Kael stood shirtless in the courtyard, the early morning wind cutting over his skin. Iron cuffs bound his wrists behind him, chains snaking down to anchors driven deep into the flagstones. Around him, Dominion soldiers formed a wide ring, crossbows loaded, eyes wary. Captain Daric watched from the front line, jaw tight. Eryz loomed to his right, a hand resting casually on his blades.
Mareen arrived last, her white coat fluttering. Two aides scuttled behind her, carrying wooden crates that clinked ominously.
"Remove the locks," Mareen ordered.
Kael's gut twisted. Two guards stepped in, unlocked the cuffs, and retreated so fast they nearly stumbled. Kael flexed his hands, wrists still raw.
Mareen didn't bother addressing him. She spoke to Eryz and Daric. "Today we begin stimulus trials. Controlled introduction of Dreadborn pheromonal agents. We'll monitor for physical transformations, cognitive disruption, or hostile outbursts."
Kael tried to keep his breathing steady. His squad stood nearby — Ayla's arms folded like armor over her chest, Lyren gnawing at his lip, Garrick bouncing nervously on his feet. Toma and Gin were stone-faced, but Nell looked pale.
The aides opened the crates. Inside, glass vials glowed with a sickly green light. Even at a distance, the scent hit Kael like spoiled meat. His stomach clenched, a black heat stirring at the base of his spine.
Mareen removed a vial, uncorked it. The reek thickened. "Begin."
---
At first, it was just nausea. Then Kael felt it — that dark thread inside him uncoiling, hungry. His pulse spiked, muscles tightening. He doubled over with a strangled gasp.
Don't.
He gritted his teeth so hard he tasted blood. His vision swam. For a heartbeat, he saw claws where his hands should be. Fangs scraping his lower lip. The chains that weren't there anymore.
"Vitals spiking," one aide reported breathlessly. "Heart rate nearing two-fifty. Pupils fully dilated."
"Stay ready!" Eryz barked. Soldiers snapped up their crossbows. Daric drew his sword, expression twisted with something like grief.
A sound clawed out of Kael's throat — half snarl, half sob. He staggered, clutching his temples.
Rip. Tear. FEED.
Voices that weren't his own crowded his skull. Images of flesh and blood, of Ayla's throat spilling red under his claws.
"Kael!" That was Lyren, voice cracking. "Fight it!"
He dropped to one knee. Sweat poured off him. His skin itched, crawling with heat. For a moment, dark scales shimmered across his forearms — then faded.
"I — I've got it," Kael growled. The thing inside him raged, snapping invisible jaws. No! No! Not them!
Then, slowly, his breathing steadied. The claws receded. The hunger dulled, retreating to whatever pit it had crawled from.
Silence swallowed the yard. Soldiers didn't lower their weapons. Mareen only raised a brow, scribbling on her board. "Fascinating. Controlled partial emergence. He resisted."
---
Kael pushed himself upright, chest heaving. Eryz's eyes drilled into him. After a long, brutal pause, the captain gave the faintest nod — respect, or perhaps just acknowledgment that Kael had lived another day.
Daric exhaled hard. "That's enough for today. Clear this stink."
"No," Mareen snapped. "Next stage."
Two more vials cracked open. The scent was overwhelming now — like rot and hot copper. Kael gagged. The darkness lunged up again, faster, sharper.
Break them. Feast.
He bit down on his tongue until he tasted iron. His vision dimmed. Figures blurred — until only shapes remained. Prey shapes. Easy, fragile, warm prey.
"Kael!" Ayla shouted. "Look at me!"
Her voice cut through like steel. Kael's eyes snapped to hers — green and furious and terrified.
Not her. Never her.
With a strangled roar, Kael slammed his fists into the ground. Stone cracked. Blood poured from his nose. But the darkness faltered, confused. It hissed inside him, then slowly withdrew.
---
When it was over, Kael slumped forward on hands slick with his own sweat and blood. Mareen leaned close, adjusting her spectacles. "Remarkable. Even provoked past safe thresholds, he maintains baseline cognitive resistance."
Eryz sheathed his blade with deliberate slowness. "Or he does today. Tomorrow might be different."
Daric hauled Kael up by the arm. "Enough. He needs rest. And you've got your data."
Mareen sniffed. "For now."
---
That night, Kael sat outside the barracks, hands still trembling. Ayla dropped down beside him, wordless, just close enough their shoulders brushed. Lyren and Garrick lingered a few paces off, whispering. Nell avoided looking at him at all.
"Thanks," Kael rasped finally.
"For what?" Ayla asked.
"For being louder than the monster."
She didn't smile. Just leaned her head against his arm. "Don't get used to it. If it comes to it, I'll be the first to put a blade through your throat."
Kael let out a weak laugh. "I'd want it that way."
