KAEL'S POV
The word "god" echoed in my skull until I couldn't think straight.
My hands started shaking. Then my arms. Then my whole body trembled like I was freezing to death from the inside out.
"Kael?" Aldric's voice sounded distant, muffled. "Are you okay?"
I wasn't okay. I was breaking.
Eighteen years. Eighteen years of pain and blood and believing it meant something. That I was being forged into something important. Something valuable.
But I was never valuable. I was just... food.
"He's going to eat us," I heard myself say. My voice sounded hollow, dead. "Corvus raised us like cattle. Like crops to harvest when we're ripe enough."
Every memory twisted into something hideous. Master Corvus watching my training—not proud, just checking if his investment was growing properly. The other assassins who disappeared—not failures, but snacks. And me, his "masterpiece," saved for the ultimate meal.
My shadow magic erupted without permission.
Darkness exploded from my body like a scream made visible. It spread across the walls, the ceiling, swallowing the candlelight. Cold shadows wrapped around furniture, wrapped around people's legs.
"Kael, stop!" Seraphina shouted. Ice flared around her, trying to push back my darkness.
But I couldn't stop. The shadows poured out of me, eighteen years of buried pain finally breaking free. Every time Corvus had hurt me "for my own good." Every friend I'd watched die "because they were weak." Every lesson about being worthless without the Veil's purpose.
All lies. All manipulation. All designed to make me a perfect victim who'd walk into his mouth smiling.
"I hate him," I whispered, but the shadows amplified it into a roar. "I HATE HIM!"
The windows shattered. Guards stumbled back. Even Seraphina's ice cracked under the pressure of my rage.
Only Aldric didn't move.
He walked toward me through the chaos, through shadows that would have torn apart anyone else. They parted for him like he was made of sunlight.
Maybe he was.
"Kael," he said gently. "Look at me."
"Get away!" I backed up, terrified I'd hurt him. "I can't control it! The magic—it's too much—"
"Then don't control it." Aldric kept coming closer. "Let it out. Let yourself feel everything you've been holding back."
"I'll destroy everything!" My vision blurred with tears I didn't remember how to cry. "I'm a weapon! Weapons only destroy!"
"No." Aldric stood right in front of me now, close enough to touch. "You're a person who was hurt. There's a difference."
His words stabbed deeper than any blade.
A person. Not a weapon. Not a tool. Not worthless meat waiting to be consumed.
A person.
"You don't understand," I choked out. "Every good memory I have is fake. Every moment of pride was me being proud of becoming better food. Even Raven—she wasn't my friend, she was the butcher making sure I'd be tender when Corvus finally ate me!"
The shadows pulsed with each word, getting darker, colder, more violent.
Seraphina moved to defend Aldric, ice forming barriers. "Your Highness, get back! He's losing control!"
"He's not losing control." Aldric's voice stayed calm. "He's finally being honest. For the first time in his life, he's letting himself feel."
"Feelings will kill you!" I screamed—one of Corvus's favorite lessons. "Emotions are weakness! Weakness means death!"
"Then I guess I'm weak." Aldric smiled sadly. "Because right now I feel so much love for my brother that my chest hurts. And so much rage at the man who stole you that I want to burn the world down."
The shadows faltered. Just for a second.
"You... love me?" The words felt foreign in my mouth. "You don't even know me."
"I've known you my whole life." Aldric touched his chest. "Right here. I felt you missing like a phantom limb. Every birthday, I wondered where you were. Every night, I dreamed about a boy in shadows who needed saving." His eyes filled with tears. "I know you, Kael. And I love you. Not because of what you can do, but because you're my brother. You're half of me."
Something inside my chest cracked open. Something that had been frozen since I was six years old.
"I don't know how to be half of you," I whispered. "I only know how to be his weapon."
"Then learn." Aldric held out his hand. "I'll teach you. We'll figure it out together. That's what brothers do."
I stared at his hand like it was a trap. Everything in my training screamed that trust was death. That love was manipulation. That this was just another way to control me.
But his eyes held no lies. No calculation. Just pure, impossible love for someone he'd just met.
For me.
"What if I hurt you?" My voice broke. "What if Corvus trained me too well? What if I can't stop being a weapon?"
