Ilya’s eyes met mine, and she raised an eyebrow with a hint of a smile on her face.

  The mana thread tying us together tingled. The tingle went down and tapped at the ice seed just underneath my spine.

  I stopped it.

  A mana thread was a delicate construct of mana. It was something that I couldn’t make. Ilya, on the other hand, was used to her mana and the mana all around us. That allowed her to create these invisible threads that helped us connect. To put it simply, she created them, and my mana just responded.

  And now, connected as we were, we could communicate. Not with words, but with something more akin to body language.

  My mana grabbed the thread, and I loosened my grip with a wince. I had to be delicate. And that was hard. My usual approach to everything was to push mana into a spell and shoot. This was more like using a quill on a floating sheet of paper. You couldn’t press your hand on the thread, or it would break.

  I slowly reached out to the thread again and nudged it up towards my death seed.

  The thread hummed and pulled at me. Instinctively, I looked up and met Ilya’s exasperated eyes. She narrowed them at me.

  Her expression said it all. She was asking, Really? You want to go with your biggest spell right at the start?

  I nodded slightly.

  Baron Shea, who was waiting for Ilya to respond, tapped his clawed foot and asked, “So what will it be, Ilya Truechild? Are you coming down, or should we start tearing chunks off your brother?”

  Ilya ignored the threat and kept eye contact with me, her expression pensive. Her thread moved to the spot where Baroness Enis’s paws were holding onto me and tapped it. I don’t know how she did it, but her mana thread seemed to ask, What about the drake?

  I hesitated. Not because I didn’t know how to answer that question, but because I didn’t know how to send an answer.

  Ilya’s thread buzzed with irritation. It moved up to my head and flicked my forehead. It seemed to say, Visualize the answer.

  I blinked and sent her an image of a wind blade shooting towards me.

  The mana thread tying us together slackened in her moment of shock.

  “Manaborn. Answer me,” Shea pressed.

  “Maybe I should rip this one’s ear off and eat it.” Enis’s drool dripped down my shoulder. Her tongue flicked out and licked my earlobe.

  I tugged at the mana thread and sent the image again.

  Ilya looked at me with disbelief written plainly on her face. I pushed the image again. She shook her head with panic in her eyes.

  “Is that a no?” Enis asked with greed in her voice.

  “Last chance, Truechild,” Shea said, pointing at me with a smile. “Come down, or Baroness Enis will start eating him.”

  I looked at Ilya with pursed lips and shouted, “Ilya! Shoot me!”

  “What is this?” Shea turned to look at me. “Ready to sacrifice yourself, boy?”

  Enis’s snout sniffed me. “If you want to die, I can make that happen.”

  I looked at Ilya and pushed the thought to her again. This time with all the intensity I could manage.

  Ilya closed her eyes and nodded.

  “Good,” Shea said with a satisfied smile.

  Enis let out a disappointed click and, in a bored tone, muttered, “Predictable.”

  Do it, I mouthed.

  Ilya opened her eyes and looked at me with a fierce expression. Her hand came up.

  I took in a sharp breath. Ilya gritted her teeth, and her hand slashed sideways.

  A screeching wind blade shot towards me.

  Enis stiffened. Her clawed hands began to let go. Her legs lowered to jump out of the way.

  I raised my one working arm and grabbed hers. Before she could free herself, I lowered my upper body and turned. The Damned Baroness’s weight landed on me. With a grunt of effort, I threw her over my shoulder—right into the path of the screeching blade.

  The blade dug into her back. Scales parted. Flesh broke, and blood gushed out into the wind, creating a crimson mist.

  For a brief second, everyone looked at me in shock.

  I looked at Ilya, annoyed, and huffed, “Finally.”

  Ilya’s eyes widened. “Voss, watch out!”

  I turned and saw the rest of the Damned rushing at me with snarling teeth.

  I exhaled, and with the release of my breath came dark, dull black wisps of mana melded with my essence. I looked down at my hands and saw flesh slowly smoking away. It all turned into a darkness that began to cover the ground all around me.

