"Just be grateful I didn't try to kill it," Claude grunted as he and Augustus stood side by side. He didn't need to turn his head to see the baleful look in the boy's eyes. There was steam coming from the severed hand, which lay palm up in the
"Well you did save my life so I must thank you. But I need him alive," Augustus stressed through clenched teeth. The microcuts inflicted on the crown prince's exposed flesh from the shattered boulder had begun to bleed, flecking his face in red.
"The man..." Claude paused to duck a rock that blurred over his head. "The man you knew is long dead, princeling."
The hulking creature was unphased by its injury, it's reaction to the stump inhuman as it instead tried to grab Augustus with its other hand. There was nothing within it, a grotesque husk that needed to be put to rest along with the soul that had once resided within it.
"You're frightened, Carver?" Augustus taunted in an out of breath manner.
