The camp smelled of blood and ash.
Kael sat with his back against the palisade, breathing hard, his body trembling from the battle. The chains inside him had finally stilled, but faint wisps of shadow still curled from his skin like smoke. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw them—Ash-Bound raiders screaming as the shadows dragged them down, their eyes wide with terror before dissolving into nothing.
The whispers hadn't stopped. They had only grown hungrier. More. More. Feed. Bind. Become.
He buried his face in his hands.
Across the camp, survivors whispered too. He heard fragments as they patched wounds, buried their dead, and whispered around the fires.
"Did you see what he did?"
"He's not human."
"Binder… cursed…"
"…a weapon, maybe…"
The words stabbed deeper than any blade.
Brann found him hours later. The veteran sat down heavily beside him, sword laid across his knees. His face was grim, beard crusted with ash and blood. He smelled of iron and smoke.
"You held the line," Brann said quietly.
Kael looked up, startled.
Brann didn't meet his eyes. "Without you, they'd have taken the camp. Everyone would be dead. Remember that."
Kael swallowed. "They're afraid of me."
Brann gave a dry laugh, bitter. "Good. Fear is better than greed. At least fear keeps people at arm's length."
"That's not what I want."
Brann turned finally, his gaze hard. "Then you shouldn't have lived in the Dusk."
Kael flinched. He wanted to argue, but what words could he use? He hadn't chosen this. He hadn't asked for chains. He hadn't asked for hunger that gnawed at him until his bones ached.
The whispers stirred at his despair. Don't deny us. We are your choice now. We are your truth.
He pressed his fists against his chest, shaking.
Brann said nothing, only sat in silence, as though he knew words wouldn't help.
Later that night, Selene found him too. She drifted from the shadows like mist, her silver eyes glowing faintly in the firelight.
"Quite the display," she murmured. "I thought you would burn out. Instead, you bloomed."
Kael's jaw tightened. "You told them. You told everyone what I was."
Selene smiled faintly. "They would have learned soon enough. Better they fear you now, than covet you later."
"Fear doesn't help me!"
Her silver eyes sharpened. "Does it not? No one will dare touch you now. No one will try to bind you, or bleed you, or sell you to the Ash-Bound. Fear is a shield, Kael. You only have to learn to wear it."
Her words chilled him. "You speak like you've seen this before."
Her smile deepened, but she said nothing more. She simply melted back into the dark, leaving him with his thoughts.
By morning, the camp had changed.
The dead were burned. The wounded moaned under makeshift tents. Everyone else gave Kael a wide berth, whispering as he passed. Children stared, then hid their faces.
Kael couldn't stand it. He fled to the broken wall, staring out at the crimson horizon. The Dusk stretched endlessly, broken towers jutting from the earth like teeth.
He wondered if anywhere in this cursed place he could simply be himself.
But when he closed his eyes, all he heard were chains.
Brann gathered them that afternoon. Kael, Selene, a few others. His voice was sharp.
"The Ash-Bound won't give up. This raid was only the first. They'll come back, with more. We can't stay here."
"Where, then?" one of the scarred guards demanded. "Every ruin is crawling with beasts. Every valley is haunted. Where do we go?"
Brann's jaw tightened. "East. Toward the Spire of Dusk. There are still strongholds there. Walls. Order."
Selene tilted her head. "And chains," she murmured.
Brann glared at her. "Better chains of law than chains of hunger."
Kael said nothing. But the whispers laughed.
That night, as Kael lay awake, he realized something terrifying.
He had felt the shadows pull back during the battle. Not just hunger, but resistance. They had fought him.
And he had won.
But what if next time, they won instead?
The thought left him cold long after the fires died.