There was always a desire for more underneath the surface of his iron control. He kept it banked, never letting the kindling start the fire. Red was not a pious nor abstinent man. He fed the need just enough to keep it sated and calm. To yearn for more would stoke the itch that could never be scratched because it knew no limits.

Red made it his mission never to give in.

So how did he get to the point where he was looking at the man he was holding upside down like a steak?

The slim rational part of his mind knew this hunger came from his father. His father and forefathers were proof that this appetency never faded. It only grew until you devoured countries and looked forward to new lands to consume.

This ache that desired death should be aimed at those who deserve it or need to die. His maternal grandmother had burned those words into his heart, and he had obeyed it for the past two decades.

But it was hard to stop it once his appetite was stoked. He wanted nothing more than to keep killing and to absorb. The past countless days of murder he committed made it harder to soothe his yearning.

The irrational side was already guessing how the meat dangling in his hands would taste. The man smelled like he drank enough wine to pretenderize his flesh with sweetness.

A piece of him was speaking to him. No, it was a person, Red corrected in his head as he blinked. This person had a piece of his blood growing within them. It was Merin, Red realized belatedly. He could hear Merin speaking to him, and through their bond, he could feel her uneasiness and worry for him.

Why wasn't she afraid? She should have been running for it, but she approached him. Red stared at her. He was unsure how to stop, and there was no way he could get control. If he could, he would have by now.

Her pale unblemished hand unabashedly landed on his tarnished blade welding hand. "Let's give it a shot, at least." She said with a small smile.

Red had no idea what she'd been saying this whole time, yet he found his body listening. He dropped the man and his blade to the ground.

Something within him seemed to crack because the lights went dark.

Red was back in his bedroom when he opened his eyes. He relaxed upon the now familiar sight of clean sheets and spotless floors.

Merin had worked wonders with the servants because even the air managed to always smell like fresh flowery crap.

A scream cut off the peaceful thoughts, and Red dashed out of the room. He barely paused to grab his shovel. He could see the darkened skies outside, meaning he must have slept until the sun went down.

Bellare and Letha were outside the door, watching over him while he slept.

"Where's Merin?" He said.

"Russus said to make sure you could sleep peacefully tonight," Letha said.

Red felt like wringing Bellare by the throat. "There are assassins every night." He said.

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"She said she would handle it tonight so you could rest..." Bellare said. He wanted to convey something in his expression, but Red ignored him because another cry of pain echoed down the halls.

Red took off down the hall as his mind tried to run through all the scenarios of what might greet him.

Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

Merin was standing in the middle of the courtyard. The full moon illuminated her silvery hair. Her left hand held strings of silver attached to a handful of men's throats.

A man attempted to jump down from the rooftop behind her. Red cried out to warn her as his body moved to kill the man. Before he could, Merin beat him to the punch. Merin held out a hand and caught the man in mid-air. She lifted him higher before smashing him like a child might a toy.

Merin twisted that string, and the trapped men cried out. Little beads of light traveled up the length and towards her palm. When the lights faded, the captured men collapsed. It was a similar magic to something Red had seen his father do, which raised alarms in his head.

Merin looked at him and tsked, "Go back to bed. I have it covered for tonight. It's the least I can do." She said.

Red scanned the courtyard and saw dozens of dead men. There were more than usual, and he attributed that to the marketplace healing incident. Red knelt to examine the bodies closest to him. Every man she killed was broken from the inside.

Red looked up from the pile of bodies to look at Merin. She'd stolen their life force and used it to kill them.

She hid her strength since they left Ela. She had the ni symbol attached to her name. She said it was a gift, but the Inni people didn't doll out ni to just anyone. There was also the fact that Merin had never heard of Habrin. He long suspected she lacked current knowledge because of something more than stupidity.

It may be time for Red to question Merin to discover how old she is. Better yet, it was time for him to know what she was.

"Bad dragons don't get tender meat," Merin said, shaking a finger at Acuzio. He should have attacked the man who tried to kidnap her. "Begging won't make me share." She said, turning her head away from the dragon who was pleading with her. She shoved the juicy meat into her own mouth instead.

Although she had used the moon to steal vitality from the men in the courtyard, she was ravenous. Red was staring at her strangely as she cleared several plates of food. She usually picked at her food like a delicate bird forced to eat, but that facade was long gone. She needed to fill up on food.

She could see questions in his eyes, but his mouth was busy chewing like hers. She still hadn't decided what to say when she swallowed her food.

Merin nibbled on her lip as she braced herself for the conversation that both had put off a staggering amount of time. She appreciated that he had waited patiently for her to broach the subject. Both of them had their secrets, and slowly, they were peeling away the layers, but that took time.

"I'm a Caladrius," Merin said when she finally gained the courage to admit it.

"What is that?" Red said.

"I'm not exactly sure. I'm the last one. My mother didn't have much to pass on to me aside from her madness. She discovered how to trigger the hidden attributes of our blood."

"Your history with Elan?" He said.

That was a bit touchier but something Merin needed to confess. "I came across them right after I met Mordecai." She said.

"Mordecai is the boy that left that," Red said, pointing to the dragon who had crawled onto Merin's plate and was eating the unattended meat.

Merin pretended she didn't see Aczuio eating the forbidden meat and nodded. She said, "Mordecai warned me that he would punish me if I didn't change course."

"Why would he say that?" Red said.

"He said that I was messing with his plans, and if my mother's prophecies were stopping me, then he would lay the groundwork for me to overcome them. I've lived my extensive life ensuring her prophecies didn't come true. I didn't think he could actually do it."

"What did she foresee?" Red said.

"She saw I would have daughters who wouldn't need loss to gain strength. She saw the return of a dead Goddess...Red, I think Mordecai created the Habrin Empire." Merin said with a dry mouth.

This was the one thing that she had managed to ignore the moment she put the timeline of everything in order. Mordecai said what he wanted and told her he would punish her if she ignored him. She had ignored the kid and decided to float around for hundreds of years. Mordecai must have accomplished his promise with the creation of Habrin.

If so, then Merin was to blame for even more innocent loss of life. How could she ever move past that?