The salt-crusted sand of the shoreline was the first thing Kael felt as consciousness returned—a gritty, abrasive reality that stood in stark contrast to the weightless, crushing dark of the abyss. He lay there for a long time, the tide licking at his boots, his breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches.
Every inch of his body felt like it had been put through a meat grinder and stitched back together with jagged wire. The curse was quiet for now, the moon having retreated below the horizon, but the "Stable Agony" remained. It was a dull, thrumming ache in his marrow, a reminder that his bones were no longer entirely his own.
Kael pushed himself up. His vision swam. He looked down at his hands—the skin was unnaturally pale, almost translucent, and traced with faint, violet lines that looked like lightning strikes beneath the surface. His travel-worn robes were gone, replaced by the shredded remains of the diving suit, which clung to him like the skin of a molting serpent.
He reached for the Stasis Ring. It was still there, but the white metal was spider-webbed with cracks. It hummed a discordant, broken tune. It could no longer fully hide him; his mana was leaking, a cold, oily scent that made the nearby beach-grass wither and turn black.
GO ON, the God's voice whispered, a faint rasp at the base of his brain. THE SUN IS UP. THE WORLD IS WAITING TO SEE WHAT THE MERCHANT BOUGHT WITH YOUR SOUL.
"Shut up," Kael croaked. His voice sounded like two stones grinding together.
He staggered toward the treeline. He needed clothes. He needed to hide. If a patrol of Academy mages saw him in this state, they wouldn't see a High Mage or a healer; they would see a Class-S Mana-Anomaly and execute him on sight.
He spent the first day in the dense coastal scrub, moving like a wounded animal. He used the last of his "White Sun" reserves to hunt a small deer, not for meat—he found the idea of eating stomach-turning—but for its hide. He used his "Healing Art" to clean the skin and shape it into a crude, hooded poncho. It was barbaric compared to the silks Sam had bought him in Cresthaven, but it covered the violet scars and the bloodstains that refused to wash out of his pores.
On the second day, he found the Old King's Road.
It was a secondary trade route, dusty and neglected, used mostly by peasants and small-time peddlers. Kael stayed in the shadows of the oaks, watching the world pass by. He saw a farmer singing to his oxen. He saw a group of children chasing a hoop. The normalcy of it was a physical blow to his chest. Only a few days ago, he had been one of them—a traveler with a friend and a dream. Now, he was a ghost watching the living from across a canyon of blood.
The sun was beginning to dip when the sound of a struggle reached his ears.
It was coming from a bend in the road where a small, broken-down cart sat. A mule lay dead in its traces, an arrow protruding from its neck. Standing over the cart were four men in mismatched leather armor—bandits, the bottom-feeders of the Oakhaven roads. They were laughing, tossing bags of grain onto the dirt.
A man, likely the father, lay in the mud with a broken nose, trying to crawl toward a young girl who was huddled under the cart's axles.
"Please," the father sobbed. "It's all we have. We're just trying to reach my brother's farm in the valley."
"Then you should have brought more gold, peasant," the largest bandit sneered, kicking the man in the ribs. "Since the mule is dead, we'll take the girl instead. She'll fetch a few silver in the dock-slums."
Kael watched from the brush. His heart hammered. The old Kael—the boy Elara had raised—wanted to leap out and heal the man, to cast a blinding light and drive the bandits away. But the God inside him had other ideas.
KILL THEM, it purred. WHY HEAL THE WEAK WHEN YOU CAN ERASE THE CRUEL? USE THE BLOOD, KAEL. SHOW THEM THE ART I TAUGHT YOU IN THE DARK.
"No," Kael whispered to himself.
He stepped out of the shadows. He didn't run. He walked, his footsteps heavy and uneven. He kept his hood low, the deer-hide poncho fluttering in the evening breeze.
"Leave them," Kael said.
The bandits spun around, their hand-axes and rusted swords snapping up. They looked at the lone, haggard figure. Kael looked like a beggar, or perhaps a leper.
"Beat it, wanderer," the leader spat. "Unless you want to join the mule."
Kael didn't stop. He was ten paces away. The pressure in his chest was building. The "Stable Agony" was beginning to vibrate, reacting to his rising anger.
"I won't tell you again," Kael said.
The leader signaled to the two men on his left. "Gut him."
The two bandits charged. They were fast for common thugs, swinging their blades in wide, clumsy arcs. Kael didn't draw a circle. He didn't even raise his hands.
