Ethan’s breaths were ragged, his chest heaving with the effort of holding himself back. But his grip on Malak’s collar was ironclad as he slammed the old druid into the moss-covered wall for what felt like the hundredth time.

  “Her name was Irlanda,” Ethan snarled. “And you made her into this…thing.”

  “My – my Lord,” Malak sputtered as he crawled away into the shadows, searching desperately for a way out of this. “You don’t understand. I – yes, I allowed the transformation. My Irlanda, she and the Albion had such a connection…such a strong connection that I knew it would make her more powerful than any Drytchling before. But…but she was too weak to-“

  Ethan smacked the old druid with a bloody claw, drawing deep gashes into the man’s withered face.

  “You lied to me, Malak!” he roared, his voice reverberating through the Grove chamber. “You let me walk into this, pilot your wife’s corpse, and now you’re telling me she was too weak? That’s your excuse?”

  Malak’s face twisted in pain, his beard matted with blood and the green sap-like ichor of his people. “Irlanda was—she was weak!” he spat, his tone trembling with a mix of fear and indignation. “She couldn’t comprehend the Albion Tree’s gifts! It was never meant to be this way, but it’s necessary, Ethan! You’ve seen the strength it’s given you! It’s the strength of nature itself. It’s the world fighting back against the tyranny of the Greys and their servants, Ethan! Surely you and your hybrids can see that?”

  Malak’s desperate face flashed towards Klax, who simply sighed and shook his mane.

  “There are things that must be sacrificed by men like us, that’s what you told me, wasn’t it?” the Lycae said.

  “Y-yes, yes exactly!” Malak laughed nervously. “You do understand? Don’t you? You d-“

  The wolfman’s eyes became hard and fiery, and the look he flashed in Malak’s direction closed shut the Druid’s mouth.

  “But the people we love,” he growled. “They are the people we fight for. They are the reason we suffer. We sacrifice ourselves for them – not the other way round!”

  As though punctuating this sentiment, Ethan slammed him down again, the room shaking with the force of it.

  “She wasn’t the only one though, was she?” he growled, spitting another Thorn Hail to shred through the Druid’s cloak and leave him clutching his almost naked body in shame. “You just couldn’t stop yourself, could you? You did the exact same thing to the rest. Even the children of your Grove.”

  “It was an honor for them!” Malak spit back, reeling like a putrid lizard under Ethan’s death-stare. “They had submitted themselves to the ways of the Grove. To be one with nature is the highest accolade. Any Druid of the Order would have chosen the transformation!”

  “But you didn’t ask them, did you?” Tara said. “You just took your precious seeds and saw which ones fit best. Then you had a whole little army of slaves. Easier to command than a bunch of actual people with thoughts and feeling, eh? And I bet none of your Druid friends voted to have their entire minds wiped. Because you never told them that was how the transformation worked, did you?”

  Malak writhed on the ground, turning towards Tara’s direction. “I – I never meant to hurt anybody! I only did what was right for them. I gave them a better life - in service to a higher purpose!”

  “Your purpose,” Tara spat. “Spoken like a true slavemaster.”

  Ethan had heard enough. Now, he drew Greybane from his back.

  A tense silence fell over the hybrids watching from the edge of the chamber. Klax crossed his arms, his expression now almost depressed – as though he had seen this coming a mile off. Lamprey’s golden eyes gleamed in the dim light, though she said nothing. Tara leaned against the far wall, a wide grin splitting her face as she toyed with one of her daggers.

  And Fauna – she was the first one to speak.

  “Ethan – no!” she yelped.

  Tara, meanwhile, practically purred with delight.

  “Ethan yes,” she chuckled. “Old bastard deserves it.”

  But Ethan heard none of these interjections. Now, the pain and fury that had dominated his being in the last 24 hours were finally understood as the wrath of a wife who’d had her whole being stripped away from her by the man she loved.

  It was her eyes Ethan was looking through, now. Not the other way around. And it was her red-haze of hatred that centered on the pitiful old man groveling on the ground of the warehouse.

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  Malak coughed, clutching at Ethan’s hand. “I’ve done nothing but what every Archon before you wanted! The Albion Tree has—”

  “Don’t,” Ethan growled, his crimson hat-eye flaring with light as he leaned in closer. “Don’t talk about what the other Archons wanted. I’m not like them. I never was.”

  Malak saw that his chances were limited. He tried reaching for the oaken staff at his back, but as soon as he brandished the thing it twisted in his hand, sending a bolt of light right into his face.

  He fell, his old face burning with white-hot light. The old druid cried out in pain, collapsing to the ground as the force sent him sprawling. Ethan loomed over him, his voice low and venomous.

  “How does it feel, Malak?” Ethan snarled. “How does it feel to have everything you controlled ripped away from you?”

  Fauna gasped, her staff trembling in her hands. She took a hesitant step forward, her voice faltering. “Ethan… please. He’s… he’s already down.”

  But Ethan didn’t move. His gaze was locked on the pathetic figure of Malak, who was clutching at his robes and muttering incoherent apologies. The hybrids remained frozen, their own feelings unreadable, though Tara’s smirk widened.

