The sky was overcast. The sun should have been shining at its highest point by now, but the clouds wouldn’t allow it to be seen. Strong, cutting winds, a light drizzle, and deafening thunder filled the air.

  Brennik thought the weather suited the battle perfectly.

  They had surrounded the city almost two months ago—Sadorn had been waiting for their surrender, but it never came. Kynnyav was far too proud to kneel before someone like him. And the price for that would soon be paid.

  In the early hours before dawn, Kynnyav had attempted a surprise attack on the siege set by Wordhen’s army. , thought Brennik. Kynnyav had been waiting for an outside help that never showed up. Their plan for a two-front attack had failed. Desperation had gripped the city, and the surprise attack was nothing more than a final gasp of hope in the face of starvation. They had gambled on a miracle while they still had strength.

  They failed.

  Hav Wordhen—a former general of the Gwynngala Empire—had been the first leader of House Wordhen. Dissatisfied with the Empire’s neglect of the Eastern Domains, he raised an army and conquered much of the region over the years. Although Kynnyav stood at the heart of his conquered territories, Hav respected the city’s organization and left its sovereignty untouched, focusing instead on the bandit-infested areas.

  Decades ago, Hav was assassinated by a bandit during a raid. Since then, his army had passed through the hands of multiple short-lived leaders, many of whom embraced the very practices Hav once fought against. Today, House Wordhen bore little resemblance to what it had been under Hav, but they kept the name for its prestige.

  Sadorn was the current leader of House Wordhen.

  Sadorn justified the attack on Kynnyav with elaborated plans he had personally discovered. Kynnyav had always been known to resist the authority of the emperors—that was no secret. What Sadorn revealed, however, was something far more sinister: the city had come into possession of the , an ancient artifact capable of performing without corrupting the body. Worse still, the Kynnyavians planned to use the artifact to launch an attack on the capital, Nihonek, and forge a second .

  Ashbringers were despised everywhere, but since they were victims of their own powers, they rarely posed a lasting threat. An ashbringer who wasn’t restrained by bodily corruption, however, wasn’t simply despised but feared.

  Brennik led a detachment through the streets of Kynnyav. He had split his troops into smaller units, scattering them across the city’s narrow streets. Most of the city’s soldiers had already been defeated during their failed stealth attack on the siege. What remained were the civilians—and every single one of them was to be eliminated. That was the commander’s order.

  , thought Captain Brennik.

  There was no need for elaborate tactics anymore. The soldiers under his command would enter a house, turn everything upside down looking for civilians—and if they found anyone, they were to drive a sword into their chest. They could be a disguised ashbringer, after all.

  Burm couldn’t bring himself to follow these orders. He knew his past was far from honorable—being part of House Wordhen meant extorting peasants here and there, raiding shipments now and then. It wasn’t right, and he knew it, but he could live with that stain. Even the siege itself didn’t feel like too great a crime.

  Burm could convince himself that the tax imposed on the people was a fair price for protection against external threats. He could even force himself to believe that punishing those who refused to pay was necessary to keep the system running. But no matter how hard he tried, there was no way to convince himself that what he was witnessing now had any justice in it.

  The city had already surrendered. It was no longer a threat. No matter how much Sadorn insisted that ashbringers were hiding in the city, waiting to unleash their morbid power against them, Burm couldn’t see that possibility. All he could see was the massacre of a defenseless, conquered population.

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  Brennik noticed Burm’s hesitation.

  It was easy for Brennik to notice the shifts in Burm’s mood and emotions. In fact, the captain thought they shifted too much—but that was what made Burm who he was, and Brennik liked that about him.

  The two had grown close ever since Brennik joined House Wordhen. Back then, the captain was a twelve-year-old boy, while Burm was around two years older. Both of them were skilled bloodweavers—a talent that led the former leader of the Wordhen, Thuliom, to adopt them.

  Burm had known the love of his family until their lives were taken during a bandit raid. His parents were acquaintances of Thuliom, and when the leader learned of their deaths, he took the boy in.

  Brennik, on the other hand, grew up never knowing his parents. He faced life as it was and didn’t waste time thinking about how it should be. The orphanage where he was raised sent its boys out to “work” in the streets—and never asked how they got their money, as long as they came back with some.

