Corren's POV
He was alone.
Not in the way most people feared. Not "no friends" or "no family" or "left behind."
No, he was alone like a blade before it was drawn. Quiet, coiled, and ready to strike.
The trees watched, but they did not speak. Not even the wind dared to move.
Corren crouched behind a gnarled root, his body still and his breath locked deep inside his chest. Only his fingers moved, gripping the cloth around his knife. He pulled it free with the care of a priest revealing a holy relic.
The blade pulsed. Black. Silent. Warm.
It always warmed up when it was near blood.
He didn't know why. Not fully. Not yet. But part of him understood it wasn't just steel. It was more. It remembered things.
It remembered his parents.
It remembered the screaming.
It remembered how the harvesters laughed while they carved.
Corren didn't laugh now.
He watched the man, Scar-neck, step away from the others. His boots thudded into the underbrush like he had never learned silence. He cursed loudly about "pissing too much ale" and stumbled behind a thick tree, grumbling.
Stupid.
Lazy.
Perfect.
Corren moved like smoke. A soft breath, a whisper. He crept until he was ten feet away, half-hidden in the thorns, his heart racing against the inside of his ribs.
Scar-neck turned. His eyes found Corren, and his eyebrows lifted, but only for a moment.
Corren had already stepped out of the shadows.
---
"Who the hell—"
Corren didn't wait.
He lunged, silent as a falling star. The blade in his hand blurred. He made a clean slice across the man's sword arm. The weapon fell before it could even clear the sheath.
"ARGH—!"
Corren's elbow struck the man's throat, cutting off the scream.
The man stumbled back, gasping.
Corren's scythe snapped free across his back. The chains clinked and locked into place with a soft click. The blade curved like the moon. Beautiful. Final.
The man backed up.
"You—You're just a—!"
Corren didn't reply.
He moved.
The scythe swept upward, the black blade slicing through the air and then bone.
Blood arced.
The harvester's body twisted mid-fall, his eyes still wide in disbelief.
He hit the ground in silence.
---
Corren stood over the body.
He waited.
Five heartbeats. Six.
Then he knelt and pressed a hand against the man's chest.
Still beating.
Still warm.
He drew a slow breath. It was the first one since the blade had left his hand.
"They always leave the heart."
That's what his father had said.
So he left.
"One down 7 to go." Corren smirked to himself