Page 5

5

Oberon

‘DO WHAT YOU must.’ My jaw clenched as Alric’s words echoed and curled around my thoughts. It was my duty, the sole purpose carved into my bones since I took my first life.

‘It will be done.’

The thick forest canopy above filtered the moonlight into scattered, fractured beams. Gnarled trees surrounded me with skeletal branches that reached toward the sky like bony fingers clawing for salvation. The air hung damp and heavy, thick with the decay of leaves and the musk of wet soil. My boots pressed into the ground silently.

A flicker of movement caught my eye. Moths danced around the distant firelight, their fragile wings casting fleeting shadows against the trees. Near my boot, a beetle skittered across a twisted root, its carapace glinting wet obsidian. In the underbrush, nightchimes droned, a restless, ceaseless hum. Their translucent bodies pulsed with a faint bioluminescent glow, and their wings shimmered as they rubbed against each other, releasing a sound of distant thunder in a whispering chorus that breathed with the night itself.

The forest was alive, breathing, and writhing, claiming me as one of its own.

Beyond the tangled branches, the firelight wavered, a dull ember against the darkness. I crouched low as the shadows wrapped around me. The camp sprawled ahead, basic but practical. Mismatched tents leaned against one another, their fabric stained from weather and battle. A thin coil of smoke curled toward the sky, carrying the acrid scent of charred wood and the pungent aroma of roasted meat. The embers crackled and spat sparks that died before they touched the damp ground.

Stolen provisions lay scattered—barrels pried open, grain sacks spilled across the dirt. Crude but effective weapons glinted in the firelight. A rusted sword rested against a tree, its edge nicked from overuse. At the heart of the camp, a larger tent stood, its canvas patched and fraying at the seams.

Rhys Carrow.

Their vigilance was laughable. Two sentries paced the perimeter with the awareness of men who had never faced death in the dark. Their movements were slow and predictable. One scuffed his boot absently against the dirt, the other rubbed the nape of his neck as if the weight of his helmet was too much effort to bear. Near the fire, another rebel sat slouched, his laughter too loud and careless, his guard forgotten in the warmth of drink and cheap entertainment.

The narrow paths between the tents were worn by use, slick with mud, and strewn with debris. A broken cart was propped against a tree with its remaining wheel half-sunken into the dirt. Moths flitted in languid spirals above the fire. Their wings caught the light before they vanished into darkness. A spider spun its web between two crates, its delicate strands glistening with trapped dew.

Even the insects thrived on the negligence of these men.

The details settled into my mind—every weakness, blind spot, and gap in their defenses. My fingers brushed the handle of my dagger. No alarms. No mistakes.

I became a specter, a shadow between flickering firelight and shifting darkness. My breath was steady, and my pulse was a measured drumbeat in the silence. The night welcomed me and wrapped me in its icy embrace. It rendered me a mere whisper of movement against the endless drone of insects.

The first watchman lingered nearby, his boots still scuffing against the dry dirt in a sluggish, thoughtless rhythm. He was a man accustomed to the illusion of safety. His weight shifted from one foot to the other, his spine slouched with boredom, and his hands rested on his belt. He was oblivious to the death poised mere inches from his elbow, to the way the shadows had deepened around him, swallowing the moment whole.

Fool.

My blade extended my will. It whispered through the air, a fleeting caress of steel against flesh. His skin parted like silk, the muscle split, and his windpipe’s wet, fragile cartilage collapsed beneath the edge.

His breath hitched in a soft, strangled choke before his mouth gaped open in wordless shock. His blood welled against his lips, bubbling. The light in his eyes flickered. Recognition. Realization. Fear. Then nothing.

I caught him before his body could betray him with a thud, lowering his weight into the undergrowth. The ground welcomed him greedily, drinking deep as his life drained into its hungry maw. His limbs jerked once, twice—as he held onto the last wisps of existence before they eluded his grasp.

The fire crackled, and laughter murmured from the camp. Unconcerned. Unaware.

I exhaled through my lips to steady the rush of iron and instinct that curled through my veins. I had no time for satisfaction. No time for hesitation.

