Ren returned to life in the company as usual, and it appeared Gunney had been right. Even when he’d passed Kareem on his way to fill his bowl for dinner one night, after a tense moment of sustained eye contact, nothing happened and he proceeded unmolested.

The more he’d thought about it, the more certain he was that the only way he could truly distinguish himself was to participate in the ranking tournament that kicked off training season back in Rattan. Patrol routes across Ardus were timed such that every unit would have the opportunity to participate in one each year.

The only way he could do well enough to matter was to get better with a melee weapon. So tonight he returned to the sparring circle.

A great wave of whooping and cheering erupted from the soldiers surrounding the ring as Ren neared. The crowd parted and a grinning Kareem passed from the circle, Jarreth lay panting in the dirt behind him. “I’ll take any challengers!” he called. “No?”

Ren cursed himself for the way his knees weakened at the thought of facing the officer again. No matter, he could fight someone else.

Jarreth stood and exited the ring, shaking hands with the lieutenant. “Some beautiful sword work you got there.”

“Not bad, yourself,” said Kareem. The bluster and condescension Ren expected was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, the forester is back!” said Noor, one of the few female clouders. If he remembered correctly, she was from a farming complex not too far from Katarn. “You up for a bout?” She cracked her knuckles.

Kareem looked over, his face momentarily twisting before returning to his gracious smile of victory.

Ren didn’t miss the lieutenant’s slip, but he decided to proceed. He’d earned his place here, after all. “If you don’t mind being put on your ass.”

She laughed. “It’s on.”

As he approached, Kareem stepped in front of him with an arm extended to halt him. “Are you sure you want to waste training time that the real soldiers could be using?”

“Ren’s actually pretty scrappy. We don’t mind sparring with him,” said the man Ren had defeated in his last match.

“Is he?” Kareem looked to be considering something. “Must have gotten over his fear of naked steel then.”

This set the crowd to muttering. Ren’s heart pounded. What was happening?

Kareem drew an ornate sword—complete with gold inlays along the pommel and crossguard—flipping the weapon so he held it by the blade, and offered it to Ren hilt first. The flickering light of the surrounding fires reflected red off the straight, thin blade.

“Care to show us some moves before your bout? I remember you had quite a few tricks up your sleeve back in basic.”

Ren forced his breathing slower, willing his body to stay calm. He reached out with a hand and wrapped his fingers around the hilt. Rage flashed across his mind, shadow loomed at the corner of his vision, and before his eyes an image of thrusting it through the lieutenant’s gut as had been done to him.

No no no

That wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.

His mother’s voice echoed up from a memory. A velvet black night sitting on her lap outside a caravanserai.

You are a gentle soul, Ren. That is why the stars shine all the more brightly for you. Your strength is the true kind, the strength of spirit and heart that doesn’t need to force itself upon others to prove itself.

Of course. This wasn’t him. It had to be the shadow poisoning his mind again.

Ren forced down the anger that pulsed in his veins, pushing it back to the dark corner where he’d always hidden it. When Sig had held his head in the water trough. When Sitara had left him. When he was spat upon and beaten in the streets. When Parna had betrayed him.

He forced it down with his will, and then it was gone, leaving in its wake a hollow, gaping wound that ached in his chest. An empty void that filled with fear and pain.

The blade filled his whole vision, flickering, shining, glistening. Crimson. Pain. Blood trickling down till it wet his sleeve. More steel flashing, cutting.

His breathing stopped and his hand shook so violently Kareem had to let go and step back lest he be cut. The officer wore a dark smile as the blade clattered to the dirt and Ren walked away.

***

Every time Ren was at camp shame burned him. He’d been pretending this whole time, and now they all saw through to the truth.

Since the incident with Kareem’s sword, he minimized his interactions with everyone. Focusing on his cultivation. Volunteering for sentry duty. Anything to keep his mind occupied. Anything to stay busy. To be useful.

Gunney tried to talk to him, but Ren brushed him off. There was nothing the man could do. Nobody could wipe away the stain of cowardice, of weakness, that seemed to be in him, down to his bones.

He spent lots of time meditating by streams. Or basking in the sun to try to connect to it. Watching grass dance in the breeze. When he was at camp he’d stare at the fire, hoping to feel something.

He was stuck. Trapped. Every night it was harder to sleep. When he did, nightmares plagued him. Snarling stinking teeth, bodies and blood, his family in chains screaming under the lash of a whip, his mother crying over the cold, stiff corpse of his father. Empty sockets staring at him. Accusing.

Finally, he just gave up on sleep. He grabbed his flute and a real sword from the supply carts and snuck away. It was easy to do when you knew where the sentries were.

