As a boy I used to wonder why anyone would ever wish to die. I could find no answer. Life tasted sweet and beautiful, its few misfortunes usually swept away by parents so that by the next morning the mind had already forgotten them.

  Then adolescence arrived and death became a joke. I carried the certainty of life within me, yet the selfish arrogance of youth had convinced me the world existed for my sake alone and would end without me. Whatever I deemed valuable was the only thing that possessed value; everything else was mere waste of time. And so, whenever those things I considered worthy were lost or placed forever beyond my reach, the world around me seemed stripped bare of any reason for me to remain inside it.

  By the time I reached university that notion had twisted into something else entirely—something I can now say with certainty that I loathe and long to erase from memory. I squandered hours before a screen; voices acquired importance only because I granted it to them. I felt singular, irreplaceable. Even when we met in the flesh we spent the time discussing how soon we could return home to resume our games and dissect a social reality whose membership we stubbornly refused.

  No one envied my life—not even I. I knew it then, though I refused to admit it. I even made jests about death, for I had no conception of how precious life truly was, nor the gratitude it deserved. Only when I died did I understand it completely. Now I fear death once more. I dread standing unworthy again before the King. I want to be worthy—to be permitted to gaze upon his majesty, to be granted leave to caress the royal garments.

  Yet even that desire has become a reason to live, a reason to keep striving, to become better, to reach for what is better. Even Loupos, despite all his errors, is—I believe—chained by his own alienation and self-condemnation. I do not think he truly wishes to die. That is why he chooses to vanish into the forest: even after everything he blames himself for, he still wants to go on existing.

  As for those who genuinely long for death because they can no longer endure the horror that life has become—because it has grown worse than dying—I have only ever encountered them in stories, in descriptions of torture, especially from times of war. People whose minds were shattered until nothing remained but will-less husks, dolls, vessels of ruined flesh that resembled lifeless containers more than human beings. Only in such cases could I imagine it; only in chronicles drawn straight from hell itself.

  And now, confronted with the sight that met my eyes, I believed—for the first time—that death would be a mercy to the people I saw before me. I felt that to be lost in the forest, to be tormented slowly by monsters until nothing at all remained, would be an act of charity.

  On a straight stretch of road I beheld ten women, naked, their skin torn open in strips, faces swollen with bruises. Some were missing a hand, a leg, a breast. One had half her skull charred black; another had no ears. All sat on the frozen ground in a rough circle around a fire while two men attended them. One stood before a table wearing a cook’s apron; the other moved in frantic haste from woman to woman, apparently tending to them.

  I did not rush forward. I advanced steadily, watching every detail as I drew nearer. Nearly all were heavily pregnant, in the late stages. The cook was scraping bones clean and straining blood into a large earthen jar. The other fed wood to the flames and checked whether the women still breathed.

  They sat with their backs to the fire, faces turned toward the dark uncertainty of the forest. Chains bound their wrists and ankles so tightly that no movement was possible—not even to tend their own wounds, not even to rub their arms and deceive the body that the cold was not quite so bitter.

  As I came closer I saw that iron collars encircled their necks as well; they could not turn their heads to look elsewhere. Not even the moon was permitted to them—only the black and fathomless wood.

  Suddenly the frantic man hurried back to the cook, snatched a set of keys, and unlocked one of the women—the most advanced in pregnancy. He laid her upon the cook’s table. The cook severed her head. Then he slit open her belly and did the same to the child inside her.

  The panicked man took meat from an earlier preparation and set it near the flames to roast. He carried pieces of the cooked flesh to the remaining women, forcing their jaws to chew, trying to make them swallow. Then he brought blood and attempted to make them drink.

  I could go no farther. My stomach rebelled; I bent and vomited everything I had eaten earlier.

  A fate worse than death. This was the entertainment the crones had watched and allowed to continue. I should have killed them all—not merely the middle one.

