The night felt endless, the forest wrapped in heavy mist and scattered with snow, soft as petals. The silence, deep and absolute, was unnerving for some, but for Mikhael, it felt like home. It was comforting, like returning to the womb.
Waiting was always the hardest part.
The sound came at last. A faint rattle of wheels, the creak of wood. An expensive carriage slid out of the fog, lacquered body and gilded trim gleaming faintly. Behind it rolled three heavy wagons, their cargo hidden under filthy tarps.
Every one of those wagons was another vein feeding the Empire's heart.
Mikhael had already cut several. Tonight, he meant to tear an artery.
The driver hunched over the reins, eyes flicking toward the trees. He looked like a man who had heard the stories and hoped they belonged to someone else.
They did not.
Mikhael stepped onto the road, slow and deliberate. The horses snorted and tossed their heads. The driver froze.
Before he could shout, Mikhael dropped to one knee and slammed his palm into the dirt.
The seals carved into his skin woke at once. Heat flashed along his arms. Lines of red light raced through the ground toward the carriage.
The road erupted.
Fire roared up under the front wheels, swallowing the undercarriage. Wood cracked, horses screamed, the carriage lurched sideways and ground to a halt. The wagons behind slammed together in a mess of chains, splintered wood and curses.
Mikhael did not stay to admire his work. His eyes were on the people spilling out of the wreck.
The first was the Harvester.
Red robes. Forties. Clean shaven. The sealwork woven into his sleeves shimmered in the firelight. Different face than the others Mikhael had killed. Same work. He bought people and turned them into numbers.
A second man followed him, younger, lean, with a metal staff in his hands and the stiff alertness of someone used to getting out of trouble alive.
The guards were not so composed.
Twelve of them scrambled to form a line. Only half made it. Arrows hissed from the trees, dropping men where they stood. Some died before they realized, they were under attack.
The Harvester barely glanced at them.
He brushed ash from his sleeve and looked up, expression more irritated than afraid.
A single arrow hissed toward his chest.
He flicked his wrist. A coiled whip snapped from his belt and cracked the shaft out of the air in one smooth motion, sparks crawling along it's length.
Impressive. Not enough.
Mikhael moved.
He ran straight at the Harvester. The whip lashed out, glowing red, tearing a line through the air where his chest had been. Mikhael twisted, boots skimming over hot dirt, and closed the distance, blade already in motion.
The younger man slid in front of his master, staff lancing toward Mikhael's ribs. Steel met metal with a hard crack. The impact jolted up Mikhael's arms.
Behind them, someone screamed. Lionel's hammer answered in a low, heavy boom.
Mikhael spared half a glance.
His brother, no longer a scrawny stable boy but a broad wall of muscle, finished the last standing guard with a clean, brutal swing. Bone met iron. The man fell and did not get up.
The whip snapped again, dragging Mikhael's attention back.
Sparks shot across the ground as the tip bit into the road where his foot had been a heartbeat earlier.
He shifted back. The younger fighter flowed with him, staff darting in quick, sharp jabs that forced Mikhael to block instead of close. From the treeline, Emma's arrows kept whistling past, forcing the younger man to twist and parry while he fought.
That divided attention was all Mikhael needed.
He stepped in hard, locked the staff aside with his blade and shoved. The younger man staggered.
"Take him," Mikhael snapped.
"Gladly," Lionel said.
Lionel crashed into the younger man like a falling tree, hammer whipping around in a tight arc. The staff came up in a desperate guard. It flew out of his hands. The next blow took the fighter off his feet and into the mud.
Lionel did not check if he stayed down.
He turned back to the Harvester.
The man stood square in the glow of the burning carriage, whip hanging loose at his side, sparks dripping from it into the snow. Firelight painted his robes the colour of fresh blood.
"So," he said. His voice was calm, almost conversational. "The Gatherers. The burned routes. The missing shipments. That was you."
His gaze flicked to the scattered bodies of his men, then back to Mikhael.
"I suppose I should feel honoured."
Mikhael kept his sword low and ready. "I did not come for your feelings."
The Harvester's mouth twitched.
"I do not suppose you would take my surrender," he asked, "and pretend that this was enough."
"No."
"Pity." His grip tightened on the whip. "Then do not make the mistake of thinking I am one of the soft ones."
He stepped in. The whip flared.
It snapped toward Mikhael's head. Mikhael raised his blade and met it, steel ringing as sparks burst between them. The next strike went low for his legs. He jumped, the tip grazing his boot and carving a glowing groove through the road.
"Emma," he called without looking away. "Left arm."
"On it," she said.
The Harvester's focus stayed on Mikhael. The whip moved like it had it's own mind, lashing in fast, precise lines that left no room for clumsy mistakes. Mikhael blocked, slipped, turned, felt the heat kiss his cheek once and ignored it.
He needed one mistake.
The seals on his forearms pulsed. He let essence flow down into his right hand.
Metal formed around his fingers. His blade thickened and curved, turning into a single heavy edge made for breaking, not fencing.
The Harvester's eyes narrowed. "You bear carved seals," he said. "Interesting choice of suicide."
Mikhael did not answer.
The whip cracked again. Mikhael met it head on. The impact rattled his shoulders and shoved him half a step back, boots sliding. The man was strong, but strength was not the problem. Reach was.
"Closer," Mikhael thought. "Just a little closer."
The man did not look around. He did not need to. The whip snapped toward Mikhael in a flurry of three strikes, so fast they blurred.
The first went high. Mikhael ducked.
The second went low. He jumped.
The third came straight in.
He brought the heavy blade up, caught the glowing length on the flat and shoved with everything he had. Power surged along the seals on his arms, the carvings burning bright under his skin.
The whip buckled.