His walk turned into a run as hot anger and pain boiled in his chest. Ren drew the sword from its sheath. His limbs trembled, his heart thudded in his ears, anger burned in his blood. But his hand was steady.

Kareem’s sneering voice echoed in his head, merging with Basher and Sig and Parna.

“Aaarrg!” Ren roared and swung the sword at a young tree, little more than a sapling. Then again.

He hacked and chopped and cut till the tree was nothing but a pile of mulch and the blade was pitted. Every blow was an expression of the secret hate in his heart. It felt like power.

The darkness around him twisted, and he felt the cool movement of the serpent’s inheritance, following the anger already in his body. But it was different. It was cold, eager, ready.

He pushed it away, tried to wrestle it back down, but it didn’t listen this time. It didn’t go. Ren ran, as if his life depended on it, as if he could escape what was already within him.

He hurtled over stumps and skidded around trees, leapt over roots. Every step he fought off the thoughts that came. The resentments. The fear. The pain. The questions. Maybe the shadow could do what he could not? Every time he pushed against the despair and forced himself to keep going along this path–a path forced upon him–cost as much or more than he gained from the effort. Hope was a poison. A naive dream. A toy for children.

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He collapsed by a stream, panting.

Ren took out the flute and began to play. In his hands the Sapling Song of the Autumn Breeze turned to one of withering, of loss, of the endless, the pointless, the doomed struggle of life. His song became a mirror of his heart, through which he saw his pain anew. Through which he saw himself.

Yes, it was a part of him, wasn’t it. The anger. The rage.

The dark inheritance spoke to him in the language of his own soul.

To his eyes, the shadows deepened, darkened, grew, spread, reached out to him, pressed upon him.

And he let them in.

The shadow within met the shadow without and a rush of tingling energy into his body stopped his playing short. He started Three Chamber Breathing. Each breath condensed and purified the energy into Qi his body could use, compressed it, and pressed it down into his dantian till it was shining to his internal senses, bright, more full than it had ever been.

The shadow in him wriggled, full of hunger, wrath, power. His hunger, his wrath. His power.

Kareem would pay. So would Sig. And Basher. And that Black Claw. And anyone who stood in his way. Strength and primal, instinctive violence filled his limbs.

I know you’ll make us proud.

No matter how hard it gets.

Ren turned from the shadow and vented overwhelming Qi into the ground. Fuck.

If he gave in to the shadow, would he still even be himself?

But another memory came back to him. The rush of energy he’d felt when he played for Osai in the forest.

Maybe it wasn’t just shadow? Maybe it was music?

He’d have to try again the next full moon to maximize the light since he couldn’t exactly sneak off during the day.

***

A week later, Ren woke early and could hardly sleep for an entirely new reason. Tonight was the full moon. The timing was especially fortuitous as they would be bedding down at Farming Complex 38B just four leagues down the road.

He rose before the sun, before the cooks, before the last rotation of night watch came back in. A warmth in his chest told him this was what he’d been looking for. An edge. It was so obvious. Music had been staring him in the face the whole time. The one thing that always seemed to work for him. Tonight would reveal the truth of his path.

He left the tent and his snoring comrades, packed up his gear, sank into Three Chamber Breathing to practice holding more Qi in his dantian for as long as he could safely do so, stretched, worked out, and he was the first in line for breakfast and even sat with some of the soldiers and shared some laughs. The scorn he’d been expecting never came.

They departed, and Ren took a scouting position on the far left wing. The birds were chirping as the sky went from gold to azure blue where he glimpsed it through the trees. His mind raced with anticipation, so much so that he couldn’t settle it enough for the Silver Fox Meditation. It wasn’t until a red stain on the bark at the base of a tree grabbed the corner of his eye that he noticed the birds had stopped singing.

He knelt, dabbed a finger. It was still tacky. Brought his finger to his nose and sniffed. Blood.

Nothing else was amiss. No sign of conflict or hunt. No source of the bleed. Not a single track.

Cold dread filled his limbs as he scanned. His eyes picked up the old signs of passing critters, not three paces away. At the edge of the blank patch of ground were faint impressions, almost imperceptible, like brushstrokes.

A false bird call traveled along the perimeter of scouts and foresters, passed along one to another, a message of danger.

Stay alert.

Ren nocked an arrow and stalked forward, eyes on a swivel until he reached the edge of the trees and the farming compound came into view. It looked fine. No smoke. No suspicious movement.

No movement at all.

*****

Kareem and the other officers gathered around Commander Narwalla while the man paced behind the storehouse, out of sight of the rest of the company. A thorough inspection had led to one undeniable conclusion: the complex was empty. The entire harvest they’d come to transport to town was missing. So were the workers, who had left behind all of their less valuable belongings and a few blood stains.