He moved with a speed that felt wrong. His muscles, reinforced by the constant breaking and rebuilding of the curse, snapped like iron springs. He caught the first bandit's wrist.
Crack.
The sound of the man's radius snapping was loud in the quiet forest. The bandit screamed, but Kael wasn't done. He felt a surge of cold, violet mana leak from his cracked Stasis Ring.
The "Blood Weeper" effect triggered.
Because Kael was forcing his mana core, the God's influence over his pores intensified. Small droplets of blood began to seep from the corners of his eyes and his fingernails, turning his pale skin into a mask of gore. To the bandits, it looked like his face was melting into a nightmare.
Kael punched the second bandit in the chest. He didn't use a spell; he just used raw physical reinforcement. His fist went through the man's leather armor and shattered the sternum. The bandit was thrown twenty feet backward, his chest caved in as if struck by an iron ram.
The leader froze. His bravado vanished in an instant. "You... you're a monster. A demon!"
Kael turned his gaze toward the leader. The blood was now flowing freely down his cheeks like crimson tears. His eyes, usually a soft gold, were glowing with a muddy, violet light.
"I am a healer," Kael said, though the irony tasted like ash in his mouth.
He stepped toward the leader. The bandit panicked and lunged, his hand-axe burying itself deep into Kael's shoulder.
The father and daughter gasped. It was a mortal wound. The axe had bitten deep into the collarbone, and blood—Kael's dark, toxic blood—began to coat the blade.
Kael didn't even flinch. He looked at the axe in his shoulder, then back at the trembling man holding it.
"My turn," Kael whispered.
He grabbed the bandit by the throat. He didn't kill him. Instead, he channeled a tiny, focused burst of "Ancient Art" through his palm.
"Transmutation: Wilting of the Flesh."
The bandit's skin began to turn a sickly, mottled grey. His strength vanished. Kael tossed him aside like a bag of refuse. The remaining two bandits didn't wait to see more; they turned and fled into the woods, screaming about a "Blood-Ghost" and a "Dead Man Walking."
Silence returned to the road, broken only by the whimpering of the girl under the cart.
Kael reached up and pulled the axe out of his own shoulder. The sound of his flesh knitting back together—the wet, squelching sound of the curse's regeneration—made the father recoil in horror.
Kael walked toward the injured man. He wiped the blood from his eyes with his sleeve, though more was already taking its place.
"Don't... don't touch me," the father stammered, scrambling backward until he hit the cart wheel. "Please, monster... take the grain. Take the gold. Just leave my daughter alone."
Kael stopped. He looked at his hands—covered in his own dark blood, the fingernails jagged and stained. He looked at the girl, whose eyes were wide with a terror that went far deeper than the fear she had felt for the bandits.
He had saved them, but they didn't see a savior. They saw the very thing mothers told stories about to keep children inside at night.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Kael said, his heart breaking all over again.
He knelt, keeping a respectful distance, and flicked his wrist. A small, perfect golden ring appeared—the only bit of "White Sun" he had left.
"Heal," he commanded.
The golden light floated toward the father, mending his broken nose and the bruises on his ribs. The man's pain vanished instantly, but his fear remained. He touched his face, looking at Kael with a mixture of awe and revulsion.
"What are you?" the man whispered.
Kael stood up. He felt the full moon's lingering shadow tugging at his bones, a reminder that the next cycle was only weeks away.
"A traveler," Kael said. He reached into the cart and pulled out a tattered grey cloak. He tossed a small silver coin—one he had hidden in his boot—onto the man's lap. "For the cloak. And for the mule."
Kael wrapped the grey cloak over his deer-hide poncho and pulled the hood deep over his weeping eyes.
"Tell them the Blood Weeper was here," Kael said, the name tasting right for the first time. "And tell them he only hunts those who deserve to bleed."
He turned and walked into the forest, disappearing into the twilight before the father could even find the words to thank him.
As he walked, Kael felt the God laughing in the back of his mind.
THE BLOOD WEEPER, the entity purred. I LIKE IT. IT HAS A CERTAIN... WEIGHT TO IT. THE WORLD WON'T FORGET THAT NAME, LITTLE SUN. AND NEITHER WILL SAM WILLER.
Kael didn't answer. He just kept walking. He needed to find a city. He needed to find a library. And most of all, he needed to find a way to endure the next full moon without losing his mind.
He was nineteen years old, and he was already a legend of the dark.