The second watchman was sharper. His head twitched, and his shoulders stiffened with a hound’s nervous awareness, sensing the subtle change. He sniffed and turned, fingers brushing his sword’s pommel.

Too slow.

In a seamless glide of motion, I surged forward. My dagger’s hilt met his skull with a brutal crack and an impact that reverberated through my arm. Bone crunched, his breath hitched, and his mouth opened into a half-formed sound that never reached his throat.

His eyes were glazed, pupils wide with unfocused shock. He swayed as his body betrayed him, and consciousness slipped before he had the chance to fight for it. He crumpled in a lifeless husk of meat and bone, hitting the dirt with a thud .

The firelight flickered, painting the world in amber and blood. The smell of smoke, roasting meat, and fresh death curled around me.

Two dead.

Each step held a calculated breath as I moved deeper into the camp. The laughter by the fire swelled, raucous and careless, their voices thick with ale and the fleeting illusion of safety. They remained oblivious. One of them gestured wildly with a half-eaten hunk of bread clutched in his greasy fingers. Crumbs tumbled to the dirt as he bellowed something crude, and his companions doubled over in drunken amusement.

Disgust roiled in my stomach. These were the men who sought to overthrow the kingdom? These undisciplined fools, these slovenly brutes who couldn’t even hold their posts with vigilance? They had no honor. No caution or understanding of what a veritable war required. They were children playing at rebellion, unaware of the blood that would drown them before they ever reached their throne of fantasies.

The air shifted when I neared the main tent. The fabric danced with false movement, but beyond the illusion, Carrow, and another man’s voices whispered plans over stolen maps. I stilled, waiting. The other man should leave soon. His tone became weary, and his words faded into dismissal. A moment later, footsteps scuffed the dirt, growing more distant.

Carrow was alone.

The tent flap remained silent as I slipped inside, my movements honed to instinct. The interior featured sparse yet practical furnishings. A heavy wooden table dominated the space, its surface cluttered with maps, ink-stained parchments, and the remnants of a half-melted candle. A battered chest sagged in the corner, partially hidden beneath a moth-eaten blanket.

Rhys Carrow stood hunched over the table, his fingers tracing a path along the map. He looked younger than I expected, just a few years past boyhood. He wore his dark hair in a loose knot, allowing stray strands to fall around his face. His clothes were a mix of leather and rough-spun cloth—practical and worn—not the silks and embellishments of a noble-born rebel. He was a warrior, not a schemer.

He didn’t hear me until the callous press of my blade kissed the bare skin of his throat. “Don’t move.” My voice was a low growl edged with finality.

He stiffened. His fingers hovered above the map, and his breath hitched before he concealed it. His pulse quickened beneath the steel, like a rabbit caught in a snare, weighing whether to fight or surrender. His lips curled into a sneer. “So, the prince sent his lapdog.” His words dripped with derision, resentment lay beneath—not just for me, but for the reality of his weakness.

The blade pressed harder against the strain in his throat. One slice, and he would drown in his own blood. “Your life is forfeit unless you comply.” My hand was steady, but my patience was thin. “Your choice.”

He huffed, his jaw muscles tightening. “You’ll get nothing from me.” The venom in his tone resembled a dying man’s last defense—full of bravado but devoid of leverage.

I moved closer, near enough for him to sense the pressure of my presence behind him, close enough that the icy bite of steel against his skin turned into a tangible threat. “Then you will regret surviving tonight.”

The camp stirred. Laughter had dulled into hushed murmurs. The sharp clatter of weapons broke through the night. Someone had noticed the missing guards. “Your men are smarter than you,” I muttered as I cinched the rope tight around Carrow’s wrists, feeling the muscle tense in my grip.

His smirk wavered. He heard it, too. Shouts rose, and torches flickered to life. Their glow stretched between the trees’ hungry fingers. “You won’t survive this,” he taunted, but the bravado couldn’t mask the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He knew the tide had shifted, and control had slipped from his grasp.

