Connor’s encounter with Vadik played in his mind over and over again and his rage thickened into a burning, black hatred. It bubbled like darkest tar and begged to make Vadik suffer a thousandfold for everything he’d done.

  Vadik would pay for this. Connor yearned to wash his hands in the traitor’s blood to—

  Never let anger rule you!

  The thought came unbidden and hit him like an ice-cold slap to the face.

  Connor blinked.

  He knew those words… Victor’s words…

  Victor was fond of that phrase and had used it many times. But, there was one time in particular that had been burned into Connor’s memory.

  One of his early missions with Victor. What was I then… fourteen? Connor thought. They’d tracked a group of slavers to a small cove they used to send slaves for sale abroad.

  Victor had told Connor to watch and wait behind a rock on the beach, hidden in the darkness, and then slipped away to scout their surroundings for any more of the slavers.

  And, Connor had waited. Until the slavers’ acts of brutality toward their ‘merchandise’ had overcome him with rage.

  He’d slipped from the darkness and butchered them. Only, in his blind rage he’d missed one of them. One that’d come up behind him and struck. Only for their blade to fall upon Victor’s steel, followed shortly by their neck.

  It doesn’t do to be blinded by anger, Connor. He could almost hear Victor’s words now just as they’d been then.

  I’m sorry, uncle, he’d said. He remembered the heat of slaver blood and his own shame upon his cheeks.

  You’re a good lad, Victor had said as he wiped blood from Connor’s face with a knuckle covered in a leather glove, one day you’ll learn to use that anger. To rule it.

  They’d not been idle words. Victor had shown Connor a variety of meditations and techniques to do exactly that. Building upon previous lessons Victor had given him. And all discarded by Connor in his desire for a different life.

  Connor understood why he’d done it. Even sympathized with his old self. Even now he didn’t want the life Victor had pushed him toward. But, if there’d ever been a choice, it was long past gone.

  Now, there was only a single path before him. A thin, winding, serpentine one with a perilous drop to death and worse on all sides.

  And I must walk it all the same. No matter what.

  Connor focused on the present and let his mind fall into a meditation he hadn’t used in what felt like forever. It was unsteady at first. As though shaking off dust, but rapidly locked into place as his mind flowed through the techniques Victor had made him practice for hours on end.

  The steady, deep rhythm of breath forced upon him by The Syndicate’s paralyzing magic was perfect for it.

  Rage, hatred, guilt, pain, and raw emotion coursed through him to the beat of his pulse like a drum. He allowed it to fill his core but kept his mind distant from it. As though observing it. Like watching over a lake of boiling lava from upon high.

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  He felt the heat radiating from it, singeing his mind. Hatred and rage flared, threatening to erupt and consume him, to overwhelm him once more should he try to suppress it. But suppression was not what this meditation was for.

  Instead of consuming him, it flowed through him like liquid metal being poured into a mold and was bound to him. Like a monstrous hound coming to its master’s heel.

  And, as it did so, it cooled. Not dissipating. Hardening. Growing denser… sharper… colder.

  It settled into ice-cold steel in the pit of his stomach, ready to help him walk the treacherous path that lay before him. To do what he must. For family. For friends. For allies and for all those who would otherwise fall prey to the growing darkness.

  Connor’s fingers twitched.

  Whether from his meditation and the clearer, more focused mind it gave him, the cold fury of smoldering ice in his core, or simply because the lingering magic was dissipating, Connor wasn’t sure. But, it mattered little. The effect was the same.

  His body was becoming his own once more, and everything else would follow from that.

  His lips were next. Forming into a clumsy approximation of a smile that he was sure must look more like a snarl. Numbness gave way to incredible pain as the sensation of being stabbed with a thousand needles from within spread through his body with overwhelming intensity.

  It only encouraged him.

  And when that day comes, Victor had said, even the oldest and darkest of powers will learn to fear you.

  Like you, uncle? Connor had asked.

  Connor rolled onto his stomach, getting his arms under him before pushing himself up to his hands and knees. His veins bulged with a dark green coloration over his tightly packed muscle. The magic, it seemed, was not as absent as he’d thought.

  But the blinding pain felt infinitely better than pathetic helplessness.

  He’d failed. But, so long as he lived, the fight was far from over. The Syndicate would regret not listening to Vadik’s warnings. Of this, Connor was certain.

  He pushed up from his hands and knees and rose to his feet with a rumbling growl of effort as he strained against the magic before resuming the steady rhythm of meditative breath.

  The weight on his chest was gone now. Now, it was his choice. Agony coursed through him as he strained against the lingering magic. But, with it, came feeling and control. A trade he was glad to make.

  He remembered Victor’s laughter. Beyond me, my dear nephew… so far beyond me it doesn’t bear imagining. But, I know that no matter how terrible your power, you will use it for good. To do what must be done, he’d said.

  Connor stood, his body throbbing with a thousand points of pain as he breathed in and out in a steady flow. His mind was clearer than it’d been in what felt like years. The cold fury in his core made him feel grounded in the moment through the meditation. Calm. Focused. Sharp with cold calculation and iron will.

  Now that he stood, he finally had a chance to study the room. Its contents surprised him.

  This would put half the rooms in the palace to shame, he thought.

  A large hammock more akin to a true bed with silk sheets hung suspended from the ceiling in one corner. Beside it was a polished wooden desk and finely upholstered chair. Both of which were exquisitely crafted and bolted to the floor. The desk had a collection of novels and blue glowing balls that had a doughy feel to them in his hand. They were the only light sources within the cell itself, with lanterns and magical lights affixed to the walls and ceiling outside his cage.

  Don’t see myself using these as a weapon, he thought with an inner chuckle as he squeezed a glowing ball in one hand. The sensation was strangely calming.

  In the opposite corner was a toilet, a bath, and a sink with a plate of metal that’d been polished to a mirror sheen fixed to the bars above it. All of which were decorated with golden filigree and magical runes.

  He frowned. The Syndicate’s casual display of wealth bothered him. The cell alone, with the dark iron and runes would be worth a pretty penny. He wondered if the others were being given similar treatment. He doubted it.

  He inspected his nose in the polished metal mirror. It didn’t seem broken. He wiped blood from it with his thumb and turned his mind to more important things.

  Why am I being treated like this? Why not a collar or a dark, wet, cramped cell? Do they think to turn me?

  The thought seemed ridiculous. But they’d turned Vadik. Perhaps they had methods he was unaware of. Or perhaps they thought his mind easily malleable.

  Or maybe this level of wealth is nothing to them. The Syndicate is no band of petty thieves or ordinary slavers. And they no doubt they have access to mental magic. If their goal is to turn me… it might only be a matter of time.

  What if it’s already begun?

  That was an unsettling thought.

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