The forest at night was a different world.
I'd spent my entire life within the walls of House Thorne, where nature was manicured gardens and controlled landscapes. The wild forest beyond the estate was something else entirely—ancient trees whose canopies blocked out the moonlight, undergrowth thick enough to hide anything, and sounds that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Every crack of a branch, every rustle of leaves, every distant call of a night creature sent my hand to the knife at my belt. The blade was small, meant for kitchen work, not combat. Against a wild beast or hostile mage, it would be worse than useless.
But I had something else. Something those potential threats didn't expect.
I walked for hours, putting as much distance as possible between myself and House Thorne. My plan was simple: head east through the forest until I reached the main road, then follow it toward the border settlements. From there, I could hire on with a caravan heading toward the Crimson Wastes, or simply continue on foot if necessary.
The forest floor was uneven, roots and rocks hidden by darkness and fallen leaves. I stumbled more than once, catching myself before falling. The travel pack on my back felt heavier with each hour, and my legs burned from the unfamiliar exertion.
I'd trained in combat and athletics as part of my noble education, but that was controlled exercise in the training yard. This was different—sustained movement through hostile terrain, with no rest, no water breaks, just the constant need to keep moving.
By the time the first hints of dawn began to lighten the eastern sky, I was exhausted. My shirt was soaked with sweat despite the cool night air, my feet ached, and my stomach growled insistently.
I needed to rest, but not here. Too close to the estate still. I forced myself to keep walking, following a deer trail that led generally eastward.
As the sun rose, the forest transformed. What had been ominous shadows and unknown threats became merely trees and bushes, ordinary and mundane. Birds sang their morning songs, insects buzzed, and shafts of golden sunlight pierced through the canopy.
I allowed myself to relax slightly, though I kept alert for danger. According to the maps I'd studied in House Thorne's library, this forest—the Everwood—was relatively safe. No major predators, no hostile settlements, just a stretch of wilderness between noble estates and the outer regions of the Aurum Empire.
Relatively safe. Not completely safe.
Around midday, I found a small stream cutting through the forest. I knelt beside it gratefully, refilling my waterskin and drinking deeply. The water was cold and clean, tasting of minerals and earth. I splashed some on my face, washing away the grime of the tunnel and the night's trek.
I needed to eat and rest, but stopping here felt exposed. The stream was a natural landmark—anyone tracking me would check water sources.
I followed the stream eastward for another hour before finding a suitable spot: a small hollow beneath the roots of a massive oak tree, hidden by ferns and partially sheltered by an overhang of earth. It wasn't comfortable, but it was concealed and defensible.
I crawled into the hollow, shrugged off my pack, and allowed myself to collapse against the tree trunk. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest. I'd never been this physically exhausted in my life.
I pulled out some of the dried meat and hard bread I'd stolen from House Thorne's stores and forced myself to eat slowly, though my instinct was to devour everything immediately. Food needed to last. I had maybe two weeks' worth if I rationed carefully—enough to reach the border regions, but not enough to make mistakes.
As I ate, I took stock of my situation.
I was one day from House Thorne, maybe twenty miles based on my pace. Not nearly far enough if Father decided to send people after me, but better than nothing. I had supplies, a destination, and a power that nobody knew about.
On the negative side, I was completely alone, had minimal combat experience, didn't know how to survive in the wilderness beyond basic theory, and was heading toward the most dangerous region in Valdrian.
When I laid it out like that, the whole thing seemed insane.
But there was no going back. Even if I wanted to—which I didn't—returning to House Thorne would mean admitting defeat, accepting permanent servitude, watching my half-siblings rise to greatness while I cleaned their floors.
I'd rather die in the Crimson Wastes.
I finished eating and settled back against the tree trunk, intending to rest for just a few hours before continuing. But exhaustion claimed me almost immediately, pulling me down into deep, dreamless sleep.
I woke to the sound of voices.
My eyes snapped open, my hand instinctively reaching for the knife at my belt. The sun was lower in the sky—I'd slept for hours. Late afternoon by the look of it.
The voices were getting closer. Male, at least three of them, speaking in low tones.
"...fresh tracks by the stream. Someone passed through here recently."
"Could be a hunter from one of the estates."
"Could be. Or could be something more interesting. Check the area."
Bandits. Had to be. The Everwood was supposed to be safe, but safe was relative. There were always desperate men willing to prey on travelers, especially this close to the border regions where law enforcement was sparse.
