Brusk sat hunched in his corner of the dungeon chamber, where moss clung to stone like rot to meat, and silence was rarely silent. Somewhere, a cough echoed. Somewhere, someone whimpered. Weaklings. Always whimpering.
He cracked his neck and ran his thumb along the serrated edge of his axe, thick as a tree's root and just as old. Eighty-seven kills. That was the count now. Each one of them fed the blade like meat fed the gut.
He should be the king down here.
They were supposed to fear him. They did, still—but now, it felt thinner. Like a hide stretched too tight.
It was that boy.
That skinny, pale-faced, nothing of a boy—once a sack of ribs and hate—was no longer skinny. Now, muscle wrapped his frame like chain over steel, taut and earned in blood. But Brusk still saw him as that first sight: hollow eyes, twitching hunger, a creeping curse. Just looking at him made Brusk's molars grind like stones. The boy walked on the nerves in his head—barefoot, dirty, unwelcome.
How was he still alive?
Brusk used to visit, back when it was easy. He'd walk to the bars of the boy's cell, spit and chuckle low like thunder and call him "little snack." The others would laugh too, eager to be seen laughing. But now, Brusk didn't go near. Not anymore.
That boy. That animal. That ghost. He didn't die.
And worse than him—worse—was Garrik.
Something was wrong with that brute.
Brusk clenched his jaw as he thought of him—his old right hand, his bone twin, his hammer in flesh. Garrik had once followed with lowered eyes, silent strength, fists like piled meat. He'd been loyal. Useful.
Now? Garrik stared. Glaring. Growling. Like a beast with its own scent in its nose.
Ever since the claymore.
Ever since that damn, bent, gold-etched, oversized blade had entered his hands, Garrik had changed. It never left him now. He slept with it in his grip. Sat with it across his legs like a child cradling a dead pet. Eyes narrow, always watching—especially when anyone got close.
After Hask died—Hask, that slippery rat, all whisper and no roar—Brusk had tried to speak with Garrik. Tried to talk power, balance, the bleeding wound of their crumbling gang. It was a good moment for alliance.
Garrik just curled his arms around that blade and sneered. Told Brusk to screw himself. Accused him of wanting to steal it.
Brusk blinked, stunned. Steal it?
Why the fuck would he want that thing? Brusk had an axe, a real one, carved into skulls and shoulder bones alike. His axe had history. Had meat.
But Garrik looked at that claymore like it was a crown.
It didn't make sense. None of it did.
Brusk groaned, pressing a palm to his temple. These past three months had splintered his patience.
So many of his thugs were gone—slaughtered by that boy with the silent sword. The Seren blade, they whispered now. A blade like myth. A man with no voice, no fear.
And now Garrik wouldn't bow.
Brusk turned his glare across the chamber to Valkira and her pack of pups. Her group had swelled in numbers. She trained them, beat them, molded them with her own blade like a smith. And she had won her ninety-fifth match.
Ninety-five.
That whore.
Brusk could barely stand to watch her fight—too fast, too clever. He hated her most because she deserved some of the things they said. She was going to the next colosseum before him.
Brusk scratched at the burn on his chest. It always itched when his blood got hot. The mark—twisted thing, a snake 'round a sword. Didn't matter what it meant. He knew what it meant.
I am a marked one.
Valkira had hers too, carved into her skin like she was born for it. Some golden thing, a dragon choking a tree.
Things had changed, and Brusk felt it in his gut. He got better straw. Guards stopped looking at him like he was scum. That meant something. Valkira, too—she got the same treatment, maybe better. Brusk didn't like that.
He fought. He crushed bones. That's what should matter. Not names, not whispers. But still, more people talked about her than him. That burned. Bad. Like rot in the stomach.
He spat hard onto the ground. The phlegm sizzled in dust.
He didn't want to think about Garrik. Or Valkira. Or that boy with his eerie silence and growing legend. He didn't want to think about shadows whispering of his fading reign.
He was just muscles. He didn't need to think.
But flies, they get into ears. Into blood. Into nerves.
And Brusk's nerves felt like snapped bowstrings.
His knuckles twitched. He wanted to crush something. Bone. Skull. Teeth. Anything.
Instead, he growled, rolled onto his back in the sour-smelling corner of the dark, and let sleep take him like a chokehold.