The insects still swarmed, gathering in my hair, crawling over my arms like a black crown. I stood over him, chest heaving.
And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel broken.
I felt whole.
Lazarus shouted something behind me. His voice unintelligible through the din. I didn’t turn.
Rian ran toward Lazarus—arms outstretched, panic carved into every line of his face. He shouted his name, desperate, like a brother rushing to pull him from the fire.
But I moved first.
I ran faster.
The distance between us vanished in heartbeats, sand kicking up under my feet. I could see the fear in his eyes when he realized I wasn’t running to save him—I was running to end him.
The hammer swung low and sure. It struck his ribs with the brittle crunch of pottery under a heel. He folded with a wheeze, stumbling to the ground, clutching at his side. His fingers clawed through the sand as though the earth might pity him and take him back.
Pathetic.
I raised the hammer and brought it down—once, twice—until the sound of him ended.
Bone crunched. Flesh gave. Blood rose in a red mist that clung to my skin, my lashes, my mouth.
When it was done, Rian was no longer a man but a shape—shattered bone and torn meat scattered in the sand, glistening under the torchlight like the offerings of a cruel god.
My arms trembled. The hammer hung low, dripping. My breath sawed through my throat like rusted iron. My chest heaved, each inhale a burn. My face was streaked with blood—his and mine—I could no longer tell which belonged to whom.
I looked up.
Across the ruin, Lazarus stood. His chest rose and fell, the spear hanging loose in his grasp, its edge dull with blood. It wasn’t the exhaustion that pierced me—it was his eyes.
There was no fear in them. No shock.
Something colder lived there.
Murder.
His gaze locked on mine, steady and unyielding. The hatred in it burned through me, fierce and consuming, the kind born from love twisted beyond recognition. In that look, he saw me for what I truly was—the creature buried beneath my ribs, no longer hiding, or pretending.
Let him hate me.
Let him see the truth.
One day, he would understand. These trials were never meant for brotherhood or loyalty. They were meant to strip us bare—leave only the ones willing to kill what they loved to survive. That was the lesson Severen wanted. That was what the Dreadhold demanded.
I forced myself upright, gasping, the hammer dragging at my side. Blood coated everything—the walls, the floor, my hands. It had soaked so deep into the cracks of my skin that it no longer felt foreign. It belonged.
I licked my lips. The taste of blood lingered, thick and metallic. It no longer disgusted me. It settled into me like breath, like truth.
Cannibalism didn’t feel unthinkable anymore.
It felt close.
This wasn’t a trial.
It was an awakening.
A game.