I stayed perfectly still, barely breathing, listening as the voices spread out. Footsteps crunched through the undergrowth, moving in a search pattern.
"Over here! I found something!"
My heart sank. They'd found my tracks.
"Looks like someone stopped by the stream. Prints heading east."
"Follow them. Whoever it is, they can't be far."
I had maybe minutes before they found my hiding spot. I could try to run, but I was tired and they were fresh. They'd catch me within a hundred yards. I could try to hide and hope they passed by, but if they were experienced trackers, they'd find me.
Or I could fight.
Three against one, with me having no real combat experience and a kitchen knife as a weapon.
Unless I used the void.
The thought sent a thrill of fear and excitement through me. I'd practiced erasing inanimate objects, but never on a living person. Never in actual combat. I had no idea how it would work, if it would even work.
But I was about to find out.
The footsteps were getting closer. I could hear someone pushing through the ferns near my hollow.
"Hey, I think I see—"
I exploded out of the hiding spot, surprising the bandit who'd been about to discover me. He was a grizzled man in his thirties, wearing mismatched leather armor and holding a short sword. His eyes widened as I lunged at him.
I didn't go for the knife. Instead, I reached out with my hand and the void.
The moment my palm touched his chest, I pushed.
The bandit's scream cut off mid-sound as his chest simply ceased to exist. A perfect sphere of nothingness appeared where my hand made contact, erasing flesh, bone, organs, armor—everything within six inches of the contact point.
He collapsed, dead before he hit the ground, a horrific cavity where the center of his torso used to be.
I stared at my hand, at the corpse, at what I'd just done.
I'd killed a man. Erased part of him from existence.
The void pulsed in my chest, satisfied, hungry for more.
"Marcus!" One of the other bandits shouted. "Marcus, where—oh gods!"
Two more men burst through the undergrowth, both armed with swords, both stopping dead when they saw their companion's corpse.
"What the fuck—" the first one started.
I didn't give him time to finish. I was already moving, adrenaline and the void's hunger driving me forward.
The second bandit reacted faster than his companion, his sword coming up in a defensive position. He was younger, maybe mid-twenties, with the lean build of someone who lived by fighting.
"Stay back!" he shouted, his sword leveled at me. "I don't know what kind of magic that was, but steel works on mages same as anyone—"
I grabbed the blade with my bare hand.
The void flowed down my arm, covering my palm in nothingness. The moment my hand closed around the steel, the sword began to dissolve. Metal turned to nothing, spreading from my grip toward the hilt.
The bandit's eyes went wide with terror. He tried to pull the sword back, but it was already half gone. In seconds, he was holding just a hilt with no blade.
I stepped forward and pressed my hand against his throat.
His scream was brief. Then silence.
The third bandit—an older man with a scarred face and the look of someone who'd seen real combat—took one look at his dead companions and ran.
Smart.
I watched him disappear into the forest, my hand still outstretched, void energy crackling around my fingers like black lightning that ate light instead of producing it.
Slowly, I pulled the power back, forced it to retreat into my chest. The hunger remained, a gnawing need for more destruction, more erasure.
I looked down at the two corpses. The first with a cavity in his chest. The second with most of his neck and jaw gone.
I'd done that. With a touch. With barely any effort.
I should have felt horrified. Should have been vomiting or crying or shaking with shock at my first kills.
Instead, I felt... powerful.
The void had performed exactly as I'd hoped. No long incantation, no complex spell structure, just will and contact. Touch something, erase it. Simple. Efficient. Terrifying.
And the third bandit had seen it. He'd run, but he'd seen. He'd tell people. Word would spread about a mage who could erase things with a touch, who'd killed two bandits in seconds.
I needed to move. Now.
I grabbed my pack from the hollow and started running east, leaving the corpses behind. The third bandit might bring reinforcements. Or worse, he might report to the local authorities that there was a dangerous mage in the Everwood.
I ran until my lungs burned and my legs felt like they'd collapse. Then I ran some more, pushing through the pain, the exhaustion, the growing darkness as the sun set.
Finally, when I physically couldn't run anymore, I stopped and collapsed against a tree, gasping for air.
Only then did the reality of what I'd done hit me.
I'd killed two people. Ended their lives without hesitation, without mercy, without even learning their names.
They were bandits, yes. They would have robbed me, probably killed me. It was self-defense.
But I'd erased parts of them from existence. Used a power I didn't understand to commit what amounted to an atrocity against reality itself.
And the worst part? The void wanted more. I could feel it coiled in my chest, satisfied but not sated, like a predator that had tasted blood and now wanted a full meal.
This was the danger Sera had warned me about, though she didn't know the specifics. Power without control. Strength without wisdom. The ability to do terrible things paired with the hunger to keep doing them.
I had to be careful. Had to maintain control. The moment I let the void take over, the moment I started erasing things because I could rather than because I needed to, I'd become exactly what the world feared.
I'd become like Solarius.
The thought sobered me completely. I forced myself to breathe slowly, to center myself, to remember who I was and who I wanted to be.
I was Caelum Thorne. Not a monster. Not a destroyer. Just a bastard son trying to survive in a world that had rejected him.
The void was a tool. A weapon. Not a master.
I would control it. Not the other way around.
After my breathing returned to normal and the adrenaline faded, I assessed my situation. I was deep in the Everwood, probably thirty miles from House Thorne. I'd killed two bandits and scared a third. My secret was partially exposed—at least one person knew about my ability, even if he didn't understand what it was.
I needed to reach the main road and get out of this forest as quickly as possible.
I consulted my crude map in the fading light. If I continued east through the night, I should hit the road by morning. From there, it was another three days to the border town of Millhaven, the last major settlement before the lawless territories that bordered the Crimson Wastes.
I could rest when I reached civilization. For now, I needed to move.
I forced my exhausted body upright and started walking through the darkening forest, every shadow now a potential threat, every sound making me reach for the void.
The night was endless.
I walked through darkness guided only by moonlight filtering through the canopy and my own desperate need to put distance between myself and the bodies I'd left behind. My feet were blistered, my legs trembled with exhaustion, and my stomach cramped with hunger and fear.
But I kept moving.
Somewhere around midnight, I heard wolves howling in the distance. The sound sent ice through my veins. I'd read about the wolf packs that hunted in the Everwood—not Essence-enhanced beasts, just normal predators, but dangerous enough to a lone traveler.
I picked up my pace, trying to be quiet while moving quickly, every sense alert for the sound of pursuit.
The howls got closer.
I started running again, pack bouncing on my back, lungs burning. Behind me, I could hear crashing through the undergrowth. Multiple animals, moving fast, coordinating their pursuit.
I burst into a small clearing and spun around, reaching for the void.
Six wolves emerged from the tree line, their eyes reflecting the moonlight, teeth bared. They were huge—easily twice the size of domestic dogs—with thick gray fur and the lean, hungry look of predators who'd found prey.
The lead wolf, a massive male with a scarred muzzle, growled low in his throat. The pack spread out, circling me, cutting off escape routes.
Professional hunters. They'd done this before.
I pulled the void to my hands, feeling it coat my palms in nothingness. "Stay back," I warned, though I doubted they understood or cared.
The alpha wolf lunged.
I sidestepped and caught him mid-air, my hand closing around his front leg.
The leg vanished. Just gone, erased from the shoulder down.
The wolf crashed to the ground, howling in pain and confusion, trying to stand on a limb that no longer existed.
The other wolves hesitated, their predator instincts warring with confusion at what they'd just witnessed.
I didn't give them time to decide. I charged the nearest wolf, hand outstretched.
It tried to dodge, but I was faster, driven by desperation and adrenaline. My palm slapped against its flank, and a chunk of its body simply ceased to exist. The wolf collapsed, dead instantly.
Two down. Four to go.
The remaining wolves attacked as a coordinated unit—two from the front, two from the sides.
I spun, hands moving in a blur, touching, erasing, killing. A wolf's head disappeared. Another's spine vanished, leaving it paralyzed and dying. A third lost half its body.
The last wolf, seeing its entire pack destroyed in seconds, turned and fled into the forest.
I stood in the clearing, surrounded by corpses and whimpering dying animals, my hands dripping with void energy, my chest heaving.
The hunger was worse now. The void wanted more. Needed more. The brief combat had awakened something in it, a taste for destruction that went beyond self-defense.
I could feel it pushing at my control, whispering that I should chase the fleeing wolf, erase it too, erase everything, make the whole forest cease to exist—
No.
I slammed my will down on the void, forcing it back into submission. It fought me, resistant, hungry, angry.
But I was stronger. I had to be stronger.
Slowly, painfully, I pulled the power back, forced it to coil around my heart, contained and controlled.
