A year had passed since Thael had become a Wraith. Just a year, and he was now commander of his own cadre. He was the youngest Wraith commander in the order's history at eighteen-years-old. He had advanced quickly, quietly, and with little, if any challenge. The Grey had decided their vote, and their vote would go unquestioned despite the vehement whisperings of the other commanders.

He looked upon his cadre.

Three men and one woman stood to attention in front of Thael, cloaked in darkness, as was he. Two of the men stood at least a head over the woman, the other man even shorter than her. The taller men, Gedwin and Garrod, were almost identical, save for Gedwin’s shaven head and Garrod’s cropped black hair and beard. Jophen, the smaller man, was boyish with matted straw hair. He looked an ordinary sort, but the lazy way he stared back glinted his callousness for all things.

The woman was different. They were all killers, yes. Some were born with that cold gleam in their eyes but this woman had been made, grey eyes hardened but not quite devoid of warmth.

“Jophen,” Thael said. “Named after the Gallant?”

Jophen flashed a smile. “My mother said my naming would be a prophecy. It seems I have proved it false.”

Thael faced the woman. “Your name was not in my report.”

“I was brought in from the mage order.” She was soft spoken. “I just achieved Wraithhood this morn.”

To be a mage and a Wraith was a rarity. Not all cadres held a mage within their ranks.

“Congratulations,” Thael said. "What is your name?”

“Verena.”

Thael stepped back to face the four of them. “I am Thael. A cadre is not a group of individuals, it acts as one. With our unity we can stand against many times our number. With planning we strike first before we are even answered. With knowledge we learn from the mistakes of those who came before us.”

One of the twins, Garrod, smirked underneath his black beard. “I reckon we all came before you.”

“I am eighteen, this is true. Do you question my ability as commander of this cadre based upon my age?”

Garrod’s smirk curled into a cruel grin. “I question your ability to even grow stubble within a week’s span, Commander.”

Thael nodded. “Your words don't wound, but you may try in the sparring yard. Follow me.”

He strode away, not even looking back to see if he would obey. Thael knew if they were to work together as one cadre they would need to learn respect. Life was a game of wills, and Thael would show them who was the deserved victor.

The headquarters of the Order of Wraiths was a small town in itself, a castle many times wider than it was tall, turrets linked by walled courtyards snaking along the low mountainside belonging to the Azure Range.

Thael descended stone steps and reached a terrace of dark earth where men and women sparred with all manner of training weaponry. All Wraiths had been trained to wield every sort of arms known to warfare, but every Wraith specialized in their own specific weaponry.

He lofted a wooden sword and took another from the rack of weapons. Twirling the swords with practiced ease, he turned to face his cadre.

“Garrod. Arm yourself. You as well, Gedwin. I shall spar with you both.”

The twins smirked.

“Very well, Commander,” Garrod grinned.

“We shall do as you ask,” Gedwin said.

Thael knew their weapons of choice. Garrod’s was a two-handed mace. The training mace was little more than a large mallet, hollowed to lessen its weight, though Garrod looked as if he could snap a bone easily enough with it. Gedwin wielded a wooden shortsword and a curving dagger known as a talon, a finger loop in place of a pommel. He was thinner than his twin, lean to Garrod’s stoutness, and his shaven face only sharpened his gauntness.

The thwicks and thwacks of wood quieted as the twins prowled round Thael. Garrod faced him, brandishing his mace, Gedwin circling. Jophen and Verena watched. Thael knew Garrod would attack first. Gedwin would wait for the right instant. It was a well proven strategy, near impossible to defend against, as you could not face both sides at once. So Thael would make the first move.

He dashed toward Garrod, ducking under the hasty swing that would have crushed his chest. He slid on the earth, still damp from the rain days past. Gedwin was close behind, but Thael used Garrod as a barrier.

“Stop swinging about, you fool,” Gedwin snarled.

Thael jumped back and sprung forward, stabbing Garrod in the gut and clipping the flat of his other sword across his chin. The man toppled sideways to the earth.

Gedwin attacked with vicious swiftness, his cloak whirling about with his strikes, the talon he wielded with his other hand goading Thael.

Thael slipped past a sword’s thrust. He was fast. Faster than him perhaps. Thael stepped back and waited, assuming a basic stance.

Gedwin frowned, feinting with his sword, talon ready to close the distance, but Thael did not move. It was even ground now. They both knew whoever attacked first would be open to the other’s counter blow, for such was their speed.

Gedwin paused. A moment passed, and he knelt, dropping his weapons.

