The warehouse was exactly as Lia had described: hidden, warded, and filled with the accumulated knowledge of someone who'd spent their life studying forbidden magic.
Bookshelves lined three walls, crammed with volumes in half a dozen languages. Worktables held partially completed rune arrays and crystallized magic samples. A weapons rack displayed everything from ceremonial daggers to what looked like pieces of actual Forbidden Artifacts, each one sealed in containment crystals. And in the center of it all stood a portrait of a stern-looking woman in mage robes, her eyes seeming to follow visitors around the room.
"Your master?" Kaelen asked, looking at the painting.
"Magistra Elena Thorne," Lia confirmed, her voice soft with memory and grief. "The woman who found me in the ruins of Aelran, taught me rune magic, and gave me a purpose." She touched the frame gently. "The woman who died because she tried to purify a Mindbreaker wielder who'd already gone too far."
Kaelen looked at the painting with new understanding. Elena Thorne had kind eyes, despite the sternness of her expression. The kind of eyes that looked at broken things and saw potential for repair.
"She would have liked you," Lia continued. "She always said the most dangerous power wasn't the magic itself, but the person wielding it. And that the most important question wasn't 'how strong can you become,' but 'what will you do with that strength.'"
"What will I do with it?" Kaelen repeated, sitting heavily in one of the chairs. His entire body ached, and the Shadow Scars—twenty-nine now, thanks to Lia's sacrifice—felt like brands burned into his soul. "Honestly? Right now I'd settle for 'not turn into a monster and murder everyone I care about.'"
"That's a start," Ronan said, already exploring the warehouse's resources. He'd found a medical kit and was tending to the dagger wound in Kaelen's ribs with the efficiency of someone who'd patched up plenty of injuries. "But we need to think bigger. Marcus is still out there. The Cult is still active. And you just demonstrated exactly how powerful Soulrender can be, which means every power-seeker in three kingdoms is going to want to either claim that blade or kill you to prevent someone else from claiming it."
"Can't I just hide?" Kaelen asked. "Find some remote cabin in the mountains, never use the sword again, live out whatever's left of my life in peace?"
"Could you?" Lia asked, not unkindly. "Could you really sit in a cabin while the Cult corrupts Star Core nodes, while Marcus searches for the other Forbidden Blades, while innocent people die?"
Kaelen thought about the victim they'd rescued, about the near-sacrifice ritual, about the Shadow Lord's threat: *They all come to me. In time.*
"No," he admitted. "I couldn't. I'm cursed with a functioning conscience."
"Worst curse there is," Ronan muttered, taping a bandage. "There. You'll live. Probably develop a dramatic scar, if the shadow corruption doesn't consume you first."
"You're terrible at bedside manner."
"Never claimed otherwise." Ronan moved to Elena's bookshelves, scanning titles. "Alright, let's approach this systematically. Problem one: Kaelen has twenty-nine Shadow Scars and can't safely accumulate twenty-one more. Problem two: we need to find a way to use Soulrender's power without increasing the Scar count. Problem three: Marcus Blackwood has a thirty-year head start on understanding Forbidden Blades and is probably three steps ahead of us at all times."
"When you list it like that, it sounds impossible," Kaelen said.
"Most worthwhile things do." Ronan pulled down a volume bound in what looked like dragon hide. "But Elena Thorne didn't collect all this knowledge for nothing. If there's a solution, it'll be in here somewhere."
Lia joined him at the shelves, her fingers trailing over familiar spines. "Master Elena had a whole section on Forbidden Artifacts. She classified them by danger level, corruption type, and... historical precedent." Her hand stopped on a red leather tome. "This one. 'Accounts of Wielders, Volume Three: Those Who Survived.'"
She pulled it down and opened it on one of the worktables. The pages were covered in dense handwriting—Elena's notes, interspersed with copied texts from various sources. Lia flipped through, speed-reading with practiced efficiency.
