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CUID DE CHEISTEAN

I watch my little fae retreat to her room, but it doesn’t matter. I know she can still hear the song.

My lips curl into a cruel smirk. I wonder how much longer she’s going to pretend that she’s someone who can live in the light. How long will she deny that the call of the dark hums through her veins?

The boy has given her hope that she can. For that, he gets to live another day, but I’m adding another mark to the debt she owes me. Every time I have to practice truly divine restraint, I place another tally. One day soon, I’ll force her to pay up with interest. For now, shackles of obsidian stay my hands, keeping me from taking what belongs to me. My efforts tonight released me in part, but there is still much to be done. Closing my eyes, I can hear the echo of the dark symphony that accompanies the breaking of another chain.

The Shifter Council let out early, the heads of the various shifter races filing out. The meeting must not have gone well. Many wore grim and dour expressions. I know what they’d deliberated over. It is the same thing they always deliberated over—the future of their kind.

Their ineffectual little council of elders will always hold Nhang back from being a realm of any particular note. It is why their spawn will never experience any true form of power.

They still think that might is only defined by physical strength. Deviation from their core philosophy of might makes right is brutally culled. It’s a callback to a time before the Grand Arcane and the artificial realm that is the Sorcerer’s Guild. It worked before the gates that connected all the realms, a time many realms left behind in favor of technology and modern advancements.

Nhang’s single bastion connection to the Runic Network only proves how antiquated the realm has become. If anyone in Nhang wants to contact the rest of the realms, they have to travel to the capital of Sevan. It is a very long commute for some because they refuse to invest in the technology needed for modern travel.

Fools.

My gaze focuses on the hulking brute I am here for, and I follow as he struts out of the council room. No doubt, his oppressive strength served him well within. That is the thing about those who rely on their physical power. They build their own demise with their arrogance. Every being has a weakness, even the strong.

I follow the worn path, stalking the elder along the dirt road. He pauses to scent the air every few steps, sensing the looming threat. He is used to being the predator, and he is in most walks of life. People avoid drawing his gaze, afraid to invoke his ire. I’ve known people like him since I was a child. Some children are allowed to be innocent, at least for a while, but I was never one of them. How could I be? My hands were stained with the blood of many by the time others learned to read. I’ve never been a child or innocent.

I was born a force, and the older I got, the more powerful I became. Magic is not about talent, not at all. Magic is about pain and the ability to turn it into power. No one knows that better than I.

Lowering my shield, I allow the elder to sense me. Just as I expected he would, he spins on his heel. His yellow glowing eyes turn to predatory slits, and his body trembles, close to changing. Another person, any other person, might have retreated. At the very least, they would have hesitated, but I feel nothing.

“You are not welcome here,” the elder snarled. “There is an accord.”

I stalk closer, my steps unhurried. The elder’s eyes become more feline, and I can almost see the massive snow leopard lurking beneath his skin.

“Are you stupid?” he hisses, taking a hesitant step back as I continue moving closer. “You are going against the Grand Arcane.”

He retreats a few more steps before stopping and snarling at me. Snowy fur erupts from his neck and his face contorts, his teeth shifting and lengthening into those of his leopard. In his burning golden eyes, I can read his thoughts. He’s thinking that he’s the apex predator here. Oh, how wrong he is.

He lets out a mighty roar, the sound stuttering into a gargled gasp when I press my palm to his chest. The white runes on my hand glow, and the shifter freezes.

His heart arrests under my hand. Blood vessels struggle all over his body, bursting in his eyes under the pressure of trying to circulate his blood without the use of his heart. His regeneration is trying to heal the damage, but it can’t, even as an elder, because I won’t let it.

“The sins of the son are paid by the father,” I whisper, the great Elder of Snow Leopards crumpling into a heap at my feet. One by one, I close my fingers into a fist. The white runes on my forearm glow, the corpse turning to dust beneath my power.

Everyone has a weakness. Even me.