“I submit,” he spoke, low and sullen, “Commander.”

Thael nodded, “Take Garrod to the medicus.”

He strode over to Verena and Jophen. The others continued their training, wood striking wood in a revived clatter.

“The rest of you,” Thael said. “We train as one cadre, and we sleep as one cadre. Your lodgings are in the upper quarters now. Number twenty-three. Do what you will. I will wake you in the morn.”

***

Thael stepped outside the castle gates. Its sentries were armored in shining plate, armed with sword and shield, garbed in the arch queen’s scarlet colors. Crimson banners draped over the stone walls, stitched with the black emblem of a screeching eagle spreading its wings. The castle served in the guise of an outpost needed for seemingly no intent nor purpose, and it would remain such, few knowing what lay at the other side of the mountain, even fewer allowed to cross there.

The village of Chegsda lay at the bottom of the mountain path snaking down from the keep. Evergreen trees surrounding the log houses, petering out before the Green Lake. The Order’s headquarters was tucked away into the northern range, past even the dwarven Range of Ryzark. Should an army even be able to reach it, the Order would simply relocate to another base.

He had spent less than four years of his life here. They had tried to break him those first years. You could not break what was already broken, however; you could only harden it and forge it anew in fire. Such was their training, and all the scars Thael bore from it had been branded into his mind.

He was cloakless and unarmed, garbed only in a black tunic and pants, marking him as a soldier of the keep. No weapons were allowed in Chegsda. No weapons were needed in a forgotten village on the outskirts of any map. Still the village residents squinted with distrust at his Haolan features. Thael was sure they did not even know of his mother's realm.

Most had settled here for a new life, most women brought over and selected meticulously for their lineage – if their fathers were veterans of the Reunification; if they met the minimum height. All carefully selected and bought for to further the cause of the Empire with the promise of something better. Thael almost pitied them. The rest were vagabonds or rogues seeking to escape their past lives. Thael knew you could not escape that which stared back behind closed eyes.

One turn to the left. Roughly a hundred paces, and he stood in front of a log cabin, pointed roof covered in peat moss, and knocked upon the door. It opened, a woman staring back at Thael. Her sharp hazel eyes glared with a sudden hate, nose flaring with shallow breaths, and she stepped forward to slap Thael across the face. She screamed and struck his chest, slender hands trying with feeble effort to make him feel. Thael wrapped his arms around her. She sobbed, shaking her head as her body trembled in his embrace.

A baby’s wail, high and forlorn, broke through the silence.

“What is its name, Kuhien?” Thael asked softly in Haolo.

The woman shivered, “Hiro.”

The pot of water simmered over the fire. Thael sat facing Kuhien over the square table. She took the cast iron kettle and poured the tea into two polished wood cups, the fragrance of jasmine spreading throughout the room. They continued in sullen silence. The baby, Hiro, was swaddled in his wooden crib, fast asleep.

“Is he mine?” His Haolo was stilted, awkward from disuse.

Kuhien scoffed, turning her head to one side. “Do you think I bedded with any other man?”

Thael caught her gaze. "I was gone a year, Kuhien. Any man who saw you would seek your hand. To touch you and… know your touch as well.”

Kuhien’s cheeks reddened. “More than a year’s span. I thought you had died. And you expect that you can return as if nothing has passed?”

She was as beautiful as ever. Pale delicate face soft even while her full lips were pinched with disdain.

“Have you been with another man?” Thael murmured.

“What if I have?”

“I haven’t been with any woman since I left,” Thael confessed. “All this time spent in other lands, I thought of you. I promised I was yours, just as you were mine.” He smiled without humor. “I longed for your warmth all those cold nights. To feel your embrace. To see your smile. I wanted nothing more.”

She stared at him, her eyes wells of umber that he could lose himself in. She trembled. “I mourned you for a year.”

Thael stood and Kuhien jumped upon him, legs wrapped around his haunches, their lips pressed together in a desperate frenzy. His mouth brushed her neck, Kuhien moaning softly.

“I waited for you,” she whispered. “Every day and night, hoping you would knock on that fucking door.”

“Well, now I’m fucking here,” Thael growled.

He carried her through to the bedroom. The fur blankets Thael had gifted to her were still there. Kuhien shimmied out of her long dark skirts, Thael unbuckling his pants. He melted inside her. She turned him onto his back with surprising strength and straddled him, gasping, “You are mine. Say it.”

“I am yours.”

She began to ride him, trembling, back arching, cords of her willowy neck quivering as she peaked.

