The taste of smoke lingered on Ian's tongue, its sharp bitterness a comfort more than a vice.
He leaned back against the scorched log, blood drying on his skin, thick and flaking like old paint. Across from him, Eli exhaled a lazy plume of smoke into the crimson-streaked sky, the air still buzzing faintly from the recent slaughter.
The forest was quieter now, still. Only the crackle of smoldering wood and the distant cries of scavenger birds remained.
But there would be no rest for long.
They rose without ceremony, twin daggers returned to Ian's back, Eli brushing ash from his tattered cloak. Without needing to speak, they made their way out of the Blackblood Forest, the landscape around them shifting from devastation to dense thickets, then to the more mundane underbrush of the outer edges.
No beast dared challenge their path.
Not the vermin who scattered before their scent, nor the predator ranks whose distant stares could be felt through the canopy.
It was not fear of Eli alone anymore. Ian felt it—how their gazes paused on him, how their guttural growls were laced with caution.
He had earned that fear.
Bled for it.
Killed for it.
By nightfall, they reached the edges of civilization. A solitary town that held at the forest's hem greeted them with suspicion at first. But the glint of coin and the sight of Eli's golden eyes had a way of quieting even the most curious of mouths.
They found a carriage there, its driver half-drunk and wholly afraid, who took them the half-day journey toward the City of Esgard.
Ian watched the scenery pass in silence, his body swaying with the motion of the cart. He expected to feel relief leaving the forest behind—but instead, he found himself glancing back, the distant shadowed treetops calling like some twisted home.
Nearly a month in Blackblood, fighting, training, bleeding, growing… and only a few days in Esgard before that.
When the towering walls of the city finally emerged on the horizon, Ian realized the truth: the forest had changed him.
The world inside the walls of man now seemed more alien than the beasts that hunted in the dark.
Esgard was a city rushing with life and noise, but to Ian it looked like a painting with too many strokes.
Crowded, loud, chaotic.
The clamor of carts and merchants, the scent of street meat and oil, the way eyes turned to watch the bloodied warriors step down from the carriage. All of it felt distant, dulled beneath the weight of what he'd endured.
The coliseum still stood in the skyline like a grave marker.
Perhaps, in a way, it was partially prophetic.
They passed through the noble district, where the air thinned and the commoners vanished. Ornate buildings lined the streets, each vying to outdo the other with their grandiosity.
The princess's manor stood where Ian remembered it—imposing and barely elegant, its gates lined with guards who now looked upon him not with disdain, but with veiled curiosity.
He followed Eli up the steps without a word. Every motion was practiced now.
Calm. Ready.
Inside, the air was cleaner, perfumed with oils and candle wax. Ian's boots stained the pristine floor with dried blood, but no one dared comment. Servants gave him a wide berth as they passed.
The hallway ended at a familiar door—the study where everything began.
Eli pushed it open without knocking.
"We are back!!!" He announced.
The princess looked up from her desk, quill still poised above parchment. "Ah, you took your sweet time, I see," she said, her tone light but tinged with sharpness.
Ian hadn't seen her since that first day. But the sight of her hit just as hard.
Her silver hair cascaded in loose waves over her shoulders, catching the candlelight like threads of moonlight. Her skin held the same bronze hue as Eli's, but her eyes were a piercing, unnatural blue—so vibrant they froze Ian mid-step.
There was no malice in them, no hunger or violence… but there was weight, presence. Power. The kind that needed no roar.
Danger came in many forms. Hers was quiet.
She watched Ian a moment longer before tilting her head.
"He seems different."
"He is," Eli replied, stepping into the room. "I told you—if I couldn't make him into what we needed, I wouldn't return with him alive."
The princess smiled faintly. "Well, that's splendid. And perfectly on time." Her expression shifted, eyes flicking toward Eli. "I've received word from the council."
Ian caught the exchange. The subtle tension. The unspoken language of shared burdens.
Then she turned, addressing the woman who had stood silently by her side—the same one who had rescued Ian out from the pit cell weeks ago. Elise, if he remembered correctly.
"Go get him cleaned up," the princess ordered.
Ian didn't argue.
He recognized dismissal when he heard it. There were things about to be discussed that he wasn't meant to hear. Yet, just as he turned to follow Elise, her voice stopped him once more.
"Oh, and… good job, Ian."
He froze, halfway to the door. Then turned slightly, eyes meeting hers.
He nodded. Just once.
Then walked out.
---
The halls behind the study were quiet as Elise guided him through the manor. Servants scurried about, some offering brief glances at him, others avoiding his bloodstained presence entirely.
Ian's mind wasn't on the bath or clean clothes they would force upon him. It was on the shift in tone he had heard in the princess's voice.
Not condescension. Not disdain.
Approval. Expectation.
He didn't know why, but it left a weight on his chest heavier than the blood-soaked daggers he strapped to his back.
As they rounded another hallway, Ian glanced down at his hands. He remembered the grey fire that had danced across them.
The [Soul Flame] that had lit the Predator Beast's insides ablaze. The way the new shadows had come alive at his call, a mana beast form erupting from beneath his feet like a demon from hell.
The forest hadn't just been a place of training.
It was his furnace.
He had entered as a pit slave.
He was leaving it as something else.
Something dangerous.