The caretaker's words hung in the cavern's damp air like the echoes of a funeral bell, their weight pressing against Kael's skin as heavily as the sword's vibrations in his hand.
"You denied her. You denied Mercy her due."
Kael flexed his fingers around the hilt, the numbness spreading up his arm as the black veins beneath his skin pulsed in time with the sword's unnatural hum. Each vibration sent dull waves of pain radiating through his bones, a constant reminder of the corruption taking root in his body.
Eris shifted beside him, her dagger hand steady despite the fresh blood dripping from her torn shoulder. The wound had soaked through her makeshift bandages, the dark stains spreading like inkblots across the fabric. "What the hell does that mean?" she demanded, her voice rough with pain and barely-contained fury.
The caretaker tilted his head with the slow precision of a bird of prey considering its next meal. His one good eye - that same sickly green as the corrupted initiates - remained locked on Mercy's blade. "The Scythe must feed," he said, his voice stripped now of its earlier mocking cadence, leaving only cold certainty behind. "To prune the Garden is to sustain it. And you, Kael of the Black Hollow, have starved her."
A single drop of water fell from the stalactites overhead, striking Mercy's blade with a hiss that echoed through the cavern. Steam curled upward from the point of contact, twisting into shapes that might have been grasping fingers before dissipating into the damp air.
Kael forced his voice steady through clenched teeth. "You called it a Scythe."
"She," the caretaker corrected, his ruined mouth forming the word with disturbing reverence. "The Gardener's Scythe. Forged not to kill, but to cleanse." He took a limping step forward, the tattered remains of his Order robes whispering against the stone floor like dead leaves. "The Hollow King's Garden grows best when fed by rot. Mercy separates the weak from the strong, the blighted from the pure." His lips twisted into something that might have been a smile. "And you denied her feast."
The images came unbidden to Kael's mind - the vault with its rows of corpses, each with their ribs peeled back to reveal the Hollow King's brand seared into their flesh. Failures. Discards. Pruned branches.
Eris spat blood onto the cavern floor, the crimson droplet striking stone with a sound like an accusation. "So Draven sent us to die. To be pruned."
"To be tested." The caretaker's gaze slid to Eris's wounded shoulder, where the black veins of corruption crept ever closer to her heart. "The Spymaster wagered you would fall. That the Scythe would claim you both for the Garden." His mismatched eyes flicked back to Kael, the green one gleaming with something uncomfortably close to curiosity. "Yet here you stand. How interesting."
Mercy trembled in Kael's hand, but not with the hunger he'd come to expect. This vibration felt different - sharper, more focused. Recognition.
The voice came suddenly, slithering through Kael's mind like oil across water, colder than the cavern's deepest shadows.
Prune her.
Kael's breath caught in his throat as the words settled into his bones.
She weakens. The brand fails. Cut the rot away, and the path is clear.
Eris's breath hitched as if she'd heard it too, though that was impossible. Her fingers flexed around her dagger, the knuckles whitening, but she didn't raise the blade against him. She simply watched him, her dark eyes filled with a resignation that struck Kael harder than any blow.
She knows, he realized with a jolt. She expects me to do it.
The caretaker smiled, his blackened teeth glistening in Mercy's eerie light. "The Scythe speaks, doesn't she? She always does, to those touched by the Hollow." He extended a clawed hand, the fingers twisted like old roots. "Give her to me. You are not worthy to wield her."
Mercy's response was immediate - a metallic snarl that vibrated up Kael's arm and set his teeth on edge. The sword didn't want the caretaker. It wanted him. The darkness in his veins. The corruption it had helped create.
He lunged, but not for the caretaker's chest. Instead, Mercy's blade flashed toward the bloody bandages clutched in the old man's grip - the proof of Eris's weakening state. The sword severed the stained cloth before it could be used against them, the fabric falling to the cavern floor like a discarded skin.
The caretaker recoiled with a hiss, dark blood welling from a shallow cut on his wrist where the blade had grazed him. "Fool! The Garden demands its due!"
"Then let it choke," Kael growled, stepping between the old man and Eris, Mercy held ready despite the sword's protests.
The caretaker's laughter followed them as they fled through the fissure, his voice fading into the dripping dark behind them like a receding nightmare:
"Run, little weapons! The Spymaster waits at the Maw, and his pruning shears are sharp!"
The tunnel narrowed around them, the walls pressing close like the ribs of some great beast. Kael crawled forward, Mercy's glow casting eerie shadows that danced along the stone. Behind him, Eris's breathing came ragged and uneven, her boots scraping against rock with each pained movement.
"You should have listened to the sword," she muttered between gasps.
Kael didn't turn. "Would you have?"
A pause. Then a hoarse chuckle that held no humor. "No."
The fissure opened suddenly, spilling them onto a rocky outcrop high above the Ashen Wastes. The Maw yawned below them, its sulfurous mists swirling like a living thing. And there, silhouetted against the sickly yellow sky like figures from a nightmare, stood Draven and a dozen Order soldiers, their crossbows leveled and ready.