  It didn’t hurt. It felt freeing. I felt like I had been trapped in a box for too long, and now I could stretch and arch my back. It was natural. I was Manaborn. My body was mana, and now it was free to spread.

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  Behind me, Ilya’s arms began to slash left and right. Wind blades impacted the charging Damned, staggering them. The rest vaulted over their stunned companions and rushed me.

  I let them come.

  A wave of cold rushed out of me. It met with the snow falling from the sky and surged towards the enemy. This time, they were prepared for it. Sparkling embers from the rushing Damned sped forward, meeting the wave of cold and stopping it.

  I let go, and another wave followed the first. A wave of dark death.

  The Damned skidded to a stop and waited for the wave to dissipate. It didn’t. It began to move forward, reaching out, blanketing the first few in line in seconds, and sweeping over the others.

  They didn’t realize what they had walked into. Because for those trapped in the darkness, there was nothing to hit, nothing to claw at.

  Just two floating silver eyes looking back at them. And a Reaper's soul that stared with cold certainty.

  These creatures thought they were immortal. They thought they had the right to do anything they wanted. They thought they could overthrow order and break the cycle of life and death. That could not be allowed.

  Essence gathered. A long dagger of darkness formed in the air in front of me. Bony fingers wrapped around the hilt and snatched it from the air. There were no thoughts. There was no pain from an injured shoulder. There was just a Reaper in the darkness of death.

  And in the darkness of death, the Reaper was everywhere. He moved at the speed of thought.

  In a glance, I appeared in the middle of two Damned.

  Left. Right. Left. Right.

  I slashed. Tearing into two lizard torsos, gutting them until their insides spilled out. I took a step forward, covering the gap between me and the three behind them in an instant.

  Up. Right. Slash. Back.

  A Damned thought he could hit me. It thought it was the predator. Its claws tried to tear into my flesh, but there was nothing to tear. Its strike merely jostled me.

  I looked down. A chest plate made out of ethereal darkness appeared just over my… were those ribs?

  The Damned looked up. My silver eyes reflected in its yellow ones.

  I was the silent hunter. In the dark waters, I hadn’t had flesh to tear or bones to break. In the world they called Gaia, I did. I looked at the claw trying to rip through the chest plate to break apart my bones.

  A furry ferret made out of white wisps appeared on my damaged shoulder and scarpered down to bite into the hand trying to crush me. Rustle was not happy.

  The Damned recoiled, pulling its hand back. I didn’t let the creature retreat. I slashed down. The Damned's head split open, and my dagger broke inside it.

  Rustle chittered in anger at the limp creature on the ground. He climbed into my palm, and I stroked the little soul's head. His head tilted and turned to the right. I followed his movements and saw a Damned rush into the cloud on three legs.

  Rustle pointed his nose at the creature and disappeared back into me.

  I created a new dagger and followed my armor’s instruction. I was in the middle of a battle; there was no time to dawdle. In the blink of an eye, I was next to the injured Damned. Its leg had been cut off clean and was gushing blood—Ilya’s work.

  The Damned looked up, horror dawning in its eyes.

  Stab. And slash.

  The Damned’s scream stopped as its head parted from its shoulders.

  Something hit my back with a thud. The plate on my back took the blow. I turned to look at it. A rock?

  Rustle appeared again, apparating out of my bones. He pointed to the left and chittered at me. I looked at him and then to where his nose was pointing.

  I sidestepped, dodging another thrown rock. Rustle chittered harder. I rushed towards whoever had thrown it.

  Two Damned, both injured, appeared in the dark cloud. A step, and I appeared next to them. They tried to turn. They tried to retreat out of the death cloud.

  Stab. Stab. Slash. Rip.

  My dagger crunched and broke as I gutted the last one. It screamed and tried to run.

  There was no outrunning death. It was here for them. I was just the tool that brought it.

  I tried to make another blade and hit a wall. I had no more essence to pull on.

  I raised a finger. It was made of pale, translucent bone. It shone like a crystal in the dark cloud of death. Rustle appeared again, sitting atop my forearm. He chittered loudly and bared his teeth.