"Here," she said finally. "A case from two hundred years ago. A man named Aldric Stormborn who wielded a Forbidden Blade called Voidfang—not one of the famous three, but a lesser artifact. He accumulated forty-seven Shadow Scars over ten years of fighting."
"Forty-seven," Kaelen said. "So, three away from transformation. How did he survive?"
Lia continued reading. "He didn't, exactly. According to this account, he entered a monastery of the Order of Balanced Light—a sect that believes in harmonizing opposing energies. They put him through something called the 'Trial of Stillness.'"
"Which is?"
"Meditation. Intense, ritualized, continuous meditation for six months. No magic use, no combat, no external stimulation. Just sitting with the darkness inside him, accepting it without being consumed by it." Lia looked up. "He survived. The Scars didn't disappear, but they stopped progressing. He lived another forty years as a monk, keeping the blade sealed, teaching others about the dangers of forbidden power."
"Six months of doing nothing," Kaelen said flatly. "While Marcus collects the other Forbidden Blades and the Cult runs rampant."
"It's an option," Lia said. "Not a good one, but an option."
Ronan had found another book, this one with a cover that seemed to absorb light. "Here's a different approach. 'Symbiotic Bonding: Achieving Balance with Corrupted Artifacts.' The theory is that instead of fighting the blade's corruption, you accept it as part of yourself and establish boundaries—mental partitions that keep the sword's consciousness separate from your own."
"I've been trying that," Kaelen said. "Maintaining that space of observation, like Lia taught me. But in the heat of battle, when I'm exhausted or injured, the sword slips through. It's getting harder to maintain the separation."
"That's because you're treating it like a battle," Ronan said, reading further. "This text suggests treating it like a negotiation. The sword has wants—power, souls, growth. You have wants—survival, protecting others, maintaining your humanity. Find the overlap. Give the sword what it needs in a controlled way, and it gives you access to power without overwhelming you."
*Interesting*, Soulrender commented in Kaelen's mind. The sword had been quiet since they'd entered the warehouse, but now it sounded almost... curious. *The old fool speaks wisdom. We need not be enemies, wielder. We could be partners.*
"What would that partnership look like?" Kaelen asked, speaking to both Ronan and the sword.
*Compromise*, Soulrender replied. *You want to use our power without accumulating Scars. We want to grow stronger. Solution: feed us in ways that don't corrupt you. Absorb ambient shadow energy from corrupted areas—like you did at the canal—rather than using our core power. The energy we consume doesn't add Scars to you.*
Kaelen relayed this to the others. Lia's eyes widened. "That... could actually work. If Soulrender absorbs pre-existing shadow magic from the environment, it's not drawing on Kaelen's soul. The blade grows stronger, Kaelen gets access to power, but the Scar count stays stable."
"With one catch," Ronan said grimly. "Where do you find ambient shadow energy? Corrupted areas. Places where the Cult has been working, where shadow magic has soaked into the environment. Which means..."
"Which means I have to go to exactly the places where the Cult is most active," Kaelen finished. "Hunt them down, disrupt their rituals, absorb the shadow energy they've been gathering."
"Turning you into a kind of... shadow scavenger," Lia said. "Cleaning up magical pollution while simultaneously powering your blade. It's elegant. Dangerous, but elegant."
*And it serves our purpose*, Soulrender added. *The Cult's crude magic is bloating the world with low-quality shadow energy. We could consume it, refine it, make it useful. They are wasteful children. We are an ancient weapon. There is no comparison.*
"The sword is weirdly prideful about magical efficiency," Kaelen observed.
"Most ancient artifacts are," Ronan said. "They were created by master craftsmen who built their pride into the very structure of the magic. Soulrender isn't just a weapon—it's a work of art. And like any artist, it hates seeing sloppy work."
Kaelen looked down at the blade resting against his chair. In the warehouse's warm light, Soulrender almost looked normal—just a sword, no shadows, no menace. But he could feel its presence in his mind, waiting, watching, assessing him as much as he assessed it.