  I closed my eyes, rose sick with revulsion, drew my sword, and turned toward that damned spectacle. I uttered no cry, gave no warning. I only clenched my teeth and unleashed the black shadow in all its fullness.

  I do not know whether I had the right to kill them all, whether I was entitled to pass such judgment. Yet I know I could not bear to watch it any longer, nor could I leave it behind and carry the certainty that it continued. And I believe I did what was right.

  I dared not look even for an instant into the faces of those girls. I simply enveloped them in the black shadow and let it perform its work. The two men, however, I slew with my own hands.

  They tried to fight back, though they possessed no skill at arms. I pinned them with their backs against the flames and they begged for mercy, insisting they had done only what the princes commanded so they themselves might live. Whenever the women became pregnant they disposed of them here and collected the blood of the children to feed their assistants, granting those assistants a dependent form of immortality.

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  It was not the same as the knights’ or the princes’ immortality, yet immortality it remained, however bestowed. I imagine Vardas had received something similar. My disgust, however, was so vast and their shamelessness so boundless that they dragged me down to their own level. I hurled them into the fire and watched as they burned and screamed.

  Anyone might easily think they deserved it. Better to ask whether resemblance to their acts and methods ultimately turns us into the same sort of monsters. In my clouded mind and ungovernable rage I believed they deserved it and that I—being better than they—was entitled to decide their fate.

  Only after I had walked away from that place, after I had consigned the memory to the past without once turning back to look, did I drop to my knees on the empty road and weep with great, wrenching sobs. Saliva ran from my mouth; my breath sought to halt altogether; my eyes poured forth every apology I wished I could speak—because I had arrived too late, because I had not known, because I found no better solution, because I had dared hope that human beings were incapable of doing such things to one another.

  I collapsed......

  Again I do not know how much time passed. In the darkness of my mind I heard horses pounding the earth and the wheels of a carriage approaching. Fear seized me. I thought perhaps one of the princes had crossed my path once more and that I was still unready to face them.

  I rose. A carriage drawn by two horses drew near. Atop it sat two well-dressed men, though neither wore the princes’ pin upon his breast. One was fair-haired, of medium height and roughly my own age; the other dark-haired, somewhat taller yet still shorter than I. Both were laughing—before they noticed me and even after—yet they did not halt the carriage.

  I thought at once that perhaps the prince himself rode inside. If they did not stop I might escape this sudden encounter—until I saw, trailing behind the carriage, two young women with bound hands. Both beaten, naked, trembling with terror, they were clearly being led toward the nightmare I had just witnessed.

  Rage flared within me, fury clouded my sight once again. I ran after the carriage, drew two knives from my belt—their handles fashioned so they could serve as knuckle-dusters, blades extending some forty centimeters—and severed the ropes that tethered the women to the vehicle.

  I stood before them, gaze fixed on the retreating carriage, waiting for the moment they would realize what had happened. The carriage vanished over the horizon. Soon it returned. I waited in the same place. I had already draped blankets over the women and told them to sit at the roadside. I asked whether anyone else remained inside the carriage. They answered no.

  The carriage approached at speed and halted before me. I still gripped the knives tightly. Both men dismounted. Their laughter had vanished.

  “Tell me,” the dark-haired one asked, “were you the one who killed all those women?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “And you—are you the ones who drink the blood of their children and manage this living farm?”

  “Fool. You’re a fool—it shows on your face,” the fair-haired one spat, then began shouting. “Do you know how long it will take us to rebuild the whole operation from nothing? Eh? To find girls the princes will like, to find assistants to run the place—do you know?”

  “I will make sure no time at all is needed,” I replied. “I will make sure no such place is ever built again.”

  He spat to the side in disgust. I raised my hands to head height, bent my knees, launched myself forward with explosive speed. They had not expected it; the shock showed plainly on their faces. I drove one blade into the fair-haired man’s cheek and the other through his right hand. Yet he seemed unbothered.

