The woman in flowing robes fled through the woods, and Drunnoc Trellec followed.

  As he stalked behind her panicked figure, slipping from tree to tree to evade her frantic backward glances, a surprising realisation settled over him—he was bored.

  Not so bored that he’d forgo this morning’s entertainment. Dear me, no. But there was a distinct lack of that keen edge he’d once felt. A certain dimming of what, if not a ‘thrill,’ had always at least been a pleasant flicker of ‘momentary diversion’ he’d associated with such an activity.

  He moved in near silence, observing her stumbling escape, noting the dullness in his own pulse, the absence of that familiar prickle of anticipation.

  Drunnoc paused, sighting along the crossbow, envisioning the bolt’s flight as it would shriek outwards, burying itself in the tender lower back of his prey.

  Of late, since his hunts had concluded with such unsatisfying finality, he had found a certain appeal in not going for the immediate, clean kill. Drawing things out, savouring the moment—it added a touch of interest to what had lately begun to feel like a tedious routine.

  He supposed he was grateful—or was he even capable of that? Satisfied, perhaps—that was closer, more fitting—for the array of Skills the Dark God had bestowed upon him since their pact had formalised.

  Yet for every advantage gained, there were significant downsides: the edges of pleasure had dulled, the chase felt muted, and even this momentary thrill seemed pale.

  For example, once upon a time, he would have relished the anticipation of bringing a chase like this to its inevitable, satisfying close. A crucial part of that thrill, naturally, had always been the tantalising fear that something might go wrong—the shot might veer off course, or his quarry might, by some stroke of misfortune, slip away to safety. However, since his god had bestowed upon him the Skill, such uncertainties had vanished.

  Drunnoc stepped out from cover and let loose a loud, yipping laugh.

  The sound sliced through the stillness, and the woman—little more than a girl, if truth be told—screamed, lurching into motion in the opposite direction, her movements a blur of panicked flight.

  He half-tracked her darting figure but felt the now crushingly familiar pang of disappointment settle in his gut; the Skill rendered his aim flawless in situations like these, draining the act of any real risk.

  The problem was simple.

  He could not miss. He would not miss. And wasn’t that, in the end, precisely the issue?

  She zigzagged through the underbrush, a fleeting shadow in the early morning light. Did she think such movements would make her more difficult to target? If so, she still had much to learn.

  And, sadly, would have much opportunity to do so.

  The woman’s path was almost rhythmic, tracing a winding route through the trees as though she were following an unseen trail rather than weaving in unpredictable patterns to evade his quarrel. He wondered if she realised her mistake. If, perhaps, the futility of it all might dawn on her before he finally decided to pull the trigger.

  Honestly, she would be making far better progress if she simply ran in a straight line. All this jinking hither and thither—well, it was exhausting her far more than it was troubling him.

  Her ragged breaths, audible even from this distance, were the tell-tale signs of fear, the kind that really ought to have stirred something in him. But in truth, such sounds never had. Although, he thought that had nothing to do with the Dark God’s choosing him.

  No, that had simply always been the way of Drunnoc Trellec. Compassion and empathy—those were as foreign to him as the distant lands he’d never cared to visit.

  Once, he supposed, he might have at least found a flicker of excitement in the chase, some thrill in the act of pursuit. Now? Now, it was just another morning stroll through the forest, a routine as mindless as the girl’s erratic path through the underbrush.

  He cast his mind back, seeking to recall the last time one of his little diversions had managed to elude him. With a jolt, he realised—it was Bella Acas, wasn’t it? That feisty girl with a nerve sharper than most steel. Her unexpected elbow to his face—he could almost feel the sting of it now—had set off a chain of events that some might argue, had they faith in fate, led directly to this precise moment.

  Bella Acas had bloodied his nose.

  A humiliation that had brought his father’s wrath upon her, dragging the girl before Lady Darkhelm for so-called “justice of the Goddess.”

  And yet, as he recalled it, that encounter hadn’t unfolded as anyone watching might have expected, had it? Bella’s defiance had burned through the chamber, setting a tension in the air that not even his father had managed to quell.

  Daine Orban’s clash with House Trellec, beginning with that seemingly trivial confrontation over a sobbing child, had escalated beyond anyone’s imaginings, culminating in the West announcing its secession from the kingdom and Daine herself—the unshakeable Knight of the Road—fleeing to Swinford, bloodied and bowed.

  From little acorns, what great oaks could grow.

  Drunnoc dragged his mind away from what had occurred in the last six months and exhaled slowly, steadying his grip on the heavy crossbow.

