The four of us continued at a cautious pace down the sloping hallway, our feet softly pattering on the dark stone floor. Bright, blue-tinged light from overhead left no room for shadows on the smooth, featureless surfaces. Yet we continued with our weapons drawn, ready to defend ourselves against more of these monstrous creatures.

I replayed the recent battle in my mind as we walked. We had barely beaten the first Void Beast, but the more I dwelled on that first encounter, the more confident I was that the we could safely handle another. The creature's speed had been its main advantage, but Naisha could neutralize it on that end. And while the scales were tough and the coils strong, neither its resilience nor power had been a particular challenge once the initial surprise had passed.

I didn't enjoy the thought of having to rely on Naisha, though. To put my fate in the hands of another, especially someone as unpredictable as her, didn't suit me. It also meant if something happened to her, we had no backup plan.

We also didn't know if the Void Beasts had any further techniques or tactics. Naisha had implied that the first one had been cunning. That was no small threat. Humans were the most dangerous foes because they did one thing better than simple beasts--learn. We had no true gauge of the Void Beasts' intelligence.

Naisha, who was several paces ahead of us, stopped in the middle of the hallway. I immediately crouched lower in anticipation of an attack, Terminus in hand filled with a fresh store of qi. Then, I spied what had likely made Naisha pause, as did the others.

"Is that...a door?" Alanna asked from behind.

A wide set of double doors, like the one leading to the Homeroom or the Quarters, was on the left side further down the hallway, its outlines marring the otherwise featureless wall. It had not been there before. Something about the door seemed unusual. A tinge of fresh aura touched my senses. We moved forward, even more slowly now, until we were directly in front of it.

"I don't understand," Alanna whispered. "We passed this section a short while ago. It was empty."

We stared in silence at the unexplained intrusion.

Naisha suddenly shouted and slashed sideways with her blades held parallel. A lunging Void Beast, a snake half the size of the one we had fought earlier, hissed in fury as Naisha knocked it aside.

A dark shadow in the middle crease where the two double doors touched was gone.

Five was already lashing out with his twin chains like an angry viper himself, his blade's tip smashing repeatedly into the stone floor and walls. The creature twisted and hissed, easily dodging Five's attacks, but it didn't counterattack immediately. Naisha stood ready with her short swords.

"Don't get too close," Naisha said. "I can't block properly if you're in the way."

Five had been too enthusiastic with his attacks, drawing closer to the snake. The closer he was to the creature, the quicker his strikes would be. But the reverse held true, too.

The snake launched itself towards the ceiling, clinging to the smooth stone surface. It was overhead, equidistant between Naisha and Five. She would be unable to block for him.

"Five!" I yelled.

A wave of golden flames crashed into the ceiling. Naisha lunged right, repositioning herself to get between the snake and Five, but the dark shape streaked to the left past her.

The snake jammed itself in the angle where the ceiling joined the wall, its two black eyes trained on me. Our response was disjointed, and the creature had outmaneuvered Naisha, putting her in an impossible position to block effectively. It opened its mouth wide, baring its fangs, as if taunting us.

I could have retreated backwards, my sword giving a desperate defense, but I held still and returned the creature's gaze. There was no time to communicate and wait for the others.

I had yet to test the limits of my strength and speed as a Grandmaster, or to push those limits. For real battle with real danger would quicken one's qi as no other method could.

I raised Terminus with two hands high on my left. My core spun in a compact swirl, tendrils of qi coursing through my channels, the memory of a familiar exercise awakening in my mind and body. My vision blurred as my eyes' focus drifted, my attention on the faint wisps of aura surrounding the creature, myself, the hallway.

I could not track the snake's attacks with physical sight. I could not scry the names of its abilities with some technique. But just as a sudden motion would disturb the air, so the creature's living will would perturb the residual qi around us. It was a basic exercise, one that had its limits in battle because of the speed and sensitivity of an ordinary sword artist. But none of us were ordinary any longer. I was a Grandmaster at the peak of human sword artistry.

My body reacted, more out of ingrained instinct than conscious volition, as the weak, underlying currents of qi around me changed.

It was over.

Terminus had flashed a brilliant gold. I had felt no resistance, and the blade that now pointed forward was clean, with not a drop of ichor on it.

Someone screamed, belatedly, and two thuds sounded in rapid succession. I turned to find the creature split lengthwise, one bleeding half on the floor, the other wrapped about a grimacing Alanna.