I hauled him forward, sticking to the narrow paths that the firelight couldn’t reach. The rebels scrambled, their movements frantic, disjointed, disorganized, and afraid. They had never expected that the shadows would fight back.

A cluster of them blocked the path ahead, weapons drawn, but hesitation thick in their stances. Their grip on their blades was too tight, their breath too fast. Inexperienced. Predictable. They weren’t ready for death.

Shoving Carrow behind me, I seized the handle of my blade. “Stay down.” My blade passed through the air in a whisper of finality. Its silver edge gleamed before it struck flesh. The steel parted a man’s throat, severing his jugular in one clean, merciless stroke.

Blood gushed, hot and viscous, against the cool air. He staggered backward, hands scrabbling at his throat, his eyes wide with the stark, horrifying realization that he was dead. His knees buckled, and his body twitched in its final, futile rebellion against the inevitable. Then he crumpled with his essence pooling beneath him in dark rivulets.

A second man faltered, and his blade shook. My dagger plunged into his chest with a wet, sickening crunch. His ribs caved in around the intrusion. Bone and muscle scraped against steel as the blade found his heart.

His mouth opened in a soundless scream, breath stolen by the impact of the strike. His body spasmed, and his fingers twitched as he grasped for redemption in an irrevocable act of defiance. His legs gave out, and he slumped against a tree. He slid in a slow, agonizing descent, leaving a thick smear of crimson in his wake.

Another man hesitated, his sword half-raised, eyes flicking between me and his fallen comrades.

Too late.

My dagger found its mark before he could retreat. The blade punched through the soft flesh just below his jaw. He gurgled and choked on his blood, clawing at my wrist in a wasted effort. I twisted the blade, severing what brief life remained in him. His form slumped against my shoulder before I shoved him off of me.

The camp had awakened. There were more torches, more shouting, and the odor of blood thickened the air, mixing with smoke. Carrow stared at the bodies and swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. I wiped my blades clean against a fallen rebel’s tunic, flicked the excess blood to the ground, and met Carrow’s gaze. “Still think I won’t survive?”

The last man stood frozen, caught in the liminal space between fight and flight. His eyes darted between the bodies at his feet and the predator that stood before him. His skin had gone pallid, a sickly shade of green, and his mouth fell open in shallow, panicked gasps. He was breaking.

Terror locked his limbs, and his sword trembled in his grasp. There was a moment when his mind flailed for a decision, a flicker of desperate thought that might have led him to run, call for help, or take another action. But I didn’t allow him the opportunity.

Steel flashed in the dim moonlight. A clean stroke. His throat parted with ease, and the air left him in a wet, ragged exhale. The sword slipped from his fingers before his body followed, crumpling to the ground in a heap of dead weight.

With the path open, I wrenched Carrow forward and hauled him into the dense forest. His steps faltered, his balance unsteady, as I dragged him through the underbrush. His earlier taunts had quieted, and his voice dwindled to bitter murmurs. The weight of reality had settled over him. His people were dying, his rebellion was crumbling, and he was at the mercy of the one thing he had no defense against:

The prince’s lapdog.

The shadows swallowed us once more. The chaos of the camp dimmed behind us, replaced by the whisper of wind through the branches and the distant chorus of nocturnal creatures. The terrain beneath my feet became uneven, slick with moss and damp soil, each step measured to keep us silent. Hot pain flared along my shoulder, a reminder of a blade that had grazed me in the skirmish. A shallow cut, but enough to burn as sweat seeped into the wound. I had endured worse.

Carrow stumbled, wrenching us both off balance. I held tighter on his bindings and jerked him upright. The deeper we went, the more the sounds of pursuit faded. They hadn’t found us in time. They couldn’t halt the events underway. Carrow had only begun to grasp the full extent of his failure.

And I would ensure he felt every second of it.

I THREW CARROW against the bitter, unforgiving stone of the cell. He landed hard. His breath knocked from his chest in a ragged gasp.

The damp air reeked of mildew, iron, and the lingering smell of old suffering. Shadows clung to the corners of the walls that had absorbed the agony of those who had come before him.

