“You want me to do this to show I choose this path?”His voice sounded strange, hollow.
“To show yourself.”The Healer said.“And to show the men.It will unite you with them.”
Outside, the storm had reached its full fury.Rain hammered against the stronghold’s walls like fists, but down here, it was far away, muffled, a mere vibration.
Sunan would stop at nothing.He was preparing his ceremony, focusing the Brotherhood’s will on Connor’s destruction.The warriors here who followed him despite his reluctance deserved a Master who was fully present.
The chair’s arms were worn smooth by the grip of countless hands.How many had sat here before him, making this choice to choose this life above all others?
“Do it,” he said.
The Healer moved behind him and wrapped him in the shroud cloth.Connor felt the man’s presence, could smell the herbs on his clothes.The first touch of the blade was shockingly cold; then cutting began.The razor whispered across Connor’s scalp with a sound like silk tearing.Hair fell past his eyes, gathering on the white cloth.Each stroke took with it another piece of a man who’d dreamed of a normal life.
The storm sounds faded.There was only the whisper of steel on skin, the Healer’s measured breathing, Connor’s own heartbeat loud in his ears as the Healer wet his head and smeared soap over his scalp.He drew the blade over Connor’s head in long, slow sweeps, swishing the razor in the bowl with each pass.
The lamp’s flame bent and swayed, casting moving shadows that made it seem as if the weapons on the walls were stirring, eager for use.
The Healer handed him a bronze hand mirror when it was done.
Without hair, Connor’s features were sharper, more dangerous; his cheekbones were blades, his jaw iron, his sea blue eyes flashed.The scar on his temple from the previous Master’s blade stood out white against tanned skin, a permanent reminder of how he’d come to be here.
He looked like what he was—a warrior preparing for battle.A killer shedding his humanity.
Connor’s newly bare scalp tingled.He felt exposed, vulnerable, yet somehow lighter.As if the weight of his old life had been cut away along with his hair.
“Now,” the Healer said, wiping the last traces of soap from Connor’s scalp with surprising gentleness, “we begin.”
They left the shaving room.The Healer took a lamp and led Connor deeper into the stronghold, down stairs carved from living rock.The temperature rose.The walls wept moisture that glittered in the torchlight like tears.
The stairs ended at a rough stone wall with a familiar door.The Healer opened it and they stepped inside into a natural cavern, expanded by human hands over centuries.Steam rose from cracks in the floor.The Healer led him through a maze of passages, past pools that bubbled and hissed, their waters colored impossible shades by dissolved minerals.
The healing pools were a secret known only to Masters and their most trusted retainers and Elders.Fed by hot springs that bubbled up from the earth’s core, they’d been used for centuries to restore warriors between battles.Their existence still felt like something out of legend to Connor, though he’d been restored by them numerous times.
The largest pool lay in a chamber whose ceiling disappeared into darkness.Steam rose from its surface like the breath of a sleeping dragon.The water was dark as old blood, its depths unknowable.Around the edges, minerals had built up over centuries into formations that looked like melted bones.
The Healer reached into a pouch at his waist and withdrew packets of herbs.The smell hit Connor immediately; sharp, medicinal, with undertones of renewal.The old man scattered them across the water’s surface while murmuring Thai words of an old dialect.The herbs dissolved, turning the steam acrid.
“Each night after training, come here,” he instructed.“The waters will heal your body faster than nature allows.By the time the day comes, you’ll be at your peak.”
Connor stripped, his clothes falling away like another layer of his old self.His body told its story—scars from training, from the night he’d killed his predecessor.Each mark was a reminder of how far he’d traveled from the man who lived alone in Honolulu with his dog, and hunted criminals through cyberspace.
He entered the pool slowly, sighing as heat enveloped him.The water was almost too hot to bear, sending needles of pain through his skin before numbness set in.He sat on a built-in bench, closing his eyes, the water level with his chin.Deeper sensations moved through him: muscles unknotting, toxins being drawn out, old injuries twinging briefly before quieting as his tissues rejuvenated.
The Healer’s herbs added layers to the experience.Connor’s eyes watered from the fumes, his sinuses reacting.But beneath the discomfort was something else—a sense of something transforming at the cellular level.
“I’ll gather those loyal to you,” the Healer said, settling above Connor on a stone bench worn smooth by generations.“If you win the men’s hearts in the coming week, their numbers will swell.”
“How many do you think Sunan has?”Connor’s words came slowly as if passing through syrup.
“Fifty?Sixty?The Brotherhood recruited well among the ambitious and discontent.Those who’ve left our stronghold since you ascended.”The stocky man shrugged, his shadow huge on the cavern wall.“The challenge itself will be single combat.The rest is just ...atmosphere.”
Connor sank deeper into the healing waters until they covered him to his ears.The heat was pleasant, now.“Tell me about the Ceremony of Claiming.Everything you know.”
The Healer’s eyes grew distant as he stared across the pool.His voice took on the cadence of oral tradition, of stories passed down through darkness and blood.“Long ago, before the Yam Khûmk?n found its purpose as protectors, some members sought power through objects.They believed certain artifacts could store the spirits of great warriors, that gathering them together could call those spirits back.”
Steam swirled between them, taking shapes that might have been faces, might have been Connor’s imagination.
“And can they?”
