder, her face hidden in the shadow of her wolf-helm.
"No," she said. Her voice was soft, almost gentle. "He's not yours to take."
Malkor's head turned, the bronze mask catching the light. "The hunt is shared. The prize belongs to all of us."
"The prize is Valkara's. She wants him alive. She wants to speak with him."
"She had her chance to speak. Five years ago, when she tore out his soul and left him to die."
"That was the Lawgiver's command. She has reconsidered."
Kaelen pushed himself to his feet, his blade still raised, his body screaming with every movement. "You can both save your breath. I'm not going anywhere with either of you."
Valdris turned toward him, and Kaelen saw her face for the first time. She had aged, in the way that immortals aged—not in body, but in the eyes. There was something there that had not been there before. Something that looked like doubt.
"Kaelen," she said. "Brother. You have to come with us. The Lawgiver has declared you anathema. There is no place in the world for you now, no sanctuary, no shelter. The Hounds will hunt you to the ends of the earth. They will hunt your son. They will hunt anyone who has ever spoken your name. Come with me now, and I will speak for you. I will make them see—"
"See what?" Kaelen's voice was ice. "See that I was right? That Thalrik is a tyrant who sacrifices entire nations to protect his throne? That Valkara is a coward who betrayed the one man who ever truly served her? They know these things. They've always known. And they don't care."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand everything." He raised his blade, feeling the familiar weight of it in his hand, the familiar comfort of steel. "I understand that you came here with Malkor. That you let him attack me, let him try to kill me, before you stepped in to offer your mercy. I understand that you are the bait, and he is the trap, and that somewhere out there Sera is waiting to finish whatever you start."
He saw the flicker of something in her eyes. Not guilt—Valdris was incapable of guilt—but recognition. He had seen through her. Through all of them.
"You were my brother," she said quietly.
"I was your general. Your commander. The man who led you to victory a hundred times, who bled beside you, who carried you from the field when you were too wounded to walk." Kaelen's voice was rising, the control he had maintained for five years beginning to crack. "And when they told you to hunt me, you didn't ask why. You didn't question. You put on your armour and you came."
"You know I can't question. The pact—"
"The pact is chains. It's always been chains. And you're too much of a coward to see it."
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Then Valdris reached up and removed her helm.
Her face was the same as Kaelen remembered—strong, proud, beautiful in the way that all of Valkara's champions were beautiful. But there was something new there, something that looked like grief.
"I came here to give you a chance," she said. "One chance. Come with me, face the Lawgiver's judgment, and perhaps—perhaps—your son will be spared. Refuse, and I will do what I came to do."
"You'll try."
She nodded slowly. "I'll try. And if you kill me, Malkor will take you. And if you kill him, Sera will take you. And if you kill all three of us..." She smiled, and there was no warmth in it. "Then there are others. There are always others. The Skylords do not forgive, Kaelen. They do not forget. They will hunt you until the world ends."
Kaelen looked at her—this woman who had been his friend, his comrade, his sister-in-arms—and felt something inside him shift.
He had been running for five years. Running from the past, from the pain, from the thing he had become. He had told himself that he was protecting Theron, that the boy would be safe if they just kept moving, just kept hiding, just kept surviving.
But there was no safety. There had never been safety. There was only the hunt, and the hunted, and the long, slow spiral toward an end that had been written the moment Valkara shattered his pact.
You're not a monster. You're just a man who was broken by gods. And if you have to be something worse to survive tonight... then be it.
Theron's words echoed in his mind.
He let his blade fall. Heard it clatter against the frozen ground.
Valdris's eyes widened. "Kaelen—"
"I'm not going with you," he said. "I'm not going anywhere. But I'm not going to fight you with steel, either. Not tonight."
He closed his eyes. Reached down into the place he had kept locked for five years. The place where the broken thing lived, the shattered remnants of his pact with Valkara, the power that had been torn from him and left to fester in the wound of his soul.
Don't hold back. Don't let what happened to you be the thing that kills you because you're afraid of becoming a monster.
He opened his eyes.
And let go.