+10 xp. Total: 825 xp.

The blue words surprised me. Ten exam points? That was a hundred exam points for killing the Void Beast, then. But I hadn't received exam points for killing the first snake. Was that because I had struck the killing blow?

Five grunted. "I thought we weren't supposed to hide our techniques."

"That wasn't a technique. Just a listening exercise." I had been wrong about Terminus being clean. I flicked away a piece of gore caught where the blade met the hilt.

Alanna finished disentangling herself from the bloody corpse, dropping the dark green and red mass beside her. She stepped away from it, frowning at the streaks of dark blood on her clothes.

"Listening exercise?" Alanna asked.

Perhaps they called it something else. It was as basic to cultivation as breathing, although I hadn't used it like this before.

"Listen, touch, taste," I shrugged. "However you grasp at the ambient qi."

Alanna shook her head. "What do you mean?"

I stared at her, confused now. "When you meditate and bring qi into your core? Awareness followed by assimilation?"

"Meditate?" Naisha made a face. "Who has time for that?"

"Oh..." Alanna's face scrunched up. "Have you ever taken a qi pill before getting here?"

"Wait," I said, equally surprised now. "Have you ever cultivated?"

"We had a steady diet of pills." Alanna tapped her chest. "And an implant to draw in qi automatically. We don't bother cultivating after the first year of training."

I knew that the nobles relied on alchemy to advance as sword artists, but I hadn't realized that they did so to the exclusion of even basic cultivation. To advance solely through such brute force was beyond distasteful. It was disturbing. Overfill an uncured waterskin, and the whole thing would spring leaks or burst. The same principle held true for people, too.

Naisha's eyes darted back and forth down the hallway. She waved a sword at the closed double doors. "Whatever. Are we really going in there?"

Five smirked. "Feel free to wait here. Looks like we don't need you anymore."

"Fine, if that's what--" Naisha began.

"We need you, Naisha," I said before Five could drive her off. "We don't know what we're facing. What if there's more than one creature?"

I didn't know, either, whether I could replicate the method reliably yet. In principle, what I had done was simple. I had sensed the qi of my surroundings and reacted to the disturbance caused by the Void Beast's technique. In practice, I had pushed myself into a new regime driven by a moment in the battle. Until I did it several more times, I wouldn't be confident that I could access such speed and sensitivity on demand.

I still had one question before we moved on. "By the way, did anyone receive exam points? Now or before?" I looked to Alanna, who had struck the killing blow against the first creature.

Five and the two nobles shook their heads.

"Yeah, what's the point if we don't even get points?" Naisha asked.

"I'm sure there's a reward eventually," Alanna said. "Even if we're not quite doing things by the first choice we made."

Five moved towards the double door without saying anything else. He placed his hand on the circular qi seal spanning the two doors. His hand glowed with a soft yellow light, but nothing happened.

Five frowned. "It's...not enough. Clansman, come here."

I stepped towards the qi seal. Five kept his hand on the seal as I reached out to touch it.

"Now," Five said.

I sent a trickle of my qi into the qi seal. Something within the qi seal shifted, but the response was lethargic and weak, as if more force was needed. Or more qi. I poured additional qi into the seal but nothing happened.

Five muttered to himself before beckoning to the others. "Not more qi," Five said, as if having sensed what I had tried. "More types of qi. Four types."

Five stepped to the left with me, while the two nobles stood on the right side of the door. We all placed our hands on the qi seal.

"Together," Five said.

I held back a comment on the notion of Five asking us to work together. Instead, I sent another stream of qi into the seal. This time, something within the locking mechanism clicked, and the double doors cracked open by an inch on their own.

One of the others gasped at the flood of qi that poured out of the opening doors. Even they could sense that much. The air was dense with qi, at least four-fold higher than what was normally present, but that increased density didn't lend a heavy oppression as with a thick fog or smoke. With qi, it was the opposite, adding a taut, vibrant tension to the very air we breathed.

Before us loomed another hallway similar to the other ones. Except that the light in this new hallway was white and patchy, as if spots of sunlight were poking through a forest canopy. When I looked up, the alchemical lights were gone, instead replaced with a mottled pattern of light and darkness. The floors and walls were the same smooth gray stone at first glance, but upon closer inspection, I could make out imperfections marring their surfaces.