  The bolt was a whisper away from release, a silent promise of death under the influence of . Even this close to the deed, he felt nothing but a dull, throbbing numbness. The woman’s face flashed in his mind, indistinct like all the others. He didn't know her name, story, or crimes—if she had any.

  It didn’t matter.

  It never did.

  Had it been like this before the advent of the Dark God in his life? Drunnoc was not sure. He couldn't remember the last time he felt anything beyond the mechanical satisfaction of his will being enforced. He was sure he used to cringe at the recoil, used to taste the metallic tang of adrenaline in his mouth. Now, there was only emptiness.

  A dark hole where he imagined a conscience should reside.

  No, he was seeking something that had never been there.

  Had not the despair of his late, unlamented mother always been that he did not seem like other children? This version of him had existed long before the Dark God had provided his gifts. As much as he might like to pretend that he had been through some sort of mighty evolution, this was an enhanced Drunnoc Trellec, not a transformed one.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The blackness had always been there. It had simply been given greater opportunities to express itself. Which, in theory, sounded beautiful. The reality, though, was so crushingly dull.

  He adjusted his aim, finally choosing to track this woman’s wayward flight - eager to bring this all to a conclusion. There was no thrill, no satisfaction—just the cold, clinical execution of something he was expecting to accomplish.

  Without any further ado, his finger tightened on the trigger. The bolt flew true, as it always did under the auspices of the Dark God’s gift. The woman stumbled, a soft, surprised gasp escaping her lips before she crumpled to the ground. Drunnoc watched her fall, a puppet with severed strings.

  As he lowered the crossbow, he waited for the rush of . . . something. Not guilt or sorrow, of course; such things had never been on his emotional palette. But pleasure? Satisfaction? No. Nothing came.

  Only the oppressive silence of the forest around Keep Trellec, with the distant hum of night insects his sole companion. Oh, and the weeping of a woman who could no longer feel her legs. He heard the crunching rumble of her seeking to drag herself through the undergrowth and felt disappointed. She was a whimperer.

  He preferred it when they screamed.

  He drew a knife, swinging the crossbow onto his back, and crossed quickly to stand over her. With all her zigzagging, she had not made it very far. As he drew closer, each step felt heavier than the last and, not for the first time, he resolved that this was to be the last of these nighttime pursuits. He knew they were expected of him, but the crying was pitiful.

  He crept forward, silent as death, until he was standing directly above the fallen woman. She was sprawled on the forest floor, blood streaking from cuts on her knees and palms, her fingers clawing into the dirt as she dragged herself forward in desperate inches. So consumed was she by this final, futile act of survival that she hadn’t even noticed him there.

  A thought drifted idly through his mind: if the girl’d put half as much energy into running as she did in this pathetic, bloody crawl, she might have reached the King’s Road by now. And who knew? Perhaps there she might have stumbled into salvation—or at least bought herself a few more precious moments.

  But as she dragged herself along, her nails tearing and splintering against rocks and roots, she had no doomed herself to having no chance.

  A faint distortion wavered to his left, the air bending and folding in on itself, like heat rising off stone. Drunnoc glanced over just as a green portal unfurled, its surface almost mirror-like but for the faint outlines of a figure on the other side. The image sharpened—a young woman, her gaze direct, meeting his as though there were no barrier between them.

  With a faint sigh, the portal parted, and Pernille stepped through, her presence settling into the woods beside him as naturally as mist pooling in low places. The portal closed behind her without a sound, leaving a lingering trace of something acrid on the air.

  The Dark God had twisted her Healer Class into something entirely new—something she called a Shadow Cleric. Drunnoc wasn’t especially interested in the intricacies of how it all worked, but he couldn’t deny the practical benefits.

  Her expanded powers, especially , had proved invaluable on those rare occasions when a member of the High Houses found enough backbone to stand against them. Pernille could simply drain the fight—and the life—out of them with a touch.

  And then there were her other Skills, some of them more . . . exotic, with a brutal elegance that spoke to the Dark God's influence.

  She could summon shadows thick enough to cloak an entire battlefield or paralyse a target with a glance. These abilities might not see much use in their routine work, but Drunnoc knew that when the time came to confront the Capital’s forces, her talents would shift from helpful to essential.

  “Having fun?” Pernille’s voice had taken on a husky rasp of late, as if she suffered from a perpetually sore throat. For a Healer, it struck Drunnoc as rather suspicious—he strongly suspected the young woman was putting it on for effect.

  When he factored in the heavy kohl she now wore around her eyes and her newfound fascination with attire made almost exclusively of leather, Drunnoc could only conclude that Pernille was cultivating a particular… aesthetic.

  Apparently, being a Shadow Cleric required an ominous tone and a wardrobe to match.

