In every battle, every skirmish, he had felt it. The rush that came with the violence. The feeling of power when life slipped away from those he struck down. He had tried to push it away, to pretend it wasn't part of him, but in that moment, with the general's disgust burning in his gaze, Kaelen realized the truth.
He was not here for any noble cause. Not for the sake of righteousness or even survival.
He was here because he craved the kill. The fight. The destruction.
And that—more than anything else—was what had driven him from the start.
Kaelen and the general broke apart from their locked clash, both jumping back with calculated precision. Kaelen's chest heaved with every breath, and his body was buzzing from the force of their struggle, but his mind was elsewhere—lost in the realization that had just hit him like a hammer to the skull.