Even Five hesitated. "We go forward," he said, but he didn't rush onward like he usually did. He tilted his head towards Naisha, waiting for her to lead as before.

Naisha shook her head. "This is getting weird. Even for this place."

"Are we sure about going on?" Alanna asked.

I stepped to the threshold of the doorway, peering down the hallway. There were no signs of any immediate Void Beasts, but the poor lightning and uneven surfaces could have easily served as cover for them.

It was obvious what the instructors wanted. They hadn't placed this new mysterious branch off the main hallway for no reason. And it made sense, while we were at the Academy, to align our actions with the instructors' desires. They hadn't shown any reason to distrust them as long as we continued to excel. But I had seen what happened to those they deemed less desirable.

Alanna was right to question our path, but at the same time, I couldn't shake the feeling that turning down an open door could be as dangerous, if not more dangerous, then stepping through it.

"Is it wise to decline a master's invitation?" I asked. "Because that's what this looks like."

Five nodded, his mouth pulled tight, no longer grinning carelessly. "No, but they wouldn't understand. Those two have never had a master."

He and I shared a look. The Empress was his master, I assumed, or someone in her employ. Masters were what their name indicated--demanding, controlling, never one's friend or a source of comfort. Most of the nobles would be finding themselves in the hands of their first masters while at the Academy, if Naisha and Alanna were any indication of the others' experiences.

Naisha made a dismissive noise.

Alanna frowned, then looked to me. "Talen, we have no concept of what dangers lie ahead."

"True," I said. "But the real danger isn't from a Void Beast, not for now. It's from them. The real danger's what happens to those that are left behind."

There was more than a little bitterness in my words. I hadn't forgotten those that had died in the exam. Those they had sacrificed to the first Void Beasts simply to make a point.

And I was too acutely aware that I had fallen behind.

I knew what I had to do, what winning--no, survival--demanded. It was the same as in a duel. When the opponent had a strong advantage, retreating to fight a tepid, defensive style would only delay an inevitable loss. Winning in such a scenario required pressing the attack more strongly than ever, renewing the offensive with fresh tactics and vigor. A bold strike had a chance for victory, while a feeble parry would only guarantee defeat.

"I'm going," I said.

I took one step forward, my foot crossing the threshold. I glanced over my shoulder. "Five?"

He shrugged. "Of course."

Five stepped forward to match me at my side. I waited a moment longer, but neither noble moved.

"Will you come?" I finally asked Alanna while keeping my eyes forward to search for danger. I would go without them, but it would surely be safer with all four of us. "Alanna, they're our masters now."

In the end, all four of us crossed the threshold, Five grinning eagerly, Naisha pouting, and Alanna...Alanna's face was an expressionless mask, her usual good nature gone.

The tight tension in the air snapped, and I instinctively switched to a defensive posture. Naisha was moving towards Five to block the incoming Void Beast, but the soldier had his chained sword out already, twirling the triangular tip fast enough to create a golden disk. Naisha skidded to a stop, her shorts swords half-raised.

The dark creature struck the golden disk and rebounded away with a terrible shriek.

"Ha!" Five smiled triumphantly, perhaps the first time I had seen him do so without some underlying malice.

Five nodded at me. "It's easier here, isn't it? To listen, as you say."

I was too surprised for a moment to reply. He had pieced together what I had done and replicated his own defense. And, as he said, the vibrant hum of qi in the air made it easier to sense and respond to changes in the surrounding's aura, like picking out the vibrations on the taut strings of a spider's web.

"That was fast," I said.

Five's smile broadened. He knew what I meant--not his physical speed, but his rapid adjustment.

"Goody for you two, whatever you're talking about," Naisha said, sounding annoyed.

"That is good," Alanna said. "The more effectively we can all deal with these beasts, the better."

Alanna tilted her head, as if trying to hear something, but she sighed and shook her head. She, alone, had yet to meet the rising threat.

"Maybe your needle?" I offered.

Alanna shook her head. "I can barely see their strikes, let alone aim at them."

We continued down the hallway. The discolored patches on the stone surfaces grew larger, more coherent. Naisha knelt to touch a larger patch, about the size of her palm, on the floor. She stood, and something crumbled from her fingertips.

"Dirt?" Naisha asked.

I touched a dark patch breaking up the gray stone surface of a wall. It felt exactly like dirt.