  “Not especially,” Drunnoc said. The woman at their feet squealed in terror at hearing them talk above her. They both ignored her. “I found this sort of thing much more engaging when they had a chance – however small – of escaping.”

  Pernille looked down, her eyes flashing with violet light as she considered the woman's injuries. “Isn’t this the one you had me heal yesterday?”

  Drunnoc shrugged. “I wanted to see whether she would do better on a second attempt.”

  “And did she?” Pernille frowned, glancing back at the streak of blood the woman’s crawling body had left behind.

  “No. Not really. If anything, last night’s experience seems to have actively inhibited her efforts this morning. You would think she would have been more motivated, not less. All a bit pathetic, really.” Drunnoc kneeled next to the crying, prone form. “Hello? How is it all going?”

  “Please don’t kill me!” the woman cried, her voice cracking as she looked up at him. “I’ll do anything you want. Just let me go!”

  Drunnoc sighed, straightening with a shake of his head as he glanced at Pernille. “You see? The will to live conquers all. No matter how grim the future may be, no matter how certain death is in the end, there’s that clinging hope. That unstoppable drive to survive.” He gestured down at the woman, who was staring up at him, wide-eyed and trembling. “I’ve no doubt that if we offered her another chance tomorrow, she’d take it. Survival’s funny that way.”

  He nudged her leg with his boot, then remembered she was paralysed. Sighing, he prodded her in the side instead, eliciting a satisfying scream as she flinched away from the pain. He smiled. “Wouldn’t you? If I told you we could patch you up and do this all over again tomorrow, I’m certain you’d want to give it another go.”

  The woman’s hysterical crying indicated that she would, indeed, like another opportunity to try to escape from Keep Trellec.

  “You have to admire that sort of spirit. Was there something you wanted?”

  Pernille regarded Drunnoc with steady eyes. The Dark God had been kind to her, she understood, and she probably had enough power not to need to fear this man – this boy, in reality. And yet, something chilled her to the bone about standing before him. She was not at all squeamish, but even she might have blanched at the torture he was putting this poor woman through.

  It would be straightforward, with a quick tug of , to put this crying wreck out of her misery. However, she had no interest in gaining Lordling Trellec’s displeasure. This may be a world in which heroes existed, but it had been a while since Pernille had seen one.

  And the Lady Darkhelm had not seemed especially heroic when Drunnoc Trellec had chased from her from this village. Speaking of that irritating woman . . .

  “We have received a messenger from the Blades of Ruin.”

  That grabbed Drunnoc’s attention. “From the Stonehand?”

  Pernille shook her head. “No. From one of his . . . well, he calls himself an ‘officer’, but I sense from the context of the message there is probably little military discipline remaining anymore.”

  Drunnoc clicked his teeth in irritation. He raised his foot and pressed down on the wound in the fallen woman’s back. Her sudden intake of breath and frozen stillness momentarily soothed him.

  It had been at least two months since Drunnoc had heard directly from Gallant Stonehand. According to what his spies whispered—and what he could extract from the Dark God’s incoherent ravings—Swinford had fallen to Stonehand’s mercenaries some time ago, though, in truth, it was hardly a significant victory. The town was little more than a symbol, and seizing it had proven nothing.

  Yet, rather than slaughtering the entire populace, including a certain persistently troublesome Knight of the Road, it seemed that the civilians and the remnants of a royal force the King had sent to “pacify” the West had managed to slip through Stonehand’s fingers.

  The Blades of Ruin—a ragtag, but undeniably efficient band of cutthroats under Gallant Stonehand’s command—had set out in pursuit, yet bafflingly, they’d been unable to pin down the escapees. Worse still, Stonehand hadn’t sent so much as a message since that climactic clash at the city walls. No reports. No updates. No boasting of his victories.

  “What does the message say?”

  Pernille smiled, an odd expression on her pale, gothic face. “It appears that the refugees from Swinford may have taken somewhat of a wrong turning.”

  Drunnoc waved his hand impatiently, urging Pernille to get on with it. Her habit of overplaying her role grated on him, and he let his irritation show by pressing his heel down harder on the woman’s open wound beneath his boot. A loud crack split the air, followed by an abrupt silence. Drunnoc frowned, the burst of anger in his eyes shifting to Pernille, who seemed entirely unaffected.

  He had intended for the woman to survive, to be patched up and sent back out for a few more nights of sport. Now, thanks to his impatience—and perhaps Pernille’s interminable theatrics—his plans had been cut short.

  However, the Shadow Cleric’s following words entirely soothed his spirit. “It would appear that they have sought to cross the Bloodspires.”

  Drunnoc smiled broadly. “Well, that changes things a touch, does it not?”