"Then we'll deal with it together." Aldric's hand didn't waver. "You're not alone anymore, Kael. You don't have to carry this by yourself."
The shadows around me trembled, confused. They'd always been tools for violence, for hiding, for death. They didn't know what to do with kindness.
Neither did I.
"I've killed people," I confessed. "In training. Animals at first, then prisoners the Veil captured. I've taken lives without hesitation because Corvus said it made me strong."
"I know." Aldric didn't flinch. "And you'll have to live with that. But killing because you were forced to doesn't make you a monster. It makes you a victim."
"I'm not a victim!" The shadows flared again, angry. "Victims are weak! I survived! I became the best!"
"You survived by becoming what they wanted." Seraphina's voice cut through my rage like a knife. She'd lowered her ice barriers, standing beside Aldric. "I did the same thing. When my family fell, I became cold and calculating because that's what kept me alive. But Aldric showed me I could be more than my survival strategy."
I looked at her—this ice queen who'd tried to kill me an hour ago. Now she was... defending me?
"I still don't trust you," she continued honestly. "You're dangerous and damaged and might betray us. But I trust Aldric's instincts. And if he says you're worth saving, then I'll help save you."
"Even though I might kill you all?" I asked bitterly.
"Even though." She smiled slightly. "Besides, you're not the only deadly one here. I've killed people too. Protecting Aldric. Protecting our principality. The difference is, I chose my violence. Yours was forced on you."
Chosen. Forced. Was there really a difference?
My legs gave out. I collapsed to my knees, shadows finally dissipating like smoke in wind. Exhaustion crashed over me—eighteen years of fighting, pretending, surviving.
I was so tired.
"What am I if not his weapon?" I whispered to the floor. "Everything I am, everything I can do—he made it. Without the Veil, I'm nothing."
Aldric knelt in front of me. "You're wrong. Without the Veil, you're free. You get to choose who to become."
"I don't know how to choose." Tears finally fell, hot and shameful. "I don't know how to be anything else."
"Then let us teach you." Aldric pulled me into a hug.
I froze. No one had hugged me since... since before I could remember. The Veil didn't believe in physical affection. Touch was for fighting or punishment.
This was different. Warm. Safe. Impossible.
"It's okay," Aldric murmured. "You're safe now. You're home."
Home. Another word I didn't understand.
But as I sat there in my brother's arms, shadows finally quiet, something small and fragile unfurled in my chest.
Hope.
Maybe I could learn. Maybe I could be more than Corvus's weapon. Maybe—
A cold wind blew through the broken window, carrying a familiar scent.
Blood and ash.
I jerked away from Aldric, every instinct screaming danger. "Someone's coming."
"More assassins?" Seraphina's ice flared to life.
"Worse." I stood, shadows gathering despite my exhaustion. "That smell—it's Corvus's personal magic signature. He uses burned blood in his rituals."
"He's here?" Aldric paled. "Already?"
"No. But he sent something." I moved to the window, looking out into the darkness.
On the castle grounds below, a figure stood in the courtyard. Not moving. Not attacking. Just... waiting.
It was wrapped in black cloth from head to toe, but I recognized the shape. The way it held itself.
My stomach dropped.
"That's Marcus," I breathed. "One of the assassins I trained with. But he's dead. I watched Raven kill him two years ago for failing a mission."
"Then what's standing down there?" Captain Marcus—the guard captain, not the dead assassin—asked nervously.
The wrapped figure tilted its head up toward our window. Slowly, deliberately, it unwrapped the cloth around its face.
Seraphina gasped. "Gods above."
It wasn't dead. It was worse than dead.
The thing wearing Marcus's body had empty eye sockets that glowed with sickly green light. Its mouth moved, and Master Corvus's voice came out—distant but clear:
"Hello, my perfect weapon. Did you really think I'd let you go so easily?"
The corpse-puppet smiled with rotting teeth.
"You have until sunrise to return to me, Kael. If you don't..." The puppet gestured, and ten more wrapped figures shambled out of the shadows. All dead assassins I recognized. All speaking in unison with Corvus's voice:
"I'll raise every person in this castle as my undead soldiers. And I'll make you watch while they kill your precious brother. Slowly."