They stayed like that until the stars burned down to embers. Kael's fear never left — but for a while, it was just him and Ayla, no chains, no tribunal, no monster clawing to get out.
The orders came at dawn. Commander Elric himself delivered them, his eyes colder than the frost that rimmed the barracks doors.
"There's a nest of Dreadborn converging two leagues east of Fort Halbrecht. Small ones, but enough to wipe out the outer settlements. Dominion wants it cleared before nightfall." He paused, eyes narrowing on Kael. "They also want to see if their experiment can hold under live pressure."
Kael didn't answer. He just adjusted the straps on his chestplate, hiding the way his hands shook. Around him, the squad grew still.
Daric spat on the ground. "Using a boy to bait monsters. Dominion's generosity never fails."
Elric ignored that. His gaze pinned Kael like a spear. "Understand this, Everhart: if you lose control, your life is forfeit. If you don't unleash it when we command, same verdict. Make no mistake — your blood is already accounted for in our ledgers. This is just about how much use we can wring out of it before the final tally."
Then he turned on his heel and was gone, leaving cold silence in his wake.
---
The march was a grim affair. Kael felt every eye on him, from Mareen's curious technicians scribbling notes in the rear wagons, to Eryz riding alongside with one hand casually resting on his twin blades.
Even Garrick, who'd tried to joke it all away, fell silent after they crossed the ridge and saw the smoke on the horizon — black columns rising from farmsteads already lost.
As they approached the fields, Kael's skin prickled. The ground was slick with gore. Shattered wagons and broken fences marked where villagers had tried — and failed — to flee. Worse still were the prints: clawed, twisted, some as wide as Kael's chest.
They found the first bodies near an old well, half-devoured. Lyren gagged. Nell turned away, hand pressed to her mouth.
"This is going to turn ugly fast," Ayla muttered, eyes scanning the treeline.
"It already is," Toma said flatly.
---
They didn't have to wait long. The Dreadborn burst from the woods in a rush of splintered branches and snarls — twisted horrors of sinew and bone, moving like packs of wolves. Smaller than the colossal brutes that had crushed entire walls in other campaigns, but still twice any man's height, and infinitely more savage.
"Form ranks!" Daric roared. "Shields up, blades ready!"
Kael drew his sword, breath coming fast. Already he felt it — that coil of heat unspooling in his spine, hungry. The Blight inside him sensed its kin.
The first Dreadborn hit the line like a battering ram. Garrick was there to meet it, shield smashing up, axe coming down in a blur that split the creature's snout. Toma lunged past him to drive a spear into its throat.
Kael tried to fight like normal, sword hacking through sinew — but his body felt wrong, vibrating with a power that wanted out. When a second Dreadborn lunged at Nell, Kael didn't think. He let it in.
A roar tore from his chest, deeper than his own voice. His muscles bulged, black veins crawling across his arms. He slammed into the beast, driving it back with inhuman force, claws ripping from his fingertips to tear its head clean off.
---
Everything stopped. Even the squad stared at him. Blood dripped from Kael's claws onto the churned mud.
"Everhart," Eryz called calmly from horseback. His blades were still sheathed. "Focus that rage forward. Don't make me test you."
Kael turned — just in time for three more Dreadborn to break from the trees. He snarled and launched himself at them, the world a blur of teeth and dark scales. He felt claws on his shoulders, tearing — then felt his own claws answering, raking down spines, snapping jaws, spraying the field in black gore.
He lost track of himself for a heartbeat. When it ended, he was on his knees, panting, surrounded by twitching carcasses.
---
Slowly, the squad closed in. Lyren's eyes were wide. Ayla's hand hovered over her blade.
"Kael…" she started.
"I'm still me," Kael growled, voice rough with the echo of something deeper. "I've got it."
A long silence. Then Daric clapped him on the shoulder so hard it nearly knocked him over. "You did good, boy. Ugly, but good."
Mareen appeared, her expression alight with predatory interest. "Fascinating. Controlled partial manifestation under battlefield stress. The Dominion will be very pleased."
Eryz just looked at Kael with those cold, precise eyes. "Remember: as long as you direct it at them, we let you live. Slip once, and it ends here."
Kael met his gaze, heart still thundering with leftover monstrous adrenaline. "Understood."
---
That night, campfires burned low around the fresh perimeter stakes. Kael sat apart from the others, cleaning black blood off his claws — or trying to, until they finally retracted, leaving only trembling human hands.
He didn't look up when Ayla dropped beside him, resting her elbows on her knees.
"You saved Nell's life today," she said quietly. "And probably mine."
Kael let out a hollow laugh. "For now."
Together, they sat watching the sparks drift up into the dark, neither saying what they both knew — that tomorrow, the Dominion would ask more. And someday, Kael might say yes to the monster inside him for the last time.