The Thaw

The sun rose over the Wailing Woods, pale and distant.

The gates of Blackstone Keep opened.

Ser Elian walked out. He wore his Inquisitor’s cloak, but he had ripped the cross from the fabric.

He paused at the edge of the tree line. He looked back at the fortress. It was silent. The plague had finished its work. Or rather, Elian had finished it for them.

He stretched his arms. His joints didn't click. The scars on his back didn't pull. He felt fluid, strong, and terrifyingly hungry.

"Where to?" Elian asked aloud.

His own voice answered him, but it carried a harmonic undertone—a rich, baritone vibration that purred in his throat.

* South,* the voice inside him said. *The cities are full of liars and watchers. And I am famished.*

Elian smiled. It was a smile that didn't reach his eyes, because his eyes were now solid, abyssal black.

"South it is," he said.

He began to whistle a tune—a bawdy tavern song that Malphas had hummed while they carved the tongue from the Steward.

He walked into the snowy woods, his shadow stretching long and dark against the white earth, marching perfectly in step with a partner who wasn't there.