Inside the fortress walls, everything felt smaller. The air stank of oil, smoke, and fear. The surviving recruits were led away by silent guards to be evaluated — or perhaps just watched until they sprouted claws. Kael didn't ask.
He pulled off his blood-caked gauntlets, flexing his fingers. The skin beneath was still human, though streaked with black veins that pulsed faintly before fading. Each time it took a little longer for them to disappear.
Lyren met him in the yard, eyes sweeping over Kael like he was checking for wounds. Or for signs he might turn on them next.
"You kept most of them alive longer than I expected," Lyren said, voice quiet.
"Not long enough."
"It never is."
---
Later, in the command hall, Kael stood before Elric and Mareen, Daric and Eryz flanking them. A map of the frontier lay spread across the table, littered with pinned notes and blood-ringed glasses.
Elric's pale eyes studied Kael the way a merchant might inspect a dangerous, expensive animal.
"You've proven again that you can control it — mostly," Elric said at last. "But the recruits were… disappointing."
"They weren't ready," Kael ground out.
"They never are," Mareen murmured, scribbling in her ledger. Her quill scratched like tiny knives. "Still, their failures teach us more than their successes. We'll refine the strain protocols."
Kael clenched his fists. Every time Mareen said refine, it meant more bodies in shallow graves.
---
Outside the chamber, he leaned against the cold stone wall, eyes shut. The fortress felt wrong these days — too quiet in places, too full of whispers in others.
Nell passed him on her way to the outer ramparts. She paused, gave him a long look.
"They're going to break you," she said finally, voice low. "Not with the Blight. With this place. With what they make you do."
Kael didn't answer. Couldn't. Because deep inside, he felt it: a sick, hungry curl of pleasure from the Blight when he killed, when he tore, when he proved stronger. Part of him feared that meant he was already broken.
---
That night, he couldn't sleep. He found himself outside again, pacing the battlements. The sky overhead was a heavy quilt of clouds, no stars. Somewhere in the dark fields beyond, a distant howl rose — Seethe hunting, or perhaps something newer, something even the Blight feared.
Kael stood there for a long time, feeling the cold wind cut through him, trying to convince himself he still shivered because he was human.
Lyren couldn't remember the last time he'd slept without hearing screaming — whether from the outer wards where infected recruits writhed on cots, or from his own dreams.
Tonight was no different. He prowled the barracks long after lights-out, restless, the sword at his side feeling less like a tool and more like a promise he was bound to keep.
Through a crack in the door to the infirmary annex, he saw Mareen's assistants bending over a young soldier, her back arching as black veins writhed under her skin. The girl was still trying to whisper for her mother when Mareen calmly marked something in her book and turned away.
Lyren forced himself onward. If he stopped to think about it, to let the pity in, he feared he'd start hacking down Dominion officers until someone put a blade through his own heart.
---
He found Toma by the training rings, running drills alone under the torchlight. Toma's strokes were hard, sloppy, frustration steaming off him. His breath came ragged, eyes locked on some private fury.
Lyren stopped at the fence, arms folded. "If you keep swinging like that, you'll snap your wrists before a Seethe ever gets the chance."
Toma froze, then turned, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. "Better than standing around acting like we're above it all."
"Who says I am?" Lyren's voice stayed level, but something inside him bristled. "We're all in this shit. Only difference is I still know who the real enemy is."
"Oh, do you?" Toma's laugh was short, ugly. "Because it looks to me like you're more worried about that Blight-cursed freak than your own squad."
---
Lyren's hand tightened on the fence rail.
"Say that again."
Toma advanced a step, sword lowered but his shoulders tight. "It's the truth. You think Kael's still on our side? He's half Seethe already. When the Dominion decides he's too dangerous, or when he decides we're just more things to tear open — what then? You gonna stand between him and us?"
"I'll stand where I have to," Lyren said. It was not a threat. It was a quiet promise, and somehow that made Toma's sneer fade.
For a moment, neither spoke. Then Toma muttered, "Just remember who you swore loyalty to. It wasn't him."
Lyren turned away before he did something he'd regret. Inside, though, the words rattled through him like stones in an empty bucket. Because if he was honest, he wasn't sure where that loyalty ended anymore. Or if it ever would.
---
Later, alone in the squad dorm, Lyren sat on his bunk sharpening his blade. Each slow draw of steel on stone steadied him. In the bunk opposite, Garrick snored, oblivious. Nell lay with her back to them both, awake by the set of her shoulders.
Lyren thought of Kael out on the walls somewhere, probably convincing himself he could hold it all together — the infection, the Dominion's demands, the weight of everyone else's fear.
And he thought of Toma's voice, low and bitter. You gonna stand between him and us?
Without meaning to, Lyren pressed his thumb hard enough against the blade's edge that a bead of blood welled up. He watched it slide down the steel.
Wherever I stand, he thought grimly, someone's going to bleed.
Toma was already in the training yard before dawn, driving his blade into the wooden posts again and again until splinters littered the dirt like brittle bones. His breath smoked in the frigid air.
Lyren watched from the archway, arms folded. Part of him had hoped the night would cool things. Clearly it hadn't.
"You'll have nothing left to swing at once you break the posts," Lyren said, voice calm. A flicker of sarcasm — his usual balm. Today it felt thin.
Toma didn't even look at him. "Better to waste my blade here than keep it idle for him."
---
Lyren stepped out, boots crunching frost. "Still on about that?"
"You think this is a joke?" Toma rounded on him, sweat and anger shining in his eyes. "Every day he's less like us. You saw what happened with the recruits. And you still act like he's some hero who'll save us when it goes bad."
"He's my friend," Lyren said. Quiet. Hard.
"And when he turns?" Toma's voice cracked. "When he tears Garrick's throat out because the Dominion pushed him too far? Will you still call him brother then?"
Lyren didn't answer. Instead he drew his sword. Slowly. Deliberately. The scrape of steel was deafening.
---
For a heartbeat, neither moved. Then Toma surged forward with a shout, blade coming in a furious arc. Lyren parried, the shock vibrating up his arms. He pushed back, sidestepped, let Toma's momentum carry him past — then slammed his elbow into Toma's side.
Toma staggered, teeth bared. "That all you've got?"
He lunged again. Their swords collided in a shriek of steel, shoulders locking, feet skidding in the churned dirt. Lyren twisted, broke free, struck low — Toma grunted as the flat of Lyren's blade cracked across his thigh.
"You think you're the only one afraid for him?" Lyren growled, breathing hard. "I lie awake every night wondering if tomorrow's the day we have to put him down. But until then, I stand with him."
---
Toma swung wildly, rage drowning reason. Lyren caught the blow, forced it wide, and drove his knee into Toma's gut. The bigger man folded, gasping. Lyren's sword tip rested at his throat before he could rise.
They stood like that, both shaking — from cold, from fury, maybe even from shame.
Lyren finally lowered the blade. "I won't let you start this war before the real enemy comes through those gates."
Toma wiped his mouth, glaring up with eyes red and wet. He didn't answer. Just stormed off across the yard, leaving Lyren alone with his sword, his racing pulse, and the grim certainty that next time, it wouldn't stop with bruises.