"There's grass, too," Five said from several steps ahead. He plucked something from the ground, then blew it from out of his palm.

Grass? Here in the Academy?

"Careful," I said. "Don't overextend. We should stay in formation."

Five waved his hand at me. "I can take care of myself, clansman. You're not my mother."

"Five," Alanna said with a tense tone.

I looked back at her. Three of us could take care of ourselves, but she couldn't. Alanna wouldn't say that herself, though.

Five laughed. "Of course, of course." He slowed to let Naisha take the lead, while he took the right flank again.

Five's bluster wasn't altogether out of place. As we continued down the hallway, we met and easily dispatched five more of the snake-like Void Beasts. Now that we knew what we faced and how to deal with them, much of the threat was gone.

I still couldn't quite track them with my eyes when they attacked, although I was coming close. But now the sign of their attacks was more than just a disturbance in the ambient qi. I could make out the shape of the disturbance, and it had a distinctive, vortex-like pattern. The creatures spun as they struck.

"They spin clockwise when they strike," I said after wiping Terminus clean from the last one we had killed. "And they only bounce clockwise to the next surface, or straight across. Never counterclockwise."

Five murmured in acknowledgement. It was a small observation, yet another lessening of the threat. More predictable meant less dangerous.

"Oh, stop showing off," Naisha said.

I frowned. "It's tactical advice."

Naisha grumbled something under her breath.

I gave Alanna a questioning look. She shrugged and stepped closer.

"She's probably upset that she needs to use a technique, while you two do your..." Alanna gestured vaguely. "Your listening? I mean, even I'm a bit frustrated that I can't do more."

I didn't know how to reply so it wouldn't come off as condescending. I kept quiet.

"Can you teach us?" Alanna asked. "Or me, if Naisha insists on being, well, Naisha. Can you show us how to do this later?"

"Definitely," I said. "Although it's not something that you master in a single lesson. It's ingrained into how I cultivate every day, like breathing almost."

Alanna nodded with a cheery smile. "After dinner, then. Let's just get through this first."

Didn't I have something else to do tonight? The Empress, according to Five. I hadn't decided whether to go along with Five yet, but Alanna had already retreated to her position in the rear of our formation.

The hallways changed gradually as we progressed further, more and more of the walls and floors turning to dirt and grass. We even passed a young sampling sprouting its first leaves. We must have covered at least a mile along this new hallway, which made little sense with what I thought I had known of the Academy's construction. We were either burrowing into some underground garden, or...treading into some strange realm of the Swordgeists.

"A tree," Naisha pointed ahead. "A freaking tree. Anyone else think that's, I don't know, a little out of place."

Sure enough, there was a large tree standing tall in the middle of the hallway further away. Its thick trunk rose out of a mound of cracked stone, the smooth gray bark reflecting the low light. The branches and foliage spread upward, pressing against the ceiling. I squinted. The perspective was skewed, but it seemed like the hallway was expanding in all directions. We approached the tree slowly.

"Careful," I said. "The tree could serve as cover."

The words had barely left my mouth when the tree erupted with a flurry of streaking shapes. I had sensed the disturbance a moment too late, not quick enough to prepare a counterattack, only to defend. There were four sources of biting, angry venom flowing through the tense qi filling air--four Void Beasts, the most we had faced at once, one for each of us.

I slashed, and a dark, sinuous shape glanced off Terminus, the coarse scales grating across my blade's edge. Around me, I heard two shouts and one human scream, but didn't have time to check on the others. A hard coil had wrapped around my ankle. The pressure nearly snapped the bones of even my strengthened body. I cut downwards, releasing the pent-up qi within Terminus to slice myself free.

I had expended Terminus' charge on escape, rather than a killing blow, so all I could do was bat away the snake's renewed attacks as it whipped its body at me. I may as well have been beating away with a dull stick, the way Terminus clanged off the thick scales.

I build up a reservoir of qi within Terminus as I fended off the close-range assault. Several seconds later, the snake sprang backwards into a compact coil, hissing as it readied another technique-fueled strike.

I sensed the incoming attack and swung, but my blade met only empty air. I held back Terminus' charge at the last moment when I realized what had happened. With so many creatures attacking simultaneously, I couldn't rely on the listening to the chaotic aura of the qi around me.

