Book 2: Chapter 1: The Promise

  Cole Rourke did not arrive in time to save the man.

  He arrived in time to see the end of it.

  The road was a broken strip of asphalt that looked like it had been chewed on and spat back out. Wrecked cars sat at odd angles along the shoulder, doors hanging. Wind pushed dust down the street in thin waves, carrying the stink of burned plastic and old gasoline, the kind that clung in your throat even after you swallowed.

  Cole slowed as he crested the rise and saw them.

  A man lay in the dirt near the edge of the road, one hand outstretched as if he’d tried to crawl to someone and run out of strength halfway through. Dark blood had soaked into his shirt and turned the earth beneath him into mud. His chest rose in shallow, uneven pulls, each breath smaller than the last.

  Two thugs were stalking toward a woman and her two children.

  The woman, her platinum blonde hair a little matted and tangled, stood firm in front of her kids. It wasn’t bravado. Cole could see it in the set of her shoulders and the way her fingers trembled near her side. It was the posture of someone who’d already accepted she was outmatched, and decided she’d still make them work for it.

  The boy, maybe thirteen, held a determined expression. He stood close to his mother but not behind her. Cole caught the flicker of fear in his eyes. It was the fear of a kid who had just watched a man bleed out for them and realized the world did not care.

  The little girl was smaller, maybe eight or nine. She clutched the back of her mother’s jacket with both hands, knuckles pale. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears, and she wasn’t making a sound now. Her eyes were wide and fixed on the men with the kind of stillness that came when a child didn’t know what to do with terror.

  “Give us the artifact, lady, and you won’t end up like dear hubby there,” one of the men growled out.

  His voice was thick, like gravel in a blender. He was tall, with a shaved head and a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. Leather hung from him in strips, patched together. A crude sword was in his hand, blackened along the edge. A pistol sat at his hip, worn and oily.

  The other man was shorter, broader, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He rolled his shoulders as he walked, like he enjoyed the sound of fear ahead of him. His sword was ignited, actual flame licking along the steel, throwing orange light onto the cracked asphalt. A skill, almost certainly. The System rewarding the wrong kind of men, the way it always seemed to.

  “I don’t have it!” the woman snapped. “Stay back!”

  Her voice held a warning note, and Cole respected that. She took a step back, but she didn’t break. She didn’t run. She didn’t turn and abandon her husband’s body in the dirt. She was buying space, one step at a time.

  “Well, that’s a shame,” the second man said. “There’s no one coming to your rescue. Your little escort has been dealt with. Hubby is dying. It’s just you and us out here.”

  The first man laughed softly, and the sound made Cole’s skin crawl.

  “Leave us alone!” the boy yelled.

  His voice cracked on the last word. He hated that it did. Cole could see it. The kid wanted to sound older, more powerful. He didn’t have the ability to make his voice obey.

  “I don’t think so, kid,” the second man said. “Mommy dearest here is awfully pretty. Maybe after we have a little intimate contact she’ll give us what we want, right sweetheart?”

  The man’s grin was an ugly thing. Rotten teeth. Spit at the corner of his mouth. A look that said he’d already decided what was going to happen and was just waiting to enjoy the steps.

  The woman’s face went pale.

  Her jaw tightened so hard Cole could see the muscle jump.

  Which is about when Cole chose to step in.

  He had his own goal, to find Nathan, his son, and he had just made it out of the city. Getting involved in whatever this was didn’t serve him. It wasn’t his business. He had promised himself he would stop being pulled into every disaster that crossed his path.

  He’d told himself that after Hawthorne. After Caleb. After the graves and the crying and the way the world didn’t care what it cost to keep living.

  He’d told himself that if he kept stopping for everyone, he’d never reach Nathan.

  He’d told himself that a father had one job now.

  Find his boy.

  But Cole couldn’t do that.

  He couldn’t leave this family to the mercies of these men. He couldn’t watch a woman be treated like a prize and children be treated as collateral. Cole knew what happened next. He knew how that played out. He knew the kind of darkness that followed men who spoke like that.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  He also knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did nothing.

  His grip tightened on his crozier, which hummed in his hand.

  A vibration under his skin. The staff had felt like that more and more lately, like it knew when the world was about to get ugly and it wanted to be used.

  “I don’t think so,” he said calmly.

  Both men whirled around.

  The woman and her children’s gazes settled on him. The mother’s eyes widened, hope and fear colliding. The boy’s expression shifted into something fierce. Cole’s arrival proved the world still had heroes in it. The girl blinked once, slow, as if she didn’t fully believe Cole was real.

  Cole briefly allowed his eyes to fall on the younger child.

  A tiny image of the woman. Same pale hair. Same sharp chin. Same eyes, only wider and more innocent, and that innocence was a liability out here.

  “Who the fuck are you, buddy?” the taller thug snarled. “Better move along before you get hurt.”

  The threat was vicious, but Cole caught the weary light that had entered his eyes.

  Cole knew why.

  He held a crozier that didn’t belong in anyone’s hands but his. It was black and old-looking, and it carried a weight that made men hesitate even before they understood what it could do.

  Fear was still in the thug’s eyes, but it was mixed with calculation now. Predator logic. Is this worth it?

  Cole leaned somewhat casually on his crozier.

  Despite what someone might think looking at him, he wasn’t trying to look like some kind of badass.

