The others slept.
Lucian's breathing was heavy, the exhaustion of years finally catching up to him. Draven was still, though his hand remained clenched even in sleep.
But Merlik sat by the dying embers of the hearth.
He pulled back the sleeve of his tunic, revealing skin that was less flesh and more a map of ruin. Lines of silver scarring ran from his wrist to his shoulder—marks left by the "experiments" he had witnessed in the Verdant Veil.
He reached into a hidden compartment of his spear's shaft and pulled out a small, jagged piece of blackened bone. It wasn't human. It pulsed with a faint, sickly violet light.
"You still hunger, don't you?" Merlik whispered to the silence.
He wasn't just a survivor. He was a thief. He had stolen a fragment of the Minister's "Source"—the very thing used to turn men into monsters.
Merlik picked up a whetstone and began to sharpen his spear. The sound was rhythmic, like a heartbeat.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
He knew what the boys didn't. He knew that the Minister's "creations" couldn't be killed by cutting their throats or piercing their chests. Their life wasn't in their blood anymore; it was in the "Core" grafted into their spines.
He looked at the sleeping brothers. He felt a pang of something he hadn't felt in decades: protective rage.
"They think they are ready," Merlik murmured, looking at Lucian's father's sword. "But they are fighting a war of steel. I am preparing them for a war of souls."
He took a small vial of grey oil and began to coat the tips of their blades while they slept. It was a mixture he had spent years perfecting—an alchemical poison designed to destabilize the magic within the Minister's soldiers.
It would cost him. The oil was toxic, even to the touch. His hands began to tremble, the grey liquid stinging his cracked skin.
"One last lesson, boys," he whispered, his vision blurring for a second. "The greatest weapon isn't the one you carry. It's the one the enemy doesn't know you have."
He finished the last blade and leaned back, his face pale in the moonlight. He looked old. He looked broken. But as he gripped his spear, his clouded eye sparked with a cold, predatory light.
The Minister thought he had disposed of Merlik years ago.
He was about to find out that a wounded wolf is far more dangerous than a young one.