I spun and stabbed at the Void Beast that had encircled Alanna along with her greatsword. She had been screaming the whole time, trying to slice her blade through the creature, even as it tried to crush her. I couldn't see clearly, but it seemed like her greatsword had been turned to the side, the flat of its blade trapped between the constricting coils and her chest. She had her single free hand on the snake's neck, trying to keep its snapping jaws away from her face.

Terminus' point speared through the Void Beast as I released the pent-up qi once again. I held nothing back with the stab, but my sword's tip met Alanna's own blade, stopping Terminus before I cut into her as well. Alanna twisted her own blade, then her greatsword erupted in bright golden flames as she slashed outward through the weakened coils to free herself from the living bonds.

The dead Void Beast fell to her side. I sensed another creature attacking, and I guessed this was likely my original assailant trying to take advantage of my attention being elsewhere. I didn't have time to parry and instead rushed towards Alanna, knocking her to the ground.

A dark, long shape, accompanied by a rush of wind, flew past overhead.

"Alanna! Now!"

It was Naisha's voice. I looked to find Naisha entangled with her own Void Beast. Alanna pushed herself off the ground abruptly, leaping across the hallway with her greatsword burning.

I didn't have time to watch Alanna's strike land, although I could hear an inhuman shriek cut off abruptly. I fended off another attack from the creature in front of me, then another. As the number of creatures dwindled, I was once again able to detect and counter the creature's attacks readily. I recharged Terminus while countering two more attacks, watching the others out of the corner of my eyes.

Five had his chains wrapped around a six-foot long snake. The Void Beast tried to wrap its coils around him, but he hurled the creature from side to side, bashing it viciously against the wall and ground. The coils missed closing on him by mere moments before he smashed it into another surface. He was locked in a frenzy of a stalemate, unable to stop his wild flailing without risking being crushed or bitten.

Alanna's greatsword flashed, and Five's creature fell to the ground, thrashing. On the next attack, I split my Void Beast in half. Soon, all the creatures were in piece, unmoving, on the now sticky grass. I turned to find Five bent over, panting.

"Any injured?" I asked.

Five shook his head as he straightened. Thrashing the Void Beast about with enough force and speed to keep it disoriented had to have taken an unthinkable amount of qi. He leaned one hand against the wall for a moment.

"I'm fine," he muttered.

"The tree!" Naisha shrieked. "It's...it's using a technique!" The tips of her outstretched short swords trembled slightly.

"What?" Alanna's greatsword flared with renewed brilliance. "The tree? Are you sure?"

"Passage Pythons," Naisha said. "It's bringing more of those Void Beasts here."

I stared, dumbfounded for a second. First, technique-wielding creatures. Now, technique-wielding plants? In principle, all livings things, even the lower forms, had the wisp of a soul that could harness qi. But I had never heard of even an animal doing so before today, let alone a tree. How could a thing that didn't move have a technique?

A rattling noise echoed around us. The tree. Its slender branches, which spread upward in a wide, forking canopy, were shaking now with a loud rustling. The rattling, though, emanated from within the wide trunk.

"Kill it," Five said. He swung his chain's tip at the trunk, but it left a small scratch, nothing more. "Kill it!" He motioned at us frantically.

Alanna rushed to the tree, hacking at its base with her greatsword in loud, booming chops. Thick chunks of wood flew away from wherever Alanna struck, but the tree somehow withstood her attacks. I hurried to her side, glancing above for signs of any other Void Beasts. I desperately poured qi into Terminus, charging it.

Naisha and Five closed in around us, their swords ready. Alanna had cleaved a V-shaped gouge, about a quarter of the way through the trunk, but her progress was painfully slow. I had no idea how long we had until new dangers arrived.

I poured more qi into Terminus. More and more. I dug into my core, pouring my very life into my blade's chamber.

I didn't know Terminus' limit as to how much qi its resonant chamber could hold. Ordinarily, a growing pressure within Terminus pushed back against any new qi I sent into it. I took the maximum as the amount where the growing pressure made introducing any further qi too difficult.

Not this time. I pushed beyond the resistance, testing the limits of my Grandmaster's strength. My core spun, the qi turning into a narrow, dense stream of qi that flowed into Terminus. My hand and my sword's handle glowed yellow.

It was Ikari's exercise that pushed me beyond my previous limits. While I had failed to condense permanent sword qi, practicing that compaction of qi within my palm had made me sensitive to focusing qi in an external, nearby location. I reached for the qi swirling within Terminus' chamber and realized I could do the same, to a degree, to the qi within.

