Page 71 of Stormvein

He turns to Varam. “Keep everyone here. Stay close. Do not follow. Wait for my return.” He begins to stride away, then turns, eyes finding mine. “Except for you. You come with me.”

Without waiting for my response, he moves swiftly along the path the scout came from. I hesitate, standing up and searching out Varam. He gives me a nod, telling me to go with Sacha. Mira catches my eye, and offers me a small smile.

I watch Sacha’s retreating form for a second longer before I follow, confusion mingling with dread. The anticipation radiating from him isn’t tension or concern, it’shunger.

When we reach the rocky overlook, the scene below steals the breath from my lungs. The Authority patrol moves as a crimson mass against the landscape, their bold uniforms glaring against the muted greens and grays of the mountain. They march with the arrogance of those certain of their power.

“What are you going to do?” I don’t know why I ask, I think I already know the answer.

He doesn’t look at me, eyes locked on the men below. “Watch.”

Shadows explode outward from Sacha’s form. Not delicate strands, but huge torrents of darkness pouring out from his chest, his fingertips. They rush downward, twisting and writhing like living nightmares, forming into monstrous shapes, with blade-like wings and countless glowing, malevolent eyes.

A soldier drops to his knees, clutching uselessly at his throat, blood fountaining between his fingers before he can even scream.

My heart stalls.

Two more collapse, shadow-beasts shredding through armor and flesh as if they were paper. Panic erupts too late. Soldiers scatter, cries ringing out, sharp with terror and disbelief. Their training means nothing against this. Their weapons are useless. Their red uniforms, once symbols of the Authority’s power, now simply mark them as targets.

Bodies fall, one after the other, some butchered in horrific silence, others dying with screams that will echo in my nightmares. Limbs are torn from torsos. Throats open in red smiles. Entrails spill onto stone.

Swords and daggers slash wildly, helplessly passing through attackers that solidify only to kill. One soldier fires a desperate crossbolt toward us. The shaft vanishes mid-flight, consumed by darkness that surges back along its path, following the trajectory in reverse before plunging mercilessly into the archer’s chest. His eyes widen in shock as he falls, looking more surprised than afraid.

This isn’t a fight. This isn’t even combat. This is an execution.

I stagger back, horror clawing up my throat as acid burns on my tongue. The world tilts beneath me, and my fingers dig into stone, desperate for something solid to hold onto.

Just weeks ago, when I watched him being destroyed at River Crossing, I swore the Authority would pay. I’d have torn them apart with my bare hands if I could have. I wanted this. I wanted them to suffer as he suffered.

But this … this slaughter … there’s no emotion in it. No rage. No grief. No justice. Just death, delivered with a terrifying detachment.

The massacre is over in moments. Twenty soldiers lie grotesquely sprawled across the earth, uniforms darkening with blood, limbs twisted at unnatural angles, faces frozen in their final terror. The metallic tang of blood hangs heavy in the air, so thick I can taste it on my tongue.

Shadows retreat, returning to their master, wrapping around his legs, his chest, sinking back beneath his skin. Nothing remains of the nightmare creatures that tore through the soldiers seconds ago. They vanish as though they never existed, leaving only their aftermath as proof.

Sacha’s face remains impassive, untouched by effort or regret, an emotionless mask of chilling detachment. He surveys his handiwork without any sign of guilt or satisfaction.

I try to look away but I can’t. My eyes are locked on the sprawled bodies below, on hands that will never again hold weapons, on wide, unseeing eyes staring endlessly at a sky they’ll never see change. Some of them look barely older than I am. They were boys playing at soldiers, men following orders, people with families who will never know how they died or where their bodies lie.

My stomach heaves without warning. I spin away, dropping to my knees as bile burns up my throat. All I bring up is the water I drank earlier, splashing stone as my body convulses with revulsion.

Or is it recognition? The boundary between horror and understanding blurs with each painful retch.

When the spasms finally subside, I remain on my knees, shaking.

“You killed them all,” I whisper. The words are weak, pathetic in the face of what I just witnessed.

But what disturbs me most, what sends cold shivers down my spine, isn’t that he killed them, it’s that I understand why. That part of me, the part that held him as he suffered, that saw whatthey’d done to his body … That part of me wanted exactly this. That in his place, with his power, I might have done the same.

“This is war, Ellie. And I no longer have the patience for half-measures.”

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, forcing myself to stand on shaking legs. My eyes find his, searching desperately for a hint of the man who spoke my name with the last of his strength in that cave. The man whose fingers tightened around mine despite the agony he was in. I search for any trace of him in this perfect, deadly stranger.

“I know it’s war. I know what they did to you. But this wasn’t justice or survival. This was an execution.”

“Yes.” There’s no apology in his tone. “It was.”

There’s nothing I can say to that. I have no argument to give that wouldn’t make me a hypocrite. There is no moral high ground I can claim when I’ve wished similar fates on those who harmed him. I stare at him for a long moment, this man remade by suffering and power, and wonder if what I gave back to him in the cave was worth the cost. If healing his body meant losing something essential from his soul.