  “What was that?” he said. “Someone who actually knows how to fight? We’ve never had anyone like that here—not even someone with proper gear. Do you remember anything like this since they brought us?” he asked his companion.

  “No,” the dark-haired one answered. “In all the time we’ve been here I recall no similar case. It makes no difference. No weapon can kill us except those wielded by the princes themselves. Remember Vardas? He came back with a hole clean through his belly, yet now he’s fine.”

  I remembered Vardas—the one the Wolf had pinned to the ground while protecting me from the prince. So he was not dead. His speed had been terrifying; I had not yet matched it, and I could only imagine his skill in combat. Yet there are other ways to defeat such men—more cunning ways—especially when they underestimate you. They continued talking to each other as though I had ceased to exist, as though my blades posed no threat.

  The black liquid of the shadow poured freely through the wounds I had opened, flooding the fair-haired man’s body before he understood what was happening. He fell silent and stared at me in terror. He understood.

  “You forgot who your opponent was,” I told him, “and you lost. Give my regards to hell.”

  His body swelled and burst apart, ruptured by the black, caustic, viscous tide within.

  Blood spattered the dark-haired one. His face registered pure incomprehension; he could not process what had just occurred. Once more I sprang forward to catch him off guard, but he managed to evade, retreating to the carriage, drawing his sword, and facing me ready for combat.

  “What did you do to him?” he cried, voice trembling. “How did you do that? You killed him. When the princes learn of this they will be furious—furious beyond measure. Who are you? How did you get this far?”

  “Do you truly have time for all these questions?” I answered. “If you manage to defeat me and if I am still alive then, I will answer every one. Until that moment, shut your mouth. You sound like a frightened child.”

  Rage contorted his features. He charged. I charged too. His blows came too fast for me to meet them directly, so I retreated step by step, aiming to reach the carriage and use it as a natural barrier. His sword was longer than my knives; he would struggle to strike me cleanly once something obstructed him. And I was right. He showed no experience in such constrained fighting. I managed to slash his left Achilles tendon, land a fist that broke his nose, and open another cut along his left forearm.

  He glared at me in fury, gave a war cry, and limped toward me again as best as he could. Two more blows landed on my face. I tried to stab him, but he prevented it. I hurled black fluid from a distance, yet it appeared to affect neither his course nor his mind. I saw his skin blister and burn, but he behaved as though nothing touched him. I considered encircling him with the full shadow, yet I was unwilling to reveal that weapon before witnesses—the two women. I did not wish to risk exposing all my means unless my life hung in absolute peril.

  I believed I could outlast him in a contest of endurance and patience, using my speed and ranged attacks. But he perceived the strategy and ceased aiming at me. Instead he turned and ran toward the women with maniacal intent. Without thinking I pursued him. When we were far enough from the carriage for me to circle back and use it again as cover, he spun about and lunged straight at me.

  I tried once more to retreat, but he closed the distance swiftly. His strikes were so powerful that one knife flew from my right hand to the ground. He roared, face crimson, hurled me down, straddled my torso between his legs, and raised his sword high above my head.

  I cast the remaining knife aside and seized his wrists with both hands. He was plainly stronger and would have overpowered me—yet when the blade descended to within two fingers of my skull, it began, slowly but inexorably, to rise. It rose and rose until his own sword was flung from his grasp to the road.

  Before me no longer stood a young man, but an old one—an old man upon whom the years poured as I held his wrists. His black hair turned first gray, then white; much of it fell away. His eyes clouded; wrinkles multiplied across hands and face.

  I slipped free of the pin he had me in and kicked him backward. Terrified, he crawled toward his sword—yet could no longer lift it. Then he crawled to me and begged me to restore him. I only laid my palm upon his brow.

  His corpse remained kneeling in an attitude of prayer, mouth agape, eyes rolled back, skin stretched taut over bone. I left him there. I grabbed my knives and placed them behind my back.

  To the women I said only to dress themselves and do whatever they wished with the horses and carriage. Then I departed—without turning back once to look.