Far from Graythorn, under a sky choked with smoke, another boy walked through ruin.

  Broken stone. Collapsed pillars. The blackened ribs of houses that had once formed a frontier settlement.

  Demons crawled over the wreckage like carrion beetles.

  They weren’t organized. Just hungry.

  Twenty. Maybe thirty.

  They turned as one when he stepped into the open.

  He didn’t draw a weapon.

  He didn’t need to.

  His white hair hung loosely over lazy, half-lidded eyes. A spiral of dark markings curled up the side of his neck, disappearing under his collar like something burned into him from the inside.

  A demon screeched and lunged.

  The boy lifted his hand.

  A circle of twisted sigils burned into the air—flame runes warped by something darker. Red at the edges, black at the core.

  “Burn,” Itsuka said.

  Black fire roared outward.

  It didn’t spread like normal flame. It bent, twisted mid-air, curving around stone and rubble to only touch flesh.

  Twenty-five demons vanished in one shrieking breath.

  Ash drifted down.

  Where their bodies had been, motes of purple soul-light floated like dying stars.

  Itsuka inhaled.

  The motes snapped toward him, sinking into his skin.

  His veins glowed violet for a heartbeat, then went dark again.

  He exhaled, disappointed.

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  “Still weak,” he sighed.

  Behind him, a boy about his age scrambled over broken stone, clutching a chipped sword in white-knuckled hands.

  “I–Itsuka! Wait up!” he panted. “I can’t… keep… gods, you didn’t leave any for me.”

  Another demon crawled from a shattered doorway and sprang at the boy’s back.

  The boy froze.

  Itsuka flicked two fingers.

  A spike of corrupted fire curved lazily through the air and skewered the demon into a wall.

  The boy flinched, then laughed weakly. “T-thanks. See? If I had just a little more time to—”

  “You’ve had two months,” Itsuka said without turning.

  The boy swallowed. “I’m getting better.”

  “You haven’t taken a single soul,” Itsuka said, “and you still scream when something jumps at you. You are not getting better.”

  He finally turned.

  His eyes were not lazy now.

  They were tired.

  And bored.

  “That’s… that’s not fair,” the boy stammered. “It’s scary. They’re monsters. I’m not like you—”

  “That’s the problem,” Itsuka said.

  A demon pulled itself from beneath a slab of stone and sprinted toward them, jaws open.

  Itsuka didn’t so much as glance.

  He watched the boy instead.

  The boy froze again.

  Weighed his options.

  Started to scream.

  Itsuka’s patience dried up.

  A tendril of violet Aether lashed out from his shoulder—fast as thought—spearing the demon through the chest.

  It didn’t retract.

  It snapped sideways.

  Straight through the boy.

  The sword slipped from his hand with a dull clang as he staggered, wide-eyed, staring down at the glowing spike of Aether impaling him.

  He tried to speak.

  Blood bubbled from his lips instead.

  His body collapsed.

  Something pale and flickering tore loose from his chest—a thin, half-formed soul, weak and trembling.

  Itsuka opened his hand.

  “Mine,” he said.

  The spirit lurched toward him, screaming silently as it dissolved into his palm.

  Power flickered through him—small, petty, hardly worth comment—but still something.

  He sighed.

  “Dead weight,” he muttered, stepping over the corpse without a second thought.

  Three demons remained at the far end of the courtyard.

  They trembled.

  Itsuka shaped a weapon in his hand.

  The loose souls he’d absorbed twisted under his will, clustering at his wrist, lengthening, hardening, until he held a jagged glaive of pure violet-black energy.

  A Corrupted Soul Weapon.

  He spun it once.

  Shadows warped around the blade.

  The demons bolted.

  He let them run for exactly three steps.

  Then he threw.

  The glaive cut through all three in a single swift arc, shearing them apart before returning to his hand in a swirl of dissipating light.

  He stopped.

  A chill slid down his spine.

  Somewhere far off—faint, but unmistakable—a flare of Soul Aether brushed his senses.

  New.

  Raw.

  Wild.

  Itsuka went still.

  “…Well, now,” he murmured.

  The whispers in the back of his mind stirred—dark, eager, the remnants of twisted souls that were never allowed to rest.

  Another one, they hissed. Another bearer. Take him. Devour him. Eat what he keeps.

  Itsuka tilted his head toward the distant mountains.

  Toward nowhere, villages, and quiet forests.

  Toward Graythorn.

  “A new Soulbearer,” he murmured. “How exciting.”

  He stepped over the last pile of cooling ash and started walking.

  Hunts were always more interesting when the prey didn’t know it was prey yet.