His defiance had worn away on the journey back, eroded by exhaustion and the knowledge that there was no escape. But he hadn’t broken. Not yet. His silence now wasn’t submission—it was resignation. A man staring at the inevitable, teeth clenched around whatever scraps of dignity he thought he had left.

“You should have cooperated, Rhys,” I stated, my voice devoid of emotion, flat and absolute. “Now you will have to tell me everything I want to know. One way or another.”

I dragged him by his bound wrists until his back met the damp stone wall. He gritted his teeth as I unfastened the ropes, replacing them with iron shackles. His ankles followed, the metal clinking as the locks snapped shut. He winced as the steel bit into his raw flesh but refused to yield.

Shame.

The blade of my dagger slid free from its sheath in a whisper of steel. The metal drank in the faint light, its honed edge reflecting the raw, flickering terror in Carrow’s eyes. I inched close enough to let him feel the weight of what was coming, close enough that he could smell the blood dried into the leather of my gloves.

The first cut was shallow. Only a whisper of pressure against his forehead. A scratch. A single bead of blood welled up, trembling before it carved a slow path down his face, a crimson tear against the pallor of his skin.

My dagger traced a deliberate path, slicing through flesh with precise, practiced strokes. The blade marked his skin, parting it in thin, glistening lines. Each fresh wound brought a new shudder through his body, a tremor in his breath, a tightening in his muscles.

He held out longer than most. The first scream came when the cuts deepened. The dagger bit into the sinew beneath his skin. A raw, strangled sound burst from his throat that echoed off the stone walls and filled the chamber with a haunting symphony of pain.

Sweat beaded on his brow, mingling with the blood as it dripped from his chin. His breathing turned ragged, shallow, and quick between shuddering gasps. But I wasn’t done. The blade worked with precision, carving slow, intricate paths across his chest, arms, and ribs. Several cuts were shallow, others deep enough to expose the pale, glistening fat. The smell of iron thickened in the air.

His body drooped against the shackles. His muscles twitched with every fresh wound, every new flare of agony. His screams faded, swallowed by silence, his mind reeling, struggling to withstand what his body couldn’t. Still, he refused to speak.

I inclined my head, examining the ruin of him. The once-bright defiance in his eyes had dulled, reduced to a glazed, unfocused stare. His lips trembled.

“You will talk,” I murmured. An involuntary shudder rolled through him, his body betraying what his mind refused to yield. My dagger hovered over his chest, the tip poised against sweat-slicked skin, catching the dim light.

I leaned in, my voice emotionless and steady. “I will ask again, Rhys Carrow, before I make this worse for you. Who are your allies? What are their plans?”

He shook his head in a slow, weak movement. Not defiance anymore—just the hollow remnants of a man trying to hold onto something that had slipped away from him.

“Wrong answer.”

The dagger arced downward in a single, precise motion. The blade met flesh, then bone, and in a swift, clean separation, his pinky severed. The digit hit the stone floor with a wet thud. Carrow’s cry ripped through the cell, his body jerking against the restraints. His breath hitched, shuddering, his eyes wide—panic and pain warring in their depths.

I let the pause expand between us while he gasped, writhing against the chains and curling his fingers inward to reclaim his lost possession.

Then I did it again.

The ring finger next. Another clean cut. Another ragged, keening cry reverberated against the stone walls. His body convulsed, muscles spasmed, and his breaths came in ragged, wet gasps. His head lolled forward, blood dripping from his ruined hand onto his lap.

Then the middle.

His shriek shattered through the cell, but it didn’t last. His body betrayed him. His eyes rolled back as his mind fought to escape the torment.

My fingers curled into his matted hair, yanking his head with a sharp jerk. “No,” I hissed. “You don’t get to leave yet.” His lashes flickered, and his pupils dilated, his breath shallow and wheezing. He swayed in the shackles, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.

I pressed the blade to his chest, letting the slick metal graze his skin. A reminder that there was still more to come. His body shuddered beneath it, his mind clawing back from the abyss. His breath came in sharp, uneven bursts. He hung onto life by a thread.