She leaned to his face and hissed, “We… are not... finished.”

Once she was fully sated, she lay her head on Thael’s chest.

“Your scars,” she whispered. “Who did this to you?”

“They’re either dead or forgotten,” Thael said absentmindedly.

“I don't even know what you do. Why is there an outpost here, all the way in the northern range?”

“Why are you here?”

“Don’t avoid the question”

“I fight for the Empire. That is all you need to know.”

“And I will see you after another year has passed then?”

“I don’t know, Kuhien. I go where the Empire needs me.”

“I need you,” she whispered fiercely. “Your son needs you.”

“I will be here. Not every day, but I will return.”

“And will Hiro be taken to the keep, and never return as the others?”

“They’re taken to be trained as soldiers of the Empire, just as I was.”

“So Hiro will bear the same scars as you?”

“Perhaps he will… I must go.” Thael rose from the bed.

Kuhien caught his wrist. “And will you go as Hiro grows, your son without his father’s guidance? He’ll be shunned here, an outsider just from his blood.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “Come away with me. Let us take Hiro elsewhere, anywhere but here. Somewhere where he will not bear any scars. Where you won’t have any more.”

Thael turned away. “I will return.”

Thael contemplated Kuhien’s words as he made his way up the path back to the keep. He wondered why he even bothered. The Order would kill them both and Hiro for deserting. There was even a cadre assigned for such a task, the Venatorii – hunters of their own kind. Active duty Wraiths remained active until death, or when they Greyed. Thael had never thought about what would happen if he lived to Greying. What he would do. How he would live. The thought stirred a restless gnawing in his belly.

The ferry crossing the Green Lake arrived weekly for supplies and rations, handled by the garrison on the other side at the farming town of Brigsden. There was no escape from the island, not by terrain or flight. The wrynn were guarded day and night, and even then Thael would need a flyer. Except there was only one flyer per cadre, and Jophen was as trustworthy as a fox’s bloodied snout. Escape was improbable, their survival impossible.

Dusk had ebbed away to night as he approached the keep. The winds were low, the moon high, and Thael walked past the crenellated stonework rising with the mountainside. Moonlit staircases and ramparts were his only companions now, there were no guards in the upper quarters. Only men and women who lived to kill, and killed to live.

Two hundred paces, a turn to the left, two doors to the right. The number twenty-three had been forged in steel and nailed to the door. There were no locks here. No need when Wraiths had been trained to kill intruders barehanded. Weapons were secured in the armory, only needed in the field. Thael opened the door.

Low curses and a man’s panting. They held down Verena, her legs forced open. Garrod was holding down her arms, Gedwin clamping a hand over her mouth and spreading one leg outward. Thael could see the wildness in her shining eyes, neck thrashing as Jophen held her other leg in place and continued to thrust his buttocks forward, the cot squeaking and shuddering with each motion. The boyish man turned with a filthy grin plastered from end to end upon his face.

“Do what you will, isn’t that right Commander?” he asked. “I’m just about done now. Do you reckon a turn?”

Thael closed the door, stepping closer. Verena’s words were muffled within Garrod’s hand. One bare breast heaved. She stared at him, grey eyes caught in helpless terror, pleading. Thael saw someone else in those eyes. He imagined those same eyes in Kuhien’s face and lurched to Jophen, grabbing his chin and neck, cranking it aside with a satisfying crack of bone.

He then rushed to tackle Gedwin, for he was the swifter of the two brothers. They scuffled against the hard stone floor, Thael gouging his eyes with both thumbs, blood welling past Gedwin’s screams. He stood up to stomp his boot heel against Gedwin's throat.

Garrod roared, releasing Verena and rushing towards Thael. They grappled and he threw him against a wall, Garrod trying to strangle him against the hard stone. Thael stomped on Garrod’s bare foot and he howled, but his grip only tightened.

A rush of hissing air with a faint spray of blood made Garrod pause, his stranglehold slacken. He released Thael, who slumped to the floor, and he saw Garrod’s neck sliced through, blood flowing black in the darkness. Verena stood behind him, sword raised. Garrod knelt and collapsed face-first, gurgling all the while.

Thael rose unsteadily to his feet.

“Get yourself changed,” he said.

“We killed our cadre,” Verena said, frozen in place. “The Grey will have us executed.”

“No. They ambushed me for revenge over today’s sparring. You tried to stop them.” Thael leaned against the wall, grunting, “I am their best Wraith in service. They won’t waste me and a mage. Repeat my words, and we will live. Do you understand?”

Verena nodded, repeating his first words.