Worse yet. One of the foresters was claiming he’d found signs of a demonic Aether Beast nearby.

“We need to fortify our position,” said the commander. “Sergeant Kana, Corporal Gu. Get that started now.”

The two officers saluted and headed off, barking orders. Kareem didn’t disagree with the decision, but a proper leader should be able to make these kinds of calls faster. If Kareem were in charge, he would have acted immediately. None of this standing around thinking. ‘Leaders are decisive,’ his father always said.

“Before we send the scouts back into the woods, I want to confirm what we can about this Black Claw track. Lieutenant Kareem, take Lead Scout Gunney and Forester Ren to confirm and report back.”

Kareem was proud of his facial control. He didn’t even scowl at the mention of the coward Empyrean. The scars on his back still tingled when it was cold.

“Yes Sir.” Kareem saluted and set to his task.

The Lead Scout and Forester in question were already talking when he found them. He briefed them, and they headed out, Forester Ren leading the way.

Kareem couldn’t help but rest his hand on the pommel of his sword. Scores of laborers and a handful of council appointed overseers were just plain gone. He was no coward, but only a fool wouldn’t be a little spooked.

Entering the woods, where tight trees closed in around him and obscured sight past ten or twenty paces did not help his nerves. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that Ren was lying. He’d heard the rumors about the forester tracking and taking down a tier four Black Claw when he was in training, but that was simply ridiculous. When you took away the man’s tricks he was nothing. Kareem had proven that himself during the trials.

That was right. Ren was a coward who couldn’t hold a sword and relied on tricks to win fights and told lies to build up his own legend. If Kareem was a betting man he’d wager Ren had never even seen a Black Claw.

Forester Ren stopped and drew their attention to a stain on a tree. “First I just noticed the blood. It was weird, but it wasn’t until I looked around that I noticed the signs.”

“What signs?” asked Lead Scout Gunney.

Ren’s face was grim and his eyes looked haunted. He was really selling it, Kareem had to give it to him. Quite the actor. “Well, that’s the thing isn’t it. The blood was still drying when I found it, but there were no signs. No tracks. Not for several paces in any direction, and even then not a single clue as to where the blood came from. The Black Claw wolves we dealt with by Rattan did the same thing.” He pointed to a completely empty patch of earth. “Look close.”

Gunney leaned in. “What am I looking at?”

“You see the slight brush-stroke pattern?”

The Lead Scout squinted. “Might be I see something. Hard to tell it’s so faint.”

“Markens and I had a theory that they used their tails to erase their tracks.”

Kareem decided enough time had already been wasted on this. “What do you think, Lead Scout Gunney?”

Gunney scratched his head. “Can’t say I have any experience with demonic wolves. I trust Ren, if he says he’s confident…” He trailed off, chewing the inside of his cheek.

“Speak your mind,” prodded Kareem.

“Well, I found human tracks that I’m pretty sure belong to whoever cleared out the farm. Wolves, as far as I know, don’t eat grain, and besides, it would take an army of them to clear out the whole harvest. My gut says we need to follow the humans. We should be on guard and send the scouts to search in groups just in case there is a Beast still in the area, but time is of the essence.”

“Well said.” It would have been nice if Gunney had been willing to expose Ren’s lie, but it only made sense for him to cover for the Forester. The two seemed to be friends, from what he’d observed. The important thing was that this farce was over. The coward would slip up eventually. “Let’s head back and give our report.”

*****

Ren couldn’t be sure what was in Kareem’s report to the commander, but as the scouts and foresters were sent out there was no mention of Black Claws, just an order to stay alert and assignments for four man teams.

Several tracks of human prints led into the woods, so each team chose a trail to follow.

Ren’s breath was tight and controlled to hold back the panic that built with every step. Flashes of gore and screams from the last time he’d traveled with a group into the woods in Black Claw territory warred with reality.

Chirp

Ren spun and fired at the sound all in one motion, his hastily fired arrow sailing a finger wide of a bluejay.

“Shit, man. You alright?” said the scout who led their group. Her face was almost as blocky as Gunney’s and her voice shared the rough edge so common in the northern tribes. He still hadn't worked up the courage to ask her if the burnt-orange ribbon woven into her hair was a tribal thing or a personal choice.

“I’m fine Nadeema. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just be calm. It’s good to be ready, but jumpy is a whole other thing.”

Ren nodded, but kept his eyes on a swivel and decided to keep an arrow nocked.

Nadeema and the rest of the group stopped up ahead of him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“The tracks just disappear here.”

His breath was coming too fast to activate the Silver Fox Meditation.