The qi coiled, much like a serpent, then spun and grew more compact, a tight ball that I could now feed with more new qi than I had ever thought possible. Unlike in Ikari's exercise, though, the chamber itself assisted in maintaining the structure I was forming. The ball of qi--almost another core, really--eagerly took on all the qi I poured into it, and for a second, I feared whether my own core would be bled dry.

That was as much as I dared. I pinched the conduit between my core and Terminus off. My qi crackled within my sword, eager to be put it to use.

"Move!" I shouted to Alanna.

She had cut about a third of the way through the trunk, but the rattling had been growing louder and louder. It could have been my imagination, but I swore I now heard faint hisses mixed in with the rustling of the leaves.

Alanna looked up at me, her face ragged from the maniac effort she had been putting into cutting down the strange tree. Her eyes flicked to Terminus. She nodded and stepped away.

I swung, not desperately, but with a light, delicate stroke across the partially-hewn trunk. The power wasn't from my muscles. It was from my life, given to my sword.

Terminus flared, and I shut my eyes, but a golden light seeped through my closed eyelids. In an instant, the compacted qi unraveled into a storm of power.

Cut. Kill. Destroy. I sent my will into my sword.

The trunk cracked, Terminus stuck for a brief moment within its wooden grasp. Then, an explosion of splinters and golden light sent me hurtling backwards. A cold, gray blindness washed over me, but when I blinked, I could see again.

The tree had fallen, its split trunk a jagged mass of broken wood. A stump remained in the ground, still rising several feet high.

Technique Acquired: Sword Core

Sword Core Rank: Lesser Expert

+5% Swordcraft class progress

+20 xp. Total: 845 xp.

The Breach Drill is now complete.

+5 xp. Total: 850 xp.

I didn't have time to study the blue words carefully. I quickly rose to my feet, setting Terminus in a guard position. "Naisha, do you see anything?"

I looked to my left and right. The others were sprawled on the ground. From the steady, quiet hum of auras, I knew they were alive but unconscious. I bent low besides each one but couldn't find any outward signs of injury.

"Leave them, boy," a low guttural voice called out to me.

I spun, my body low, Terminus ready. Someone was squatting on the broken trunk. A stain-streaked gray cloak with tattered ends was draped loosely over his hunched form. Long, mangy hair the color of mud mixed with vomit hid most of his lowered face. The stranger snapped a small fragment of the pale inner wood from the stump, then used the long splinter to pick at twisted, yellow teeth peeking out from beneath his hair.

When he lifted his head to look at me, I had to suppress an involuntary shutter. His eyes were empty, dark red caverns. The man laughed, and one of the eyelids flicked shut and back open in a bizarre echo of a wink.

"Don't just stand there and gawk. You're going to make me blush." The man leaped off the trunk in a loping motion that led with two outstretched arms like a cat or fox. He landed in a squat, then stood.

He had seemed small and formless when hunched, but standing straight, he was clearly taller than me. The cloak no longer hid the knotted muscles of his figure. His aura was completely absent.

I sent a rushing stream of qi into Terminus.

He tilted his head, the empty orbs of his eye sockets shifting to glance at my sword. "You know who I am."

There was only one obvious answer, although I was somewhat regretting it. The eyeless man laughed again, as if reading my thoughts.

"Say it," he said. "Who am I?"

I lowered Terminus. "Euleban."

"Go on," he said, raising his chin slightly in expectation.

"Instructor in Beastlore."

He still waited.

"Disciple of Hamu."

He made an impatient noise as he crossed his arms across his chest. "That's three tries. One last try."

I had known this was a possible outcome from when I had first formed a team with the others, and more recently accepted it as the only remaining outcome. I should have been more eager to reach this point finally, but I had to admit, I was a bit disappointed with the disheveled man's appearance. And I was hardly one to point fingers, but even I could make out the pungent odor of fermenting skunk wafting from his direction. Still, hidden within that strange figure was a path forward as a sword artist.

Or so I hoped.

I bit my tongue for a moment longer, then took a deep breath. This was no light moment. Perhaps the nobles didn't understand, but I did. Even if he wasn't what I had expected, I couldn't deny what he would become for me.

I sheathed Terminus, then bowed low to the ground. I straightened and met his marred face before finally speaking.

"Master."

He grinned.