  Ethan reached for Greybane, the Onixia blade gleaming at his back. Thorny tendrils snaked up the length of the sword, intertwining with its serrated edges as a dark glow emanated from it. The Twilight Edge formed along its length, its malevolent hum filling the chamber.

  Ethan, Sys chimed in, his voice unusually hesitant. Fauna is right. You don’t have to do this. This is not y-

  “I don’t care!” Ethan spat. His grip tightened on the blade as he raised it high, the combination of Twilight Edge and Thorn Whip creating a weapon of devastation. Malak’s eyes widened in fear as he cowered before the Archon.

  But just as Ethan swung the blade downward, a flash of white appeared in front of him.

  “Stop!”

  Fauna stood before him, her small form trembling but unyielding. Her tear-filled eyes locked onto his.

  Ethan froze, the blade inches from her head. The shimmering effect of a successful teleportation surrounded her, and he realized that she’d taken a chance that could have easily backfired. Her spell could have failed, or she could have teleported right into his blade’s tip.

  His reflection stared back at him in her wide, pleading rabbit eyes, and for a moment, the world around him seemed to blur. The anger, the pain, the betrayal—it all ebbed away as he saw the fear and sadness in her face.

  He let out a shaky breath, his grip on Greybane faltering. Slowly, the weapon’s dark glow faded, and the thorny tendrils retreated. His arm dropped to his side, the blade clattering to the floor.

  Silence dominated the room, broken only by Malak’s shrill sobs as he rubbed the new crimson grooves etched into his face.

  Ethan looked past Fauna’s eyes to the pitiful wretch moaning for mercy behind.

  “…you know what the worst part is?” he said. “She still loves you. Irlanda. I can feel it. Even after all you’ve done, there’s still something there. Something someone like you doesn’t even deserve.”

  Malak said nothing in response, merely mewled like an injured puppy. Fauna dropped her arms. Everyone else didn’t know what to say

  “…Be thankful, Malak. Your wife’s dull feelings are the only things stopping me from ripping you apart, right now. I’m showing you mercy because of her, nothing else.”

  Malak nodded voraciously, tears streaming down his burned face.

  “Yes, my Lord!” he wailed. “Yes, yes I-“

  “Shut. Up.”

  The Druid instantly prostrated himself again.

  “You’ll obey me now, or I’ll change my mind. Understood?”

  “Yes!” he screamed again. “Oh, Archon Ethan, you take pity on this wretched soul! I am not worthy of your glorious light!”

  “Yeesh,” Tara groaned. “Ethan, you sure you don’t wanna just ice this guy? He makes my fuckin’ skin crawl.”

  Ethan ignored her entirely. Instead, he spat his orders at Malak, leaving no room for questions.

  “You’ll take your Druids and crawl back to your Grove,” he said. “The humans of this town will be evacuated to the capital city. Let them stay there. Let them tell the Greys that I’m coming for them. In the meantime, you will leave all your Drytchling forces here and they’ll rebuild this town. It’ll act as a forward base for Sanctum. Its walls are strong enough to hold off an army. A human one, at least.”

  Ethan nodded to Klax, who returned the gesture.

  “Solid indeed,” the Lycae agreed. “And a good enough holding as any. With time, we could use it to build ships and strengthen our control over this region. Maybe it could even act as our first trading port when Kaedmon’s Law is finally broken and the surface is ours again.”

  Malak looked from one of them to the other, his eyes bugging with the desire to reject this notion – this insane idea that everything he’d fought for his entire life would now be rendered to nothing before him.

  But his heart was the heart of an old man, after all. He locked gazes with the Archon and bowed deeply, furiously nodding his head.

  “Count yourself lucky I’m letting you go back to your home. Some of us – the hybrids you see here – we don’t get that luxury.”

  Malak dared not show his face. He was but a puddle of blood and tears when Ethan bent lowand snarled in his ears.

  “And if you ever return to the surface of this world,” he said. “I will personally come to your Grove and hang you and all the rest of your Order on your precious Albion’s branches. Then, I’ll burn the whole thing down.”

  The Druid nodded, his body shaking with even more intensity than when his life was directly threatened.

  “…yes, my Lord,” was all he said. “I will obey. I – we will do as you command. I will be better, I promise. I will be. I will be better!”

  Ethan turned away from the little man in disgust as he kept on repeating those same words over and over. Ethan threw the door of the warehouse open to the morning sky, feeling rain pelt on the skin that wasn’t his.

  “Kick him and his druids out,” he shouted over his shoulder.“I’ll deal with the civilians.”

  He didn’t wait around. Instead, he marched out and made for the center of town, sheathing Greybane with some reservation as he did so.

  He almost didn’t hear the sounds of rushed footsteps behind him.

  “Ethan!”

  He glanced back to see Fauna standing there in the rain, her ears drooping.

  He didn’t know how he looked in that moment. But he saw how she reacted to him. He saw her take a step back.

  “Yeah, Faun?” he asked.

  She just shook her head slowly and backed off.

  “…nothing.”