Chapter 14 - Strong Enough

  Eyes mattered more than he liked to admit.

  Erhart forced himself upright, his jaw clenched as the world refused to settle. Depth came late now, angles felt wrong and his balance wavered, unreliable. Every step required calculation instead of instinct.

  Irritating.

  He surveyed the chamber with his remaining eye.

  Two guards lay crumpled on the cold stone, throats slit in perfect lines. Blood pooled beneath them, black in the torchlight, still spreading slowly across the uneven floor. No signs of struggle, no scattered weapons.

  And the boy…Erhart’s gaze locked onto Elrin.

  His eyes had turned black, swallowing what little light reached them. Something dark clung to his right arm, cords of living blackness that pulsed with each heartbeat. The limb was wrong. Too long and bent at joints that should not exist. Fingers stretched with too many angles, nails sharpened into wet, gleaming blades. Blood dripped steadily off them.

  He’s fast, precise, and heals…Bellatorian?

  No.

  Erhart’s lip curled as he watched the shadows around the boy react, thickening when Elrin breathed, recoiling when he stilled.

  Just what are you?

  His focus lingered on the darkness for a moment too long—

  And Elrin vanished.

  Erhart stepped back. The walls hadn’t changed, yet the corners had deepened, darkness thickened where torchlight should have reached. He tightened his grip on the mace and settled his stance. Then something moved—

  A blur cut in from his blind side.

  Erhart swung blindly.

  His mace met flesh with a sharp crack. The impact rang up his arm. When he turned, there was nothing, no body, no blood. Just shadow and wall.

  He could have taken my throat.

  Erhart’s jaw tightened.

  But he didn’t…inexperienced.

  The missing eye was a problem. Half his vision gone, blind to anything approaching from the right. A weakness. One that could get him killed. Erhart straightened and began backing toward the door, careful not to rush. His right eye stayed wide, tracking the dark for the smallest shift, the faintest ripple. He breathed slow, measured.

  Gunwald wouldn’t believe a Bloodkind hid in his mine…

  Then a grin formed over his lips, Aldwin will answer for the oversight. And I will be rewarded for cleaning it up.

  His free hand found the door behind him. Fingers closed around the iron handle and pulled. Metal ground against stone as the door slid shut, cutting off the tunnel light.

  The room dimmed completely.

  “Good,” Erhart murmured, lifting the mace again. “Now no one interrupts.”

  Erhart drew in a slow breath. As he exhaled, something spread from him, invisible but tangible. It clung to his skin like damp cloth, heavy and humid. The sound was dulled. Movement grew sluggish, as though the space itself had thickened.

  He no longer needed sight.

  The pressure radiated outward, filling the chamber until even the distant walls felt within arm’s reach. Every movement disturbed it. Every shift left a wake he could sense rippling back.

  “Show yourself, boy,” he said to himself, then he felt a shift to his left—

  There!

  Elrin lunged.

  The disturbance hit Erhart a heartbeat before the boy could. He stepped aside and brought the mace down in a smooth arc.

  Impact thundered through the chamber.

  Elrin hit the stone with force that drove blood up his throat. He scrambled to rise, desperate, but Erhart was already there. A boot slammed down on his leg, pinning it.

  The mace fell right on it.

  Crack!

  A primal scream tore out of the boy.

  Erhart smiled and licked the blood from his lip.

  Elrin twisted with what little he had left, the movement ugly and desperate, his claws flashing up toward Erhart’s face—

  The man leaned back just enough, the tips missing him by inches, then drove a kick into the boy’s stomach.

  Elrin flew back and hit the wall. He rebounded instantly, pushing off with unnatural force, launching himself straight at Erhart.

  Again, Erhart was a step ahead. He sidestepped, caught the momentum and swung.

  The mace struck midair.

  Elrin smashed through the door and into the tunnel beyond, wood exploding into splinters, iron hinges shrieking as they tore from stone. He hit the tunnel wall hard. The impact drove air from his lungs. Pain bloomed everywhere.

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  And with it came clarity. Mardukai’s grip loosened. The tendrils dissipated, his claws retracted into nails, and his mind surfaced from the red haze. He could think again.

  Erhart advanced slowly, boots scraping stone. His grin never wavered as he loomed over Elrin’s broken form. “A fine display of power, boy,” he said mildly. “But instinct without control is just noise. And noise gets put down.”

  He raised the mace. One strike would end it.

  Then agony speared up Erhart’s leg so sharply it ripped a roar from his throat, and his head snapped downward in disbelief. Lancelot clung to his calf, fangs buried deep, claws hooked into flesh. The cat wrenched and tore, savage and relentless.

  “Filthy—!”

  The mace came down where the cat had been. Lancelot vanished into the dark, a snapping flash of fur and teeth slipping between shadows.

  It bought Elrin one moment, a single breath.

  And the boy took it. He dragged himself across cold stone, nails scraping uselessly. His vision swam. The tunnel tilted. Each breath burned like fire in his chest.

  Something warm spilled from his mouth, blood.

  The shadows shifted to his right and a shape came into view. “You let your instincts run free again,” a voice said quietly. “That’s the cost.”

  Elrin turned his head with effort that nearly blacked him out. “Tova,” he rasped. The word barely formed around broken teeth and blood.

  “I can save you,” Tova said calmly. “But from this moment forward you will follow every word I say, no hesitation, no second thoughts, not until I get what I want.”

  Elrin’s chest hitched. His fingers twitched uselessly.

  “No questions,” Tova continued. “No resistance. You follow, or I leave you here.”

  Behind them, Erhart’s footsteps resumed.

  Elrin simply nodded.