  A bolt formed on the tip of my finger. The Damned looked back at me and at Rustle. There was wild fear in its eyes. Its lower half no longer worked, but it still tried to crawl away.

  The bolt thwacked into the back of the creature’s brain. I put it out of its misery.

  Rustle stood up on his hind legs, chittering a victorious cry. His eyes suddenly widened, and with a yelp, he was sucked back into me.

  I looked at the spot where Rustle had been sitting. Then my mind staggered. My feet swayed. My locked jaw opened on its own. I took in a loud, gasping breath.

  All the death, the dark mana, and the essence rushed into me with a loud whoosh.

  It was jarring. A moment ago, I hadn’t had lungs. They took form, and I began to breathe noisily again. Muscles formed over my bones, and skin began to itch as it encased the muscles. My heart thumped, carrying blood to my extremities, and a sensation like pins and needles prickled all over my body.

  It took a handful of seconds for all the sensations to settle, but they did. I breathed in calmly and slowly. My wobbling legs steadied.

  I looked down and saw flesh still forming to cover my muscles and bones. Clothes appeared in strips, created out of something I didn’t understand. I raised my hands and blinked. The dark tendrils of death looked deeper. Far deeper than they had been. Now they didn’t share the same crevices with the blue streaks of ice on my skin.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw a wind blade screech into a Damned. Dust and rocks flew up with the impact. The Damned howled in pain and tried to scrabble back to his feet.

  Another blade followed. This one ripped into the creature diagonally.

  The Damned let out a whimper and transformed back into a man. He was naked and bloody. He raised his head and held up his one working hand; the other had been cut off at the elbow.

  His greying eyebrows came together in consternation as he looked at me standing atop a mound of dead Damned. “Ha… How?” the old man asked.

  “Reaper,” a middle-aged woman gasped as she scrambled away from me.

  A wind blade bit into the old man’s neck and took his head off his body.

  I turned towards the woman. She startled, pushing herself away quicker. Her nails dug into the snow-covered ground, and her legs pushed the rocks away.

  I took a step, then another, and a third.

  The woman screamed, “I… I submit! Mercy!”

  I frowned. There was no mercy for the Damned. They were predators, and they needed to be culled.

  “Voss. Stop.”

  I leaned down and picked up my fallen sword. I didn’t have the essence to make a dagger, but I still had a sword.

  “Voss. Listen to me, you stubborn kraken. Stop!” Ilya shouted.

  Kraken? What in the Blight was a kraken?

  I looked at Ilya questioningly.

  “We need information,” Ilya said from the middle of the now almost silent tornado.

  “Yes. Yes. I will tell you anything. Just keep that away from me,” the woman pointed at me.

  Why did her voice sound familiar? I looked at her, and it hit me. This was Baroness Enis. She was young—well, youngish. Why had someone in the middle of their life damned themselves? I frowned.

  “Voss. Don’t do it,” Ilya ordered and added, “We need proof that Tyran has betrayed us. She can give us that.”

  I looked up at Ilya with furrowed brows. “But we already know that he has damned himself.”

  Ilya covered her face with her palms. From behind her hands, she explained in a frustrated tone, “That is not how it works. You can’t dethrone a duke just like that.”

  “We can’t just kill him?”

  “No. The Empire has laws.”

  I gave Ilya an annoyed look and growled, “But she is a Damned.”

  Ilya responded in a calming voice, “Yes, brother, we will take her prisoner and put her in a cell. Until she tells us everything she knows.”

  Enis looked at Ilya and began to ramble in fear. “I will tell you everything. I will tell you anything you want to know. Just… just keep him away from me.”

  Ilya looked at me with a frown and then shook her head with a smile. “See… she has already agreed.”

  I shook my head in disgust. “I should kill her.”

  Ilya glared at me. “No, Voss. I should kill you.”

  I blinked and looked at Ilya, who was lowering herself closer to the ground. “Me? Why?”

  “Shoot me?” Ilya folded her arms.

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  Ilya chuckled. “You need to heal that arm.” The smile faded from her face, and she growled, “So that I can break it again.”