Veynar closed his eyes.

  For the first time in a long time, his thoughts were quiet. No calculations. No schemes. No threads of fate tangled between his fingers. Just a single, simple understanding: he had released the beast, and at least this beast was going to put him out of his misery.

  Let it come, he thought. Let Morrowind burn, let the world tilt, let the kingdoms fall. None of it mattered anymore. Gazer would get what he deserved, and Veynar—Veynar would finally be free of duty, of guilt, of the weight he had carried longer than any man should.

  He spread his arms slightly, as if welcoming an embrace.

  Death. At last.

  He opened his eyes, wanting to look one last time at the man in front of him—the man consumed by rage, the beast roaring through his veins. Lucius stood there, weapon leveled, eyes black and burning, jaw set with a resolve that no god could sway.

  Then Veynar saw something behind him.

  An old man. The same one he had given water to. The same frail figure that had seemed so insignificant at the time—a kindness he had almost forgotten.

  Tears rolled down Veynar’s cheeks.

  Not from fear. Not from agony. From something like relief. Relief that the debt he had paid in kindness had not been swallowed by the void. That somewhere, somehow, something had taken note.

  In that moment, everything seemed to slow, the air thickening around them, the flicker of lamplight stretching into long, trembling lines.

  The old man spoke, his voice gentle, almost apologetic. "He is not willing to let you go so easily. I am afraid I will have to wait for my payment."

  Then the old man vanished—as if he had never stood there at all.

  Lucius lowered the revolver.

  The weapon turned, then slid back into the holster at his hip with a final, decisive motion. His gaze never left Veynar's face.

  "No," Lucius said, voice tired and cold. "No, Veynar. Not so easily."

  "You will serve me from now on if you want your salvation," Lucius said, his voice flat, devoid of the rage that had filled the room only moments ago. It was worse now—it was business. "If you refuse, then I will let you go. And since you have given me the name of my snail, I will go and leave this accursed world to rot. And you will rot with it."

  Veynar slumped in his chair. He had lived for centuries. He had seen kingdoms rise from mud and crumble back into dust. He had manipulated kings and warlords. But he had never felt this.

  Hopelessness. Absolute, crushing hopelessness.

  He realized then that Lucius understood the cruelty of existence better than he ever had. Death would have been a release. Continued existence in a world abandoned to its own decay—that was the true punishment. To rot while breathing. To watch the world end slowly, knowing he could have stopped it if he hadn't played his hand so poorly.

  Lucius turned away, indifferent to Veynar's internal collapse. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the chit—the small piece of paper that Veynar had surrendered, the price of his life, or perhaps the price of his damnation.

  He unfolded it.

  One word.

  Gazer.

  Lucius looked at the name. There was no shift in his expression. No flicker of surprise, no widening of the eyes, no tightening of the jaw. He simply stared at the letters scrawled in ink.

  Somewhere deep inside—beneath the layers of the beast, beneath the human mask he wore, beneath the memories of Sable and Chyros and Lanze—he knew. He had always known.

  This was his destiny. Not to save the world. Not to be a hero. But to chase his own death, disguised as another man's name.

  He folded the chit and placed it back in his pocket, close to his heart—the heart that was already half-gone, half-smoke, beating only for the sake of the hunt.

  "Well?" Lucius asked, not looking back. "Make your choice, Veynar. Rot or serve?"

  What else could a man at his lowest do other than obey?

  Veynar knelt. It was a clumsy, broken movement, the posture of a man surrendering the last vestige of his pride. He pledged his loyalty to Lucius—not out of love, not out of honor, but out of the sheer, desperate need for purpose in the face of oblivion.

  "What are your orders?" Veynar asked, his voice hollow.

  Lucius turned, his silhouette cutting a sharp line against the dim light.

  "From now on, Lucius is dead," he said. "Dead to the king. Dead to the kingdom. And dead to Gazer."

  He stepped closer, looming over the kneeling immortal.

  "Go and continue your duties. Act as if nothing has changed. Be the loyal servant, the shadow in the court, the manipulator you have always been."

  Lucius's eyes narrowed.

  "I will contact you. When I do, I will use the name Chyros. And you... you will chase Gazer from now on. I need his whereabouts. His movements. His safe houses. His fears. Everything."

  He paused, letting the weight of the command settle.

  "I will investigate on my own terms. You are merely my eyes where I cannot see. Do you understand?"

  Veynar nodded, his forehead touching the cold stone floor. "I understand... Chyros."

  "Good," Lucius said. "Now go. Before I remember how much I enjoyed watching you bleed."

  Veynar left the chamber, his footsteps receding into the damp echo of the corridor.

  Lucius stood alone in the dark. The candle on the table sputtered once—a last, desperate gasp for life—and then died, surrendering the room to absolute black. It was fitting. The conversation had ended, and so had the light.

  Lucius opened the door and stepped out.

  He emerged into a rundown alley in Moonlight Meadows—a district whose name was a cruel joke played on its inhabitants. There was no moonlight here, only the gray haze of lantern oil and the stench of stagnation. Traders moved through the gloom, haggling over scraps, metal, and food that looked more like refuse. They kept their heads down, their voices low, consumed by the petty commerce of survival. Lucius moved through them like smoke, unbothered, unnoticed. A dead man walking among the living.

  He needed a place to lie low. A place where the eyes of the capital didn't pry, but close enough that he could keep his finger on its pulse.

  He turned his back on the city and made his way to the outskirts.

  Miles passed beneath his boots until the stone of the capital gave way to packed dirt. The air changed, losing the metallic tang of the city and gaining the smell of wet earth and livestock.

  He arrived at Old Oak.

  It was a village that seemed to have grown out of the ground rather than being built upon it. The houses were timber and thatch, sagging under the weight of years, their colors bleached by the elements into varying shades of slate and brown. In the center of the village stood the namesake—a massive, ancient oak tree. It was leafless, its branches clawing at the sky like the fingers of a buried giant, its bark black and scarred.

  Old Oak was a place of quiet, slow decay.

  There were no soldiers here. No gangs. No glittering steel. It was a village of farmers and odd-job men—people with calloused hands and bowed backs who tilled the gray soil and fixed broken fences. They moved with the heavy, plodding rhythm of cattle. Violence here was not the sharp crack of a revolver or the slash of a sword; it was the slow, grinding violence of time and hard labor.

  The villagers sat on porches or leaned against fences, watching the road with dull eyes. They were too tired for conflict, too worn down for ambition. It was the perfect place for a ghost to haunt.

  Lucius adjusted his coat, and walked into the town. The silence of Old Oak swallowed the sound of his footsteps.

  What happens when the prey turns into the predator?

  What can one do when a war is declared against the creator?