The Spymaster smiled, the expression as sharp as the blades at his belt. "Kael. Eris." His gaze lingered on Mercy, gleaming in Kael's grip. "How disappointing."
Mercy's hum turned feverish against Kael's palm, the vibrations intensifying until they threatened to shake the bones from his hand. The sword recognized its true master.
And it was hungry.
The crossbows remained steady, their iron-tipped bolts unwavering as they tracked Kael and Eris. The soldiers' fingers rested lightly on triggers, their eyes cold and impersonal behind their visors.
Draven stepped forward, his boots crushing the brittle shale beneath him. The Spymaster's smile was a thin veneer over the calculation in his eyes, the look of a man evaluating livestock at market. "I must admit," he said, his voice smooth as oiled steel, "I didn't expect you to survive the Scythe's test. And to deny her?" His gaze flicked to Mercy, still vibrating in Kael's grip. "That was unwise."
Eris bared her teeth in a feral grin, blood dripping from her fingers where they clutched her wounded shoulder. The dark veins of corruption had spread further, creeping toward her collarbone like black ivy. "You sold us," she spat. "Sold them—Lorin, Mara, Jeren—to that thing in the dark."
The Spymaster sighed, the sound heavy with feigned disappointment. "I pruned weakness from the Order. The Hollow King merely repurposed what I discarded." He tapped his temple with one gloved finger. "The Gauntlet was never about skill or strength. It was a sieve—to find minds strong enough to survive his touch." His eyes locked onto Mercy. "And vessels capable of wielding his power."
Kael's grip tightened on the sword until his knuckles turned white. The black veins in his arm pulsed in time with Mercy's vibrations, the rhythm making his bones ache. "You're lying."
"Am I?" Draven's smile sharpened into something predatory. "Then why does the Scythe answer to you now? Why do his whispers sound like your own thoughts?"
Mercy's hum intensified suddenly, the sound like a blade being drawn slowly across bone.
Around them, the soldiers shifted, their crossbows creaking with tension. Draven raised a hand, staying them. "You have one chance, Kael. Give me the Scythe. Kneel before the Order you swore to serve. And I'll let Eris walk away."
Eris barked a laugh that turned into a wet cough. Blood flecked her lips. "Like hell you will."
Kael didn't move. The sword's voice slithered through his mind, cold and certain:
Lies. All lies. He will prune her the moment you yield.
Draven's eyes narrowed. "You hear it, don't you? The Scythe's song." He took another step forward, his shadow stretching long across the rocks. "She was never yours. She was always mine."
A flick of his fingers, shattering glass vials that released plumes of acrid, milky smoke.
Eris choked. "Blackroot—!"
The world tilted. Kael's knees hit stone as the paralytic took hold, his muscles locking in place. Mercy slipped from his nerveless fingers, her hum turning frantic as she clattered to the ground.
Draven knelt beside him, his gloves creaking as he plucked the sword from the shale. "Thank you for delivering her," he murmured, his breath warm against Kael's ear. "The King will be pleased."
Through the thickening haze, Kael saw Eris collapse, her body convulsing as the toxin took hold. Saw Draven nod to his soldiers. "Take her to the Maw. Let the Hollow King finish what the Scythe began."
Then—darkness.
The visions came swiftly, dragging Kael into the bone cathedral of his dreams once more.
The Hollow King waited on his throne of living flesh, Mercy resting across his lap like a favored pet. "You resisted her," the King mused, his voice like rusted hinges protesting movement. "How curious."
Kael tried to speak, to demand answers, but his lips refused to obey.
The King leaned forward, the shadows deepening in the hollows of his skeletal face. "Draven thinks himself the gardener. But all things rot in time." His fingers, bone-white and too long, traced Mercy's blade with something like affection. "Even him."
The dream shifted abruptly—
Eris, kneeling at the edge of the Maw, her brand seared black as the corruption spread across her skin like spilled ink. Draven's voice, distant but clear:
The Order needs no failed weapons.
Kael woke screaming, the sound raw in his throat.
Cold iron manacles bit into his wrists, the chains bolted to the damp stone wall of a windowless cell. The air was thick with the scent of mildew and despair, the only light a flickering torch somewhere beyond the barred door.
And he wasn't alone.
The caretaker sat on a low stool across from him, his ruined face unreadable in the dim light. "Welcome back, Wielder."
Kael lunged forward, the chains snapping taut with a metallic shriek. "Where's Eris?"
The old man smiled, the expression twisting his scarred features into something grotesque. "Where all failures go." He leaned closer, his breath reeking of old blood and rot. "But you're not like the others, are you? The Scythe chose you." A rasping chuckle escaped his blackened lips. "Shall I tell you why?"
Beyond the door, the steady tramp of boots echoed in the corridor. Draven was coming.
And deep in his bones, beneath the pain and the fury, Kael could still feel Mercy's song humming in his blood.