Page 178 of Warlord's Plaything

His body has stretched into something unnatural—his form elongated, his skin cracked like blackened stone, golden veins of necrotic power running through him.

The violet glow of the rift pulses behind him, feeding him, changing him.

His fingers, once elegant and long, are now claws, dripping with inky shadows that do not belong in this world.

When he speaks?—

It is not his voice anymore.

It is many.

It is a chorus of the dead, a symphony of agony, speaking as one.

"You fight so hard."His voice slithers through the air, pressing into my skull like a disease."But you cannot stop what is already written. I am beyond you now. Beyond flesh, beyond time, beyond death. I am the beginning and the end. And you, Hira—You are like me."

My breath catches.

Because his words slither beneath my skin, curling into the deepest, darkest part of me.

The part I have ignored.

The part I have refused to name.

The part that loves war.

The part that does not fear the carnage but hungers for it.

The part that feels alive when my blade is deep in my enemy’s throat.

The part that revels in the kill.

And Kaelith sees it.

Kaelith knows.

"You feel it, don’t you?"His grin splits his face inhumanly wide, his sharpened teeth gleaming."The power. The hunger. The war that lives inside you. You are not just a gladiator. Not just a slave turned warrior. You are destruction incarnate. A perfect blend. You are not meant to fight me. You are meant to join me."

I feel his magic slithering into my mind, whispering to me, caressing the edges of something dark.

I feel the way the battlefield calls to me, the way the power inside me rises, eager, waiting, ready to be unleashed.

I feel how easy it would be to let go.

To stop fighting.

To embrace it.

To become more.

To become unstoppable.

"Hira!"

Xyron’s voice cuts through the haze, through the whispers in my mind, grounding me, pulling me back.

I blink?—

And suddenly, I see him.

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