"Alright," he said slowly. "Let's say we try this. Controlled hunting of Cult operations, absorbing ambient shadow energy, maintaining my current Scar count. What's the catch? There's always a catch."
Lia flipped through more pages of Elena's notes. "The catch is... the blade gets stronger, but you don't. Not directly. You're stable—not gaining corruption, but not gaining power either. Meanwhile, Marcus and the Cult are actively growing their capabilities. Eventually, they'll outpace you."
"Unless I supplement Soulrender's absorbed energy with actual training," Kaelen said. "Improve my swordsmanship, learn more about magic theory, develop techniques that don't rely on shadow power. Become a better fighter who happens to have a dangerous sword, rather than just a conduit for the sword's power."
"That's the idea," Ronan confirmed. "It's slower than just unleashing Soulrender and accepting the corruption. But it's sustainable. You could potentially fight for years without hitting the fifty-Scar limit."
"Years," Kaelen repeated, the word feeling both like a gift and a burden. Days ago, he'd been ready to die in a canal. Now people were talking about him living for years, fighting an endless battle against darkness with darkness as his weapon.
Was that better? He honestly wasn't sure.
Lia must have seen something in his expression, because she moved to stand beside his chair, her hand resting on his shoulder. "You don't have to decide right now. Rest first. Recover. Let me do some more research, see if Elena left any other insights."
"And I'll start reaching out to my old Shadow Hunter contacts," Ronan added. "Find out where the Cult is operating, where shadow magic is accumulating. If we're going to hunt corrupted sites, we need intelligence."
"What about Marcus?" Kaelen asked. "He's the real threat. Shouldn't we be focusing on stopping him?"
"Marcus has been playing this game for thirty years," Ronan said. "We're not going to outmaneuver him in a week. But we can disrupt his operations, reduce his resources, force him to react to us instead of executing his plans unopposed. It's not perfect, but it's a start."
Kaelen nodded slowly. It was a plan. Maybe not a great plan, but better than stumbling from crisis to crisis, accumulating Scars until he became a monster.
"I need sleep," he said finally. "Real sleep, not 'passing out from magical exhaustion.' Is there a place to crash in this warehouse?"
"Upstairs," Lia said, pointing to a loft area. "Master Elena kept living quarters. Basic, but comfortable. There's even a shower, if the runes that heat the water still work."
"A shower," Kaelen said reverently. "Actual hot water. I take back every mean thing I thought about your master."
Lia smiled. "She would have appreciated that. Go. Rest. We'll keep watch and start planning."
Kaelen stood, every muscle protesting, and made his way to the stairs. Halfway up, he paused and looked back at Lia and Ronan, these two people who'd become his unlikely allies in a war he didn't fully understand.
"Thank you," he said. "For coming back for me. For not giving up."
"Don't thank us yet," Ronan replied. "We might still get you killed."
"But we'll do it together," Lia added, her tone lighter. "That has to count for something."
"It does," Kaelen agreed. "More than you know."
He climbed the rest of the stairs and found the living quarters—a simple room with a bed, a small desk, and a window that looked out over Eredor's rooftops. He stripped off his ruined, blood-stained clothes, found the shower (the runes did work, blessedly), and stood under hot water for longer than was probably responsible, watching the grime and blood swirl down the drain.
When he finally emerged and collapsed onto the bed, Soulrender lay on the floor beside him, a silent presence, a patient predator, a tool waiting to be used.
*Partners*, the sword whispered as Kaelen's eyes grew heavy. *Not master and slave. Not victim and predator. Partners. Think on it, wielder.*
Kaelen did think on it, as sleep claimed him. And in his dreams, he stood in a vast library made of shadows, where a sword waited on a pedestal and a choice waited to be made. Behind one door, humanity. Behind another, power. Behind a third, barely visible, a narrow path that might—just might—let him have both.
He woke six hours later, more rested than he'd been in days, with the sun setting and the knowledge that the real work was about to begin.
The hunt for the Cult's operations. The race to stop Marcus. The endless balancing act between power and corruption.
Kaelen Voss's new life had truly begun.