For a heartbeat, the Harvester's balance shifted. Emma's arrow took him in the forearm. He hissed, grip faltering.
"Lionel!" Mikhael barked.
Lionel was already moving.
He surged in from the side, hammer coming up. The Harvester yanked his arm back, whip trailing, trying to retreat, but there was nowhere left to go.
Mikhael stepped forward and swung.
The heavy edge bit into the whip, cutting it in two. Sparks sprayed the snow.
The Harvester stared at the dying glow in his hand, eyes wide.
"You…" he began.
Mikhael drove the blade into his gut. Not wild. Clean. The weapon slid between ribs and into flesh, the resistance brief and shocking, then gone.
The Harvester folded around the steel. Mikhael held his eyes.
"It ends here," Mikhael said.
He tore the sword free and stepped back. The metal dissolved into red embers that faded in the cold air.
The man dropped to his knees.
Blood soaked his robes. His hand clamped over the wound on instinct, came away red and shaking. He let out a wet breath that might have been a laugh.
"Those carvings," he rasped. "Not many survive bearing that weight."
Mikhael's jaw tightened.
"You are the kid," the Harvester said. "Romulus Alexander's little starling."
Lionel moved in; hammer raised. Mikhael lifted a hand. "Wait."
The Harvester watched him through a fading haze.
"They talk about you," he said. "In certain circles. The boy with seals made of scars. The dog that bit his master."
His lips pulled back from his teeth in something like a smile.
"Burned the estate," he whispered. "The wife. The unborn child."
Heat crawled up Mikhael's spine. Not from the fire.
He did not regret it. He would burn Romulus a thousand times over if he got the chance. That was not what made his fingers curl.
It was the memory of the estate. The metal. The screaming. Lionel on the ground, rope at his wrists, eyes wild.
"Speak," Mikhael said. His voice sounded flat in his own ears.
The Harvester's breath hitched.
"Romulus's son lived," he said. "You know that, do you not. One-eyed little heir. He will come for you one day."
His body shook once in a dry, broken laugh.
"Pray he is not like his father."
Whatever else he meant to say drowned in his own blood. His eyes went dull. His weight sagged forward into the snow.
Silence came back in slowly, like the mist.
The fire in the wrecked carriage crackled. The horses, freed, snorted and pawed nervously at the ground. Emma stepped out from the trees, bow low but still in hand.
Lionel exhaled, long and sharp.
"Is he actually dead," he asked.
Mikhael nudged the Harvester's shoulder with his boot. The man did not move.
"Yes," Mikhael said.
He stood there a moment longer, letting the last words settle.
Romulus's son lived.
Of course he did.
"Are we done," Lionel asked. His voice had that careful, neutral tone he used when he was watching Mikhael too closely.
Mikhael pulled his thoughts back to where he was.
"For now," he said.
Emma nodded once toward the wagons. "Let's not keep them waiting."
They crossed the churned road to the first wagon. The tarp over it was scorched and hanging in tatters. Lionel climbed up, grabbed the edge and pulled it aside.
The smell hit first. Sweat, fear, old urine, metal.
Inside, people were packed in tight. Men, women, children. Faces hollow and grey, eyes wide, clothes hanging off them in rags. Iron restraints bound their wrists and ankles. Faint containment seals glowed along the metal.
Not meant to drain. Only to suppress.
A little girl clutched a younger boy to her chest. Her eyes found Mikhael's and froze there, too tired for tears.
For a moment, he saw himself. Bars. A circle of red lines. His own breath frosting in the cold while someone walked the rail above and counted.
Lionel swore under his breath.
"We smash them," he said. "Right now."
Emma did not look inside. Her eyes stayed on the trees, scanning for movement.
"You have the tools," she said.
Mikhael's fingers closed on the edge of the wagon.
His seals still ached. His arms felt heavy, bones buzzing with borrowed power. The glow on the restraints itched at him. He knew the pattern. He knew what it felt like from the inside.
He climbed up.
The girl flinched when he reached for her. He stopped, hand open and empty.
"It is all right," he said. The words tasted dry. "You are safe now."
He did not know if that was true. It was better than telling her nothing.
He put his palm flat on the iron ring around her wrist. The sealwork under his skin stirred. He pushed enough essence through to crack, not enough to hurt.
The restraint snapped. The little boy jerked and stared at his freed hand like he was afraid it would vanish.
Lionel went to work on the other side, using the flat of his hammer to break chains where he could, cursing at the ones that took longer. Emma stayed outside, watchful and silent, an arrow nocked but not drawn.
One by one, the binds came off.
Some of the captives tried to stand and failed. Some just sat there, not believing, arms hanging loose in their laps. One old woman laughed once, sharp and broken, then started to cry without sound.
"Easy," Lionel said. "Slow. You will walk when you can."
Mikhael jumped down from the wagon. His legs shook when he hit the ground. The seals on his arms dimmed until they were only scars again.
The iron cuffs and bars lay in the snow behind him, dead metal that smelled of burned skin and old fear.
Their shapes dragged at his thoughts.
He walked to the edge of the clearing and sat, back against a tree, eyes on the ground, breath ghosting in front of him.
The clink of falling chains kept going behind him. The scrape of wood. Soft voices. Emma telling someone to drink slowly. Lionel arguing with a stubborn man who insisted he could stand.
Mikhael barely heard them.
The sight of the restraints, the glow of the sigils, the way the captives huddled in on themselves, all pulled at the same place in his chest. It hurt in a way that had nothing to do with fire or knives.
He closed his eyes.
The smell of smoke shifted in his mind. Snow became stone. The distant crackle of the wrecked wagons became the deep, slow hum of crystals buried under an estate.
He let the past rise and take him.