I rested on a stretch of empty beach, near enough to the tangle to hear the foreign sounds of an untamed wild, but not so close that the shadows could easily take me.

  There for a day and more. Didn’t want too, but I needed the time if I meant to survive what was comin’ next.

  I drew a knife across my tawny wrist, spillin’ blood onto a strip of dried palm frond.

  "Heretic, I take thee, Broken, but Unbowed," I chanted in the tongue of the Old Faith, the Old Tongue, "take thee, in the name of my father and his father. Grant me Grace in the Dark and the Light. I walk in the path of sin, show me where it might lead..."

  The blood burned, and the kindling bloomed blue and white. Something in me winced and squirmed to see an unhallowed fire in the dawnin’ night.

  In the tree line a few hunkered shapes, some of them quite large indeed, skittered back. The shine of curious eyes blinded by the brilliant blue, disappeared to watch from the deeper dark.

  I only knew of this Rite because my mama's folk were Grass clan. Wind-blooded and all that. It was said that we had descended from the line of his line, just as we had come from the Iron Saint and the Silver-Pact Maker herself. Alice always loved hearin’ them tales, and told them for her as often as mama did.

  It was bullshit, of course.

  But it worked. Just as good as consecrated tinder, it would ward off the night and the things that came with it.

  I felt the bloom of protective mana emanate from my bloody offering. My eyes grew wide, and I could feel the faintest pressure of building mana, or charge in the air like a storm was comin’ again.

  The distant ripples of things come from Outside became visible in the light, and through the haze of the circle ward I had built. Just ash on rock, symbols so simple that every Northman child knew them well. The creatures of the wood fled at that, all except the most hungry, the most patient.

  The most dangerous.

  Like I said, as good as a bit of hallowed kindling, and no need for consecrated oil or an uppity priest. No need to pray to the Empire’s Gods.

  I tossed a bunch of dug mussels and a few unlucky crabs into the pot of seawater I set upon the flames.

  Godly or no, fire was fire, and I was hungry.

  No real spices, shame, but some hardtack and a pinch of dried sea-grass would give my boil a passable taste and texture. If there was one benefit to growin’ up on the Broken Coast, to a Northern witch and a Southern soldier, it was that I could cook just about anything fit for eatin’. And some things not.

  Mama taught me that food was a gift of the Spinner. Daddy said it was a gift from the Trinity. Both agreed that butter, salt, and time could make most anything edible.

  Toss in a dash of mana and a little faith, you got something worth living for.

  I hoped they both were alive. I hoped Alice was too. All better be. I'd see them. If not in this wavering life, then when the Gods join us to be.

  Besides my humble feast, I had looted whiskey, spiced wine, and a half crate more stolen spirits and a few dry provisions. The beaches were rich for a scavenger.

  A humble ruck received them all.

  My stomach growled, but I knew the smart cook's first rule. Watch and wait, let the steam and scent of good eatin’ settle your soul.

  Then taste slow.

  You can't go and eat new things without due caution. Touch it to your skin, then to your tongue, and then, if you aren't itching or burning, you can swallow. After that, wait some more.

  No shits? No shakes? No sweats?

  Big bite, wait again. Not dead?

  Well, now you can eat.

  I cracked shells with a dull little knife I lifted from a dead girl on the rock a half mile south, an Uruk sailor. Her face was a mess of red and blue, eyes pecked out by gulls, lips gone to the crabs and insects. I spoke a prayer to no one in particular and left her there. I wished sorely I could have burned that stranger. She hadn’t been on the ship, like Sven, the Pardaz and me. Died honest, or so I hoped.

  Deserved some better rest than crabs and gulls.

  Didn’t stop me from takin’ her flask though. Needs and wants were at odds as surely as monsters and men.

  Whiskey.

  Oak, pepper, spice, and sweet.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Too good and too hot for the heat of a far-off shore. Still, I had my share.

  I was tingling somethin’ nice when I finally set about the real work of my dawning night. I lit a waterlogged plug of spicy ghostleaf in a rough-cut pipe.

  A deep draw, just enough to clear my head for the real work I needed to do.

  I had gotten a godsdamned Matrix and a Rune Book. Those were the tools with which a man could make a destiny.

  The process, far as I knew, was a little like painting a picture. First, you needed the idea, for the metaphor that was a subject or scene. For my purposes, it was a Path.

  Desperado.

  Then you needed your canvas, the page, the medium, and that was my own body and the Rune Book. Finally, the rest of your tools: paintbrush and pigments, matrix gem and mana.

  Oh, and you also needed a fire kindled with solemn prayer or blood sacrifice.

  Check.

  Now was the hard part.

  Don't fuck it up, Roche.

  Don't want to end up like old Sven.

  Named, sure, and I was pretty certain he was more than just a little Blessed, he'd never gotten any further on his Path. Likely, that old cuss had chosen a short and easy way to power. Shot for the hills rather than the moons.

  Maybe if he hadn’t taken the short road, it’d be him cookin’ over a warm fire, and me bein’ picked apart by the gulls on the beach. Though at least he’d rest in the Halls of the Dead now. I’d have nothin’ so sweet when my own shortcomings, my own failures, caught up to me.

  Instead was going to take the long way, the slow way, the hard way. Had to cut deep, had to really give. Because that was the only way a thick-headed son-of-a-bitch like me knew.

  A deep breath. I closed my eyes, took that dull knife, and began.

  I made the first cut below my collarbone. It was thin and not too deep, a simple line, a horizon, an ever-distant goal. The same line appeared upon the page. A deep black, it pulsed with my own beating heart. Blood welled and spilled, burning in a steady stream into the hungry, thirsty paper.

  My eyes watered as the draw of vitality taxed my weary soul.

  Don't pass out, dipshit, you got a long way to go.

  Next, I cut the second line, a vertical one, straight down my chest to my belly and into the meat above my groin. Totality. I offered all of me to ensure a proper foundation. I would not skimp. Mutation was not something to fear. Change was the natural way of things, and I would be a fool to fear it.

  More life rushed out as blood and mana filled the page.

  Godsdamnit, that hurts! My hands shook and my mind wore thin, swimming and warping right along with the thick magic in the air.

  But you gotta make it whole, gotta finish the details, close the circuit, make it three. Three ain't enough, but you'll die if you try for four, Roche. You know it. You're not Blessed or Chosen, not a Hero, not a Saint-in-Waiting.

  You're a pig-fuck farm boy from the Broken Coast. Too weak and too poor to even stand on your own. Three is all you'll ever get, boy, and you best make it good.

  I made a third, diagonal cut from right shoulder to left hip. Symbolized the draw of gun and blade, martial might, and a willingness to fight.

  Everything was hazy, dim. I was cold, so cold.

  Now you can stop. You'll be good enough.

  But never great. Never better than them. This power will keep a boot from your throat, but you'll never be free.

  Fuck that. Fuck you, and fuck them.

  I would have a Star. True power required cost. It required sacrifice greater than mana and blood.

  To be truly free, was to open yourself to all that lay beyond. To deny the chains of mortal ken, and the safety of ignorance.

  I could barely grip the knife now, couldn't even see what part of my mutilated body I made to cut.

  Then I felt it just below the eye.

  No.

  No, no, no too high-

  Pop.

  Oh gods. I'm sorry, daddy. Sorry, