"Ahhhhhhhhhh."
Those were the first words Isakk ever heard when he arrived at this camp. A woman getting whipped, guards laughing like it was sport. He knew right then this would be his new hell.
When he first met Wideroth, it was during induction. The man was slimy from the start, didn't even bother with a proper speech — not that there was anything proper about the empire to begin with. He'd simply said, "Obey or die," and Isakk understood the words but not yet the extremes they'd be taken to. First it was the unfair work, the long hours splitting unevenly among the weak and the favored. Then it was the whipping, dished out for nothing, for sport. Then it was the killing — scouts, kitchen staff, anyone who made a mistake too small to matter. That was when Isakk understood exactly what kind of man he served.
He'd tried to fight it, tried to help who he could. It only earned him more punishment, more scars, until something hard and tired settled into his bones — not hatred exactly, more a bone-deep exhaustion with all of it. He never held anything against the people he shared this misery with. Not the old man. Not the boy. But Anna, he'd resented, back at the start — a burning, irrational thing he couldn't explain even to himself, some twisted anger that she could bring a child into this place and still hold onto something soft. Maybe it was jealousy. Maybe it was fear dressed up as anger. Looking back now, he's ashamed of it, even though he never let it stop him from covering her kitchen shifts when she couldn't stand.
None of that matters tonight. Tonight there's only the hunt.
"Xerile. Can you hear me?"
Nothing answers. She's gone quiet, tucked somewhere deep in his skull. He looks down at the sigil on his palm, grits his teeth, and starts mapping the walk to Wideroth's tent. It'll be easy — the man's either asleep or off with one of the staff, same as always. But Isakk stops himself before he moves. What happens when Wideroth's dead? Does it change anything? Does any of this mean something, or is he just adding one more body to a war that was rotten long before he got here?
He could run instead. Disappear into the treeline and never look back.
But he thinks of Anna's baby in Wideroth's hands, of the words good ingredient for alchemy, and the decision makes itself.
The alchemist's tent is on the far side of camp. She'd been thrown out of the mage's tower for whatever she'd done there, then scooped up by the empire for a handful of coin and a promise of results. Isakk counts the names as he walks — every worker, every scout, every soldier who went into her tent and didn't come out the same. By the time he reaches her flap, the number sitting in his chest is thirty-one, and it's not just a number anymore. It's a weight.
She's asleep when he slips inside. Sleeping soundly, like thirty-one lives don't cost anything to carry.
The sigil flares crimson as he grips her skull. She jolts awake into his grip, iron-tight, no give in it at all.
"You," she rasps, eyes darting from his face to the glowing mark on his hand.
He says nothing.
"Kill me and you're no better than him." Her voice shakes but doesn't break. "I only gave the empire what it wanted. Wideroth wanted results. I gave him results."
Kill her, Xerile whispers from somewhere behind his eyes. She deserves it.
The alchemist's breath goes ragged, panic finally cracking through the venom in her voice. Isakk doesn't stop. Doesn't flinch, same as he didn't with the guards. The sigil pulls at her, slow and thorough, drinking her down until there's nothing left but a husk dried out from the inside.
Outside, two guards don't even get a word out. He puts a blade through one throat, drives the dead man's own spear through the second, and drags both bodies back into the alchemist's tent before anyone in the camp stirs. Then he sits, takes the second guard's sword, and sharpens it against a stone in the dark, slow and steady, like a man with all the time in the world.
Yes, Xerile purrs. Kill them all, boy. Kill everyone who stands between you and what you want, until there's nothing left but a sea of bodies.
"Can you shut up," Isakk mutters. "I'm killing Wideroth. I'll kill anyone who gets between us, but I'm not a mindless murderer."
She doesn't answer that. Maybe she doesn't believe him.
He moves through the shadows toward Wideroth's tent, and slips inside without a sound. It's exactly as lavish as he expected — gold jewelry tossed carelessly aside, food enough to feed a dozen starving families rotting slowly on trays no one finished. He doesn't let himself linger on any of it.
He crosses to the bed and drives his blade into Wideroth's leg first.
The man jolts awake with a strangled gasp, mouth already open to scream, but Isakk's hand clamps over it before the sound escapes.
"Mmmph—mmph!" Wideroth thrashes, hands scrabbling weak and useless against Isakk's wrist.
Isakk leans in close enough to feel the man's breath. "For everyone you've killed. For everyone you've tortured. This is your end, you pig."
He eases his hand back, just enough to let Wideroth speak. He wants him to understand exactly what this is.
"W-wait." Blood already pools beneath the bed. "You don't — gurgh — you don't know what you're doing, boy. I can give you anything. Gold. Rank. Anything—"
"I don't want anything from you."
"Please—" His fingers claw at Isakk's arm, too weak now to do more than scrape. "Please, I'll let you go. I'll let all of you go, just—"
Isakk pulls the sword free from his leg. Whatever Wideroth meant to say next dissolves into a wet shriek, his hands flying up to shield his face — too slow.
The blade goes through his skull clean, and Isakk lets it stay there.
He doesn't run. He walks, unhurried, back through the shadows toward the tent he used to call his. He needs to see her once, before he's gone for good.
Anna is asleep, the baby curled against her chest, both of them breathing slow and even. Safe. Whole. For a moment he just stands in the dark and looks at the one thing in this camp he never managed to ruin.
He doesn't wake her. There's nothing he could say that wouldn't put her in danger just for hearing it.
Isakk turns and walks into the wilderness, leaving the camp and everything in it at his back. No backward glance. Deserter. Murderer. Whatever the empire wants to call him now, he's already decided what he is.