  Tova moved. The spear flashed into his hand. One precise cut. The torch fell. Darkness swallowed the tunnel whole.

  Elrin felt the world tilt as his body lifted from the stone. His head lolled back, vision blurring into streaks of torchlight and shadow.

  A shout echoed somewhere behind them.

  Elrin’s vision flickered. He saw flashes, fragments stitched together without order: Erhart’s ruined eye, wet and glistening. Lancelot’s broken body striking the wall. Black tendrils writhing where his arm should have been.

  The air thickened as they passed deeper, damp and heavy. Somewhere water dripped steadily, counting seconds. Tova turned without breaking stride, slipping into narrower passages Elrin hadn’t known existed.

  Elrin’s fingers twitched weakly, the movement more reflex than intent, his muscles shredded down to the fibers, his rib cage cracked inward and his leg bones fractured so badly they screamed with every shallow breath. He had pushed himself far past what his body could bear. Whatever power Mardukai offered, his flesh was not built to contain it, not yet, and it had failed under the strain, breaking far too easily.

  “Don’t move,” Tova murmured, so quietly it barely disturbed the air.

  A patrol passed close. Elrin sensed it more than heard it. Shadows shifted beyond his blurred vision. The faint clink of armor. The smell of oil and iron.

  A guard’s voice muttered something indistinct.

  Another replied, annoyed. Footsteps faded.

  Tova moved again.

  Elrin remembered how the darkness consumed his heart, how his claws flashed. Two throats had opened beneath his hands. And as the guards fell, something emerged from their chests, blue flames, small and ghostly, hovering for a heartbeat.

  He remembered drawing them in with his breath. And the relief that followed was overwhelming, like finally drinking after endless thirst. The hunger inside him—that constant gnawing void that never truly slept—had gone quiet then, eased at last.

  They descended.

  Then up.

  Then sideways.

  Elrin lost track of direction entirely. A fragile stillness settled over the passage, broken only by the rasp of breathing and the slow, patient drip of water falling somewhere beyond sight. Cool air brushed across his face, faint but unmistakably different from the tunnels behind them.

  Tova lowered him.

  Elrin felt the cold stone touch his back. Then he felt himself slipping, consciousness peeling away in layers. The last thing he registered was Tova kneeling beside him, one hand hovering near his chest, not touching, as if measuring something invisible.

  “Don’t die,” Tova said quietly. Not a plea. An instruction.

  Darkness closed in. And this time, Elrin didn’t fight it. He drifted at the edge of consciousness, the world thinning into shadow.

  Elrin snapped awake like a drowning man breaking the surface. He gasped—heart hammering, muscles tensed for the next blow. For a heartbeat he thought he was back in the guards’ chamber, pinned down, waiting for the mace.

  Then his mind settled.

  This place is…different.

  He was still underground, still surrounded by stone. But the walls here were rough, uneven and hastily carved. Jagged in places and smooth in others. A makeshift refuge. The air didn’t reek of piss and mildew, it was clean. Almost pleasant. He could breathe without tasting copper.

  A single torch flickered on the wall, casting long shadows. Beneath him: straw. Rough, scratchy, but clean. His fingers dug into it, confirming it was real.

  He turned his head and noticed Tova. He was in the corner, sitting in a crouch and perfectly still. Tova stared back at him. His silver hair hid under a layer of soot.

  How long had he been there?

  “You’re awake,” Tova said flatly.

  “Where am I?” Elrin’s throat was raw, the words scraping out.

  “Deeper in the mine. Safe and alive, that’s what matters.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me.” Tova cut him off. “You agreed to follow my instructions. This isn’t charity. It’s a transaction.”

  Elrin stared at him, trying to understand. But exhaustion dulled the edges of confusion. His body had healed from the injuries and he was still breathing. If it hadn’t been for Tova there, he’d be cooling on stone right now, another body for the guards to drag away. Whatever Tova wanted, he’d give it. He had to.

  Then something small and dark shifted beside Tova’s boot.

  “Lancelot!”

  The cat lay curled tight against the wall. His small chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths, each one a struggle, a soft wheeze escaping with every exhale.

  “A few broken ribs,” Tova said without looking down. “But he’ll live. Fearsome little thing you’ve got there.”

  Elrin scrambled forward on hands and knees, straw scratching his palms. Lancelot’s eyes were closed, whiskers twitching faintly. One ear was torn, crusted with dried blood. His front paw lay at an odd angle. Elrin reached out, fingers hovering over the matted fur—

  “Don’t.” Tova’s voice was flat. “It’ll hurt him. Just let it heal. Slowly.”

  Elrin’s hand stopped midair, trembling. He pulled it back, curling his fingers into a fist. Lancelot’s breathing hitched, a small sound escaping—half-whimper, half-purr. Like he knew Elrin was there but couldn’t quite wake.

  “He saved me,” Elrin whispered.

  “He delayed Erhart,” Tova corrected. “I saved you. Don’t confuse the two.”

  Elrin straightened then looked Tova in the eyes. “What do you need from me exactly?”

  “I saved your life. You’ll risk it for purpose.”

  The implication sank in slowly. “You’re sending me to my death.”

  “Not if you do exactly as I say.”

  Elrin’s fingers curled into the straw beneath him.

  “I watched you heal overnight,” said Tova. “Bones knit. Skin closed. Very impressive. You have... potential.”

  “What kind of potential?”

  “The kind I can sharpen.” Tova stood in one fluid motion. “I will train you. Push you to my level—if you survive it. And when you’re strong enough...” He paused, letting the weight settle.

  Strong enough for what? But Elrin didn’t need to ask, because Tova continued regardless.

  “Strong enough to kill Gunwald.”