Prologue
Emrys
The mage to my left thrust her hands skyward, conjuring a desperate gust of wind that made my banner of crimson and gold snap violently overhead. Behind me, soldiers doubled over, hacking to clear their throats in the brief pockets of clean air before the miasma closed in again.
The reprieve was fleeting. Blood and sweat still tainted every breath. I filled my lungs with fresh air one last time, and with a nod to my standard-bearer, charged into the storm of steel and magic.
The first man, a berserker, came at me with a cry in his throat and steel in both hands. No hesitation. No mercy.
My blade met his exposed neck.
A low hum beneath my ribs whispered its approval.
I moved forward. Fire spiraled from my free hand, catching on the hem of a tunic before lashing out toward flesh. Howling shrieks of pain filled the air.
A shallow, shameful satisfaction washed over me. The relief my brutality brought was hollow, almost meaningless, but only violence, only motion and blood, could offer me any semblance of peace. Each death only eased the oppressive weight of the curse for little more than a single breath.
The slaughter was a frenzy, and I moved through it like a flood through a broken dam, unstoppable and overwhelming. Around me, men died before they saw me coming. Men not much older than boys—who reminded me of those I’d trained beside when I still believed I could serve my kingdom without destroying it—fell beneath my wrath.
I tried not to look too closely at them. When I did, my constant state of disquiet turned to despair.
A soldier raised his shield too slowly. I shattered it and sliced him all the way to the bone with magic-enhanced strength. Then I pulled the air from his lungs so I wouldn’t have to hear him scream. He crumpled to the dirt, blessedly silent.
Like a cold, dark, endless ocean, magic swelled within me. It hated the cage I had kept it in—but it loved the war. I’d left home, left my kingdom, left my crown, to free the monster for a purpose other than simple destruction. The battlefield was the only place I could release its savagery while still holding onto some semblance of righteousness.
Around me, men fought and bled and cried to gods I’d long since stopped putting my trust in. The gods used me just like the Mage Assembly did—for whatever dark purposes they deemed necessary.
Smoke rose from the ground where the fire had died down, leaving only the smoldering sprawled shapes behind. The smell of charred flesh, burned leather, and scorched wool hit me.
I wanted to retch. I panted, hoping the beast inside me had eaten its fill of suffering for one day.
But my body moved on. Strike. Parry. Cast. Kill. Kill. Kill.
One man dropped his sword, lips moving in a plea. A wave of agony raked through my chest from the effort of holding the curse back. My hand twitched as it roared in my blood like a chained lion gnawing at its own leg to free itself.
“Run,” I rasped.
He did. I don’t believe he was among the countless dead I created that day. A single small mercy.
I lost track of time; it could’ve been minutes, hours, or days. The battlefield became a spectre of blood of smoke, and I its red right hand.
Eventually, my body fell motionless. The curse, momentarily quelled. Agonizing silence hung in the air, more unbearable in its stillness than the cries had been because I knew what it meant.
Corpses lay in heaps. Some of them wore our colors.
I stared down at my hands, slick with blood. One gauntleted, one bare, with a palm that still crackled with the remnants of spellfire, nails blackened with soot. The veins beneath my skin pulsed faintly blue, a cold heat radiating from them. And my sword arm trembled.
Then I saw a familiar face—burned, half-buried in the dirt, mouth open in question or denial, his milky eyes wide with terror I’d placed there.
I had murdered my own standard-bearer.
Gravity pulled at me as if the countless dead I’d sent to the otherworld were trying to drag me down to join them. My chest heaved, but the building pressure trapped the scream in my throat.
What had I done?
The same thing you’ve done uncounted times before.
The curse thrummed beneath my skin, reminding me that I wasn’t free. I was born Prince Emrys of Darreth, but now they called me Stormdân, firestorm. Fate had shaped me into little more than a weapon of destruction.