Leaning in, I whispered again, my tone softer this time. “Let’s try again. Who are your allies? What are their plans?”

His lips moved, but the sound was a rasp, a breath of surrender lost in the still air between us. Watching the dull glaze settle over his eyes, I cocked my head and leaned closer, my ear inches from his mouth. A smirk ghosted across my features as I murmured, “Don’t make me work for it, Rhys. You only have so many fingers left.”

He drew a ragged breath, his entire body trembling with the effort. The fight was gone.

Carrow’s breath rattled as he whispered, “The… the Blacksmith’s Guild…” His words trembled, slipping past bloodied lips. “They’re planning… a ritual… a sacrifice.” His head lolled, his body sagging further against the restraints. “In five full moons… the bleeding must be done.”

I stilled. The words were a slow-drawn blade against my spine. “Sacrifice?”

Carrow gave a weak, shuddering nod, his eyes glassy and unfocused. “The Guild… they need blood… something old, strong…” He swallowed hard, his head rolling against the stone. “The uprising depends on it.”

I processed the words, turning them over, searching for meaning. It was vague: a ritual, a sacrifice, blood, five full moons. It was superstition, another misguided effort to harness old magic for their cause. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they planned something, and I had the means to end it. A whisper of satisfaction nestled in my chest.

My gaze didn’t leave his face as I lifted my dagger and plunged it into his eye with a pop . Steel met little resistance before the familiar wet squelch of muscle gave way, and I twisted the hilt. His body jerked once, twice, then stilled. A final, rattled breath escaped him before his life faded into the hollow silence. His blood dripped slowly and thickly as I pulled the dagger free. The smell of iron, sweat, and urine clung to the air.

The following silence was deafening. Only the soft, wet patter of blood broke the stillness. I stepped back, my chest heaving with exertion, my breath slow as I studied my handiwork. His body sagged in the iron shackles, limp and lifeless. His fingers—what remained of them—hung in grotesque angles, and his ruined eye socket was a gaping hole. A crimson trail streaked his cheek, soaking into the drenched fabric of his tunic.

The slow, gnawing burn in my shoulder became impossible to ignore. The dull ache from earlier had sharpened into something more sinister. It burrowed beneath my skin, radiating outward, setting my veins alight with fire and ice. My pulse pounded in my skull, and my breath came in shorter, shallower gasps.

The wound wasn’t deep. It was a grazing cut, at best. But it was wrong.

Cold sweat broke across my brow. My fingers twitched at my side, a tremor I hadn’t willed. I spun around, striding toward the stairs, but the world around me shifted with each step. The stone beneath my boots felt unsteady, the air thick and stifling.

Shadows stretched along the walls, twisting in the flickering torchlight. I blinked hard, but my vision swam. The flames formed shifting halos of gold that danced at my periphery.

Poison. Someone had coated their blade. I swallowed back the nausea that churned in my stomach and pushed forward. I had endured worse. My body had weathered wounds far beyond this—deep, gaping slashes, broken ribs, even the bite of steel through my abdomen.

When I approached the infirmary, my chest heaved. Each breath was labored and jagged. My limbs grew heavy, and my steps faltered. The world tilted beneath me.

I compelled my body to comply and staggered the last few paces until the infirmary door stood before me. My hand pressed against the wood, and my body’s weight sent it swinging open. I collapsed against the frame, weak fingers curling at my side as I struggled to keep myself upright. The room spun and blurred into indistinct shapes.

The figure at the infirmary desk jumped to their feet. I pushed forward, reaching them before my legs wavered. My body felt detached, and the ringing in my skull drowned out everything else. The figure was there before I could fall. Their hands pressed against my side, steadying me.

Warm.

Firm.

“Poison,” I rasped. The relentless, pulsing roar in my head didn’t allow me to hear a response, if there was one. Dark ink bled into the boundaries of my vision. My knees buckled, and the ground beneath me tilted.

The world fell away, enveloped by the unforgiving void.