  He really was tired of these encounters. The same script, different faces. The same hunger, different mouths. Something told him there would be more in his future, because that was what the Convergence did. It didn’t just bring monsters. It turned men into monsters too.

  Cole sucked a breath through his nose, the scent of everything flowing through his nostrils. It was hard to place the smell.

  What does an apocalypse smell like?

  It was dust.

  It was destruction and death and a lack of hope.

  It was blood, iron, and rust.

  It was burning, smoke, and the omen of violence on the horizon, always lingering, always close.

  He looked past the thugs again, just for a second.

  The man on the ground was still breathing, but it wasn’t much. His eyes were open. They were glassy.

  Cole’s stomach tightened.

  “You don’t want this fight,” Cole said, voice level. “Trust me. Go. Run away. I’ll let you.”

  He said it calmly, with a slightly tired inevitability. This was a choice he didn’t enjoy making but would make anyway.

  The thugs didn’t listen.

  They never listened. Men like this never believed in consequences until consequences were in their face. Cole searched them for the telltale patch that would mark them as Wrath members. He knew he hadn’t gotten every one of them. He didn’t see any, which meant they probably belonged to a different group of bandits.

  He was learning that about apocalypses.

  When the world went to the toilet, predators took advantage. They crawled out of whatever holes they’d been hiding in and started acting like the world owed them something.

  “Your funeral then, bruh,” the shorter one said.

  He lifted his sword slightly, and flame surged along it, brighter now, throwing warm light across his grin. The taller thug’s blade caught too, a lick of fire crawling up the edge.

  Cole reached up and rubbed his forehead.

  Not because he didn’t care.

  Because he did, and he was trying to keep the anger from turning him sloppy.

  He shook his head slightly, then sighed.

  When he looked up again, his resolve had hardened.

  “Choir of Verdict,” he intoned simply.

  Wings of shadow alighted from his back, there and gone, subtle enough you could miss them if you blinked. A force of judgment descended upon the area, an invisible weight slamming down.

  The men hit their knees.

  Their bodies buckled as if the world itself had doubled in gravity for them alone. The taller thug’s flaming sword dropped to the ground with a clatter, the fire hissing as it bit into dirt. The shorter one tried to keep his footing, teeth gritted, arms shaking as he fought the pressure.

  A black halo flared around Cole’s head.

  It drank light, the air around it dimmed slightly, as if the halo pulled brightness toward itself and swallowed it.

  The woman behind the thugs gasped.

  The boy stared.

  The little girl gave a small whimper and tightened her grip on her mother’s jacket.

  “You had your chance,” Cole said.

  “I don’t give second ones to the likes of you.”

  His next words ended it as his crozier highlighted their shadows.

  “Black Halo Lance.”

  Their shadows blasted out of the ground.

  They surged upward and coalesced into seraphic dark light, sharp and clean. The lances hit both men in the chest at the same time.

  They weren’t even able to scream.

  They turned to ash where they knelt, collapsing in on themselves as if their bodies had never been anything but dust waiting to be scattered. The fire on their swords went out with a hiss, leaving only blackened steel and a smell of burned hair.

  Ash drifted in the wind.

  The road went quiet except for one sound.

  The man on the ground taking another shallow breath.

  Cole looked at the family.

  The woman stared at the ash where the men had been, her mouth open slightly. Her hands were shaking. The boy stared at Cole with something like awe, but it was mixed with grief because his eyes kept pulling back to the body in the dirt.

  The little girl’s face crumpled and she finally started crying, silent at first, then louder, the sound raw and scared.

  Cole stepped past the ash and knelt near the dying man.

  He didn’t touch him at first. Moving him might make it worse. He didn’t know what kind of wounds he had. Cole had Mend potions, but he’d learned the hard way that even a potion didn’t fix everything if the body was already too far gone. And he didn’t know what supplies he’d need later.

  The dying man’s eyes found Cole’s.

  He looked younger up close. Stubble on his jaw. Sunburn on his cheeks. A wedding ring on his finger that was smeared with blood.

  His lips moved.

  Cole leaned closer.

  The man’s voice came out thin, wet.

  “Get…them…there.”

  Cole swallowed.

  His throat tightened in a way he hated. A way he didn’t have time for.

  The man’s eyes flicked toward the woman and the kids.

  Then back to Cole.

  Cole took out a mending potion, putting it to the man’s lips.

  “Take this,” he said.

  The man swallowed the liquid.

  Cole watched wounds start to close, but the man’s body thrashed once. Then went very still.

  Cole stared at the man’s corpse a moment later, unsure why his potion hadn’t worked. Frustrated that he had tried, and yet failed anyway.

  Cole nodded once, slow.

  “I will,” Cole said quietly. “I’ve got them.”

  Cole sat back on his heels.

  The woman made a broken sound behind him and dropped to her knees beside the body. The boy crouched too, hands hovering, not knowing where he was allowed to touch. The little girl pressed her face into her mother’s shoulder and cried harder.

  Cole stood.

  He felt the crozier in his hand, heavy, a verdict he couldn’t set down.

  He looked at the family again, and he didn’t pretend this was going to be easy.

  He didn’t pretend he wasn’t about to chain himself to another set of strangers when his son was out there somewhere.

  But he also didn’t pretend he could walk away.

  Cole said, “We should probably talk.”