The air was thick with the stench of blood and ash. Veiss stood in the center of the ruined village, his boots sinking into the mud slick with gore. Bodies lay sprawled around him—some intact, others so mangled they scarcely resembled human forms. The silence that followed the slaughter was oppressive, broken only by the occasional crackle of fire from the crumbling remnants of a barn.
He wiped his blade, Umbraclaw, on the tattered cloak of a fallen cultist. The weapon pulsed faintly in his hand, its jagged, black surface glinting in the dim twilight.
"More," the blade whispered, its voice a low rasp that coiled around his mind. "There are more. You've only started."
"Shut up," Veiss growled, though his grip on the weapon tightened.
The cultists had put up a fight, but they were no match for him. Not anymore. These days, he wasn't sure if it was his skill or the weapon that made him unstoppable. Maybe it didn't matter. He scanned the village, his one good eye narrowing as he searched for survivors—not to save, but to ensure none of the cultists escaped.
A faint sound drew his attention. It wasn't the groan of a dying man or the scuttle of vermin feasting on corpses. It was a soft, labored breathing, coming from the shadow of a collapsed building.
Veiss approached cautiously, his boots crunching over shattered wood and broken glass. He turned a corner and found her—a child, no older than ten, curled against the wall. Her clothes were ragged, stained with blood and soot. Her pale skin was streaked with grime, but what caught his attention was the faint glow emanating from her chest.
The sigil.
It was unmistakable, a jagged, circular mark that pulsed faintly with the same malevolent energy he had felt from the cultists. He had seen it before—etched into the flesh of the cult leaders he hunted, scrawled in blood on ritual altars. But never like this. Never on a living child.
The blade throbbed in his hand. "Kill her," it hissed. "End it before it begins."
Veiss froze, his breathing shallow as he stared at the girl. Her eyes fluttered open, wide and glassy with fear. She didn't scream. She didn't even flinch. She just looked at him, her small frame trembling like a leaf in a storm.
"Kill her," the blade urged again. The voice was louder now, insistent.
His hand tightened on the hilt. It would be easy. A single strike, and the threat would be gone. Whatever twisted purpose the cult had for her would die here, in the mud and blood of this forsaken place.
"Please…" The girl's voice was barely a whisper, her cracked lips forming the word like it was foreign to her.
Veiss hesitated. He hated that he hesitated.
The weapon whispered again, but this time it wasn't a command. It was something else, something softer. The voice shifted, taking on a tone he hadn't heard in years.
"Veiss," it said, using his name. It was Alia's voice—his wife's voice.
"She's the key," the whisper continued, now laced with a cruel sort of certainty. "You know she is."
His jaw clenched as memories of Alia flooded his mind—her laughter, her touch, the way her blood had pooled around her body the night the cult took her from him. His grip on the blade wavered, and for a moment, he felt like he was suffocating under the weight of it all.
The girl didn't move. She just stared at him, her wide eyes silently begging him for mercy.
Veiss let out a low, guttural curse and lowered the blade.
"Get up," he snapped.
The girl didn't respond at first, her body too weak to obey. With a frustrated sigh, Veiss reached down and hauled her to her feet. She was light as a feather, her frame so frail it felt like she might break in his hands.
"If you slow me down, you're dead," he growled, though the venom in his voice felt hollow.
The girl nodded faintly, her head lolling forward.
Veiss slung her over his shoulder and began walking, his boots crunching over the remains of the village. Behind him, the shadows seemed to writhe and shift, growing longer as the sun remained hidden behind the eternal eclipse.
The blade hummed softly in his hand, but it didn't speak again.
For now.