  By either bad luck or fate, Brennik used his bloodweaving to try to pickpocket Thuliom. The failed attempt left the old leader stunned. So young, and yet able to control blood like that—and probably without any formal training. Instead of punishing him, Thuliom brought the boy into his House.

  Seeing Burm’s hesitation, Brennik gave him a special assignment. He was to lead a small detachment to an area that had already been “cleared.” If Brennik could say he had a friend among his comrades, that friend would be Burm. Sending him off was his way of sparing Burm from the mission. It was clear he wasn’t handling the situation well.

  Burm left with two soldiers. Brennik did not hope he would come back. He hoped his “maybe-friend” would just waste time out there and avoid taking part in the incursion.

  Brennik stood at the predetermined meeting point, waiting for the detachments to return so they could advance further into the city. Some of them were already back, and the soldiers were standing more casually—a level of relaxation the captain allowed, given the lack of any identified threats nearby.

  What a surprise to the captain was it when Burm returned alone.

  “We don’t have to do this… we can stop and start over somewhere else. None of this makes any sense, brother,” said Burm, breathless and desperate.

  He appeared with his sword in hand and a restless look in his eyes. Brennik noticed the fresh blood coating his blade and the blood marks on his body. What could that be? Brennik wondered, but there were too many possibilities—no reason to jump to conclusions.

  “Give the order to withdraw the troops. There’s still time!” Burm went on.

  “Burm, what happened?”

  By now, the soldiers were starting to pay attention to the two of them.

  “None of this makes sense, Brennik,” he repeated.

  “Burm! What happened?!” Brennik demanded, raising his voice.

  “Let’s get out of here…”

  The sentence was cut short by a resounding slap across his face. By then, the two were already surrounded by soldiers.

  “Burm, I’ll only ask one more time. What happened?”

  Burm tremulou os olhos, como se sofresse por reviver os momentos que acabara de passar. Agora respondeu com menos pressa.

  Burm’s eyes flickered, as if he was suffering from reliving the moments he had just experienced. This time, he did not answer in a hurry.

  “They were killing children and babies, Brennik. Babies!”

  “Who?” Brennik was sharp; he understood the context, but he needed Burm to say it out loud.

  “The soldiers, damn it! When I got to them, those bastards had a dagger stuck in a baby! A baby, for fuck’s sake!”

  Brennik understood the horror of what they were doing. Sadorn’s orders had been brutal. But orders were orders, and Brennik didn’t feel like he was in any position to disobey them for now.

  “And what did you do, Burm?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? What’s a person supposed to do in that situation? I stopped them, damn it!”

  If that had been said in private, Brennik would have pretended he never heard it. But said in front of so many soldiers, he couldn’t just ignore it.

  “The blood on your blade, is it Derow’s and Alsen’s?”

  Burm nodded.

  That’s when he realized things wouldn’t go the way he’d hoped. Brennik had always agreed with his doubts about their leaders, Brenn always seemed like someone he could trust. Burm thought he could make Brennik stop this senseless massacre. But now, he understood the situation he was in. Brennik was a captain—he wasn’t going to listen. Burm had killed two fellow soldiers. The punishment for that was death.

  At that moment, he felt alone in the world. What was wrong with everyone? Was he the only one capable of seeing the absurdity of all of it?

  “Listen, Burm. I’ll personally take you to Sadorn, and then he’ll judge you himself,” Brennik declared loudly, so everyone could hear.

  Burm’s eyes no longer wavered. He narrowed his gaze in focus, then slashed his arms to awaken his blood marks.

  “I’m leaving, Brennik.”

  “No, Burm. You’re coming with me to Sadorn,” Brennik tried to reason with him, his tone calm but firm.

  “No, I’m leaving,” Burm replied with determination, pointing his sword at his companion.

  Brennik glanced around. Everyone was watching. There was no way out—he’d have to fight the one person he had ever considered as a friend. That wasn’t what he wanted. Burm was skilled; no one would’ve found it suspicious if he had broken free during the escort to Sadorn, while the rest of the soldiers carried on with the mission. But Burm’s stubbornness had shut that door. When he raised his sword, his fate was sealed.