Grief is a burden.
It is a stone that drowns you in a river of sorrow.
Purpose is a sword.
And Adrian had just forged his in the ashes of a dead village.
He walked away from the smoldering ruins of Silvercreek as the first light of dawn broke over the mountains. The gray light painted the world in shades of ash and bone. It was a world that now looked like the inside of his soul.
He did not limp.
The fire in his ribs was a roaring agony, but he locked it away in a cage of pure will. Pain was a reminder. It was a fuel. He would burn it to cinder, just like he would burn the Adamantine Order.
In his left hand, he clutched the small, crudely carved wooden wolf.
Its edges were rough against his palm. It was not a toy.
It was a promise. A promise to the dead girl, to his mother, to his father.
A promise of retribution.
He moved into the deep woods, the silence of the forest a welcome reprieve from the silence of the grave he had just left. He needed a place to mend. Not his soul. That was shattered beyond repair.
He needed to mend his body. The vessel for his vengeance.
He found a small, hidden alcove behind a curtain of icy waterfalls, a place where no patrols would ever think to look. The air was frigid, the spray of the falls a constant, biting mist.
He welcomed the cold. It matched the frost that had taken root in his heart.
He stripped to the waist. His torso was a canvas of bruises, a dark tapestry of purples and blacks from his fight with Tiberius. He ran a hand over his side. The broken ribs grated against each other with a sickening, wet crunch.
He had to set them. To leave them as they were would be a slow, crippling death.
He found two flat, sturdy pieces of bark from a dead tree. He tore long strips from his own tunic, the fabric his mother had once mended for him.
He ignored the pang of that memory. Such thoughts were a poison.
He took a deep breath.
And he slammed his side against a flat wall of rock.
Pain, white-hot and blinding, exploded behind his eyes.
The world dissolved into a haze of white light. He cried out, a sharp, guttural sound that was swallowed by the roar of the waterfall.
He felt the bones shift, a grinding, agonizing movement.
He did it again.
Another explosion of agony. His vision swam. He nearly blacked out.
He felt one of the ribs slide back into a semblance of its proper place.
It was not perfect. But it would have to do.
Gasping, sweating despite the cold, he wrapped the strips of cloth and bark around his torso, pulling them brutally tight. It was a crude splint, but it would hold. It would have to.
He had survived. He had mastered the pain.
This was his first new lesson. Pain was a thing to be used, not feared.
He sat, his back against the cold, damp rock, and allowed himself a moment. Not of rest. Of preparation.
He pulled his father's journal from its oilskin pouch.
He did not look at the list of names. He knew them by heart.
He flipped through the worn pages, pages filled with his father's thoughts on philosophy, on nature, on peace.
Words of a dead man from a dead world.
But there were other entries. Entries from his father's old life. Notes on his enemies.
His fingers found the page he was looking for. The entry was short, written in a cramped, urgent script, so different from his father's usual elegant hand.
It was a single name.
Lysandra.
The notes were brief, but chilling.
"She is not like the others. The brutes of the Order fight with steel and fury. They hunt prey. She does not. She hunts souls."
"Her title, 'The Silver Huntress,' is a misnomer. She is a whisper that becomes a blade. She learns her target's fears, their loves, their weaknesses. She does not break their bodies first. She breaks their minds."
"She uses hope as a lure. Mercy as a trap. She is the Order's scalpel, where the rest are merely hammers. To fight her is to fight a mirror. She will show you the monster inside yourself, and let your own doubt be the poison that kills you."
"Avoid her. Do not engage. She is a wound that cannot be healed."
Adrian read the words over and over.
She hunts souls.
A cold smile touched his lips for the first time since he had knelt in the ashes of Silvercreek.
Let her come.
How can you hunt the soul of a man who no longer has one?
He closed the journal. His father's warning was clear. Avoid her. Run.
His father was a man of peace who had tried to run. And now he was dead.
His mother was a woman of mercy. And now she was dead.
The people of Silvercreek were innocent. And now they were dead.
It was a day for new lessons. His father's lessons, the lessons of a good man, had led only to the grave.
It was time for the son to teach the world a different kind of lesson.
He stood, the pain in his ribs a dull, constant throb. A reminder.
He walked to the mouth of the alcove, looking out through the curtain of water at the gray, indifferent world.
He had thought his purpose was to kill the names on a list.
He saw now that his purpose was too small. His rage was too small.
To kill them one by one was vengeance. It was not justice.
It was not enough.
"You burn our homes," he whispered to the roaring water, his voice a low, cold promise.
"You slaughter our children. You call us beasts and traitors. You hunt us in the dark and call it righteousness."
"You think fear is your weapon. A tool to keep the world in line."
He held up the small wooden wolf, its form a dark silhouette against the bright, white water.
"You are wrong. Fear is not your weapon anymore."
"It is mine."
His vow was not a shout to the heavens. It was a quiet, deadly promise whispered into the heart of the mountain.
He would not just kill the men on his list.
He would dismantle their entire world. He would become the monster they whispered about in the dark.
He would make the name Volkov a curse on their lips again.
He would make the Grandmaster, the knights, the entire Adamantine Order feel the same cold, crawling terror they so freely dealt to others.
He would not just take their lives.
He would take their peace. He would take their certainty. He would take their hope.
He would hunt their souls.
He turned from the waterfall.
His mind was clear. The path was laid out before him.
Lysandra, the Silver Huntress, would be looking for him. She would be expecting a wounded, grieving boy, running scared. A mangled wolf easy to track and trap.
She would be hunting the boy who had died in Silvercreek.
He would not be there.
He would be hunting her.
He set off, moving north, not away from his pursuers, but toward them.
He was no longer reacting. He was no longer the hunted.
He was the trap.