The moment it was fully retracted, I collapsed to my knees, shaking with exhaustion and the effort of maintaining control.
This was getting worse. Each time I used the void, it became harder to put away. The hunger grew stronger, more insistent. How long before I couldn't control it anymore? How long before one battle turned into a massacre because I couldn't stop?
I looked at the dead and dying wolves around me. They'd been hunting, doing what predators did. They didn't deserve this—to have parts of their bodies simply erased, to die in confusion and pain.
But it was them or me. And I'd chosen me.
I forced myself to stand and started walking again, leaving the clearing and its carnage behind.
The rest of the night passed in a haze of exhaustion and paranoia. Every shadow was a threat, every sound a potential attack. My hand stayed near my knife, though I knew the real weapon was inside me.
As dawn broke, I finally stumbled out of the forest and onto the main road.
The Eastern Trade Route stretched before me, a wide dirt path that connected the noble estates around the capital to the border settlements and beyond. It was well-traveled, with deep wagon ruts and frequent markers indicating distances to various towns.
I'd made it out of the Everwood.
I allowed myself a moment of relief, then started walking east along the road, blending in with the early morning traffic. Farmers heading to market, merchants with loaded wagons, a few travelers on horseback—all the normal bustle of a major trade route.
Nobody gave me a second glance. Just another young traveler, nothing special about him.
Perfect.
I walked throughout the day, stopping only briefly to eat and rest. The road was mostly safe—patrols from the Aurum Empire kept bandits to a minimum, and the Essence-enhanced beasts avoided areas with heavy human traffic.
As the sun began to set, I saw the walls of Millhaven in the distance.
The border town was smaller than I'd expected—maybe five thousand people, protected by a wooden palisade wall and a garrison of empire soldiers. It served as the last major trading hub before the lawless territories, a place where merchants, mercenaries, refugees, and criminals all mingled.
I approached the main gate, where two guards were checking papers and collecting entry fees.
"Purpose of visit?" the first guard asked when I reached the front of the line. He was young, maybe early twenties, with the bored expression of someone doing a routine job.
"Looking for work," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Heard the caravans heading east sometimes need extra hands."
"Got papers?"
"No, sir. I'm unaffiliated."
The guard's expression soured slightly. Unaffiliated meant no guild membership, no noble house backing, no official records. In other words, either a peasant or a criminal.
"Entry fee is two silver marks for unaffiliated," he said.
I pulled out Sera's pouch and counted out the coins, trying not to wince at losing four percent of my total wealth for the privilege of entering a border town.
The guard pocketed the silver and waved me through. "Stay out of trouble. The captain doesn't like having to clean up messes."
I nodded and walked through the gate into Millhaven.
The town was exactly what I'd expected—a chaotic mix of commerce and desperation. The main street was lined with shops, taverns, and inns, all doing brisk business. Side streets led to residential areas, warehouses, and the less savory parts of town where illegal business was conducted with a wink and a nod.
I needed three things: a place to sleep, information about caravans heading east, and maybe some better equipment if I could afford it.
I found an inn called the Broken Wheel—cheap looking but not derelict, with a stable for horses and a common room that smelled of stale beer and cooked meat. The innkeeper was a heavy-set woman with shrewd eyes who sized me up in seconds.
"Room's three silver a night, includes breakfast," she said. "Stable's extra if you got a horse."
"Just the room, please. Three nights." I counted out nine silver marks, leaving me with thirty-nine.
She handed me a key. "Top floor, third door on the right. Common room serves food until midnight. Baths are extra."
I thanked her and climbed the narrow stairs to my room. It was small—barely bigger than my quarters in House Thorne's eastern wing—with a bed, a small table, and a window overlooking the street.
But it was mine. Paid for with my own money, no family obligations, no expectations.
I dropped my pack on the floor and collapsed onto the bed, every muscle in my body crying out in relief.
I'd made it. Three days from House Thorne to Millhaven, through forests and bandits and wolves and my own barely-controlled power.
I was alive, free, and one step closer to the Crimson Wastes.
Tomorrow I'd start asking about caravans. Tonight, I'd rest.
I closed my eyes, and for the first time since leaving, I allowed myself to feel something other than fear or determination.
I felt hope.
The void pulsed quietly in my chest, hungry but patient.
And I fell asleep planning my next move in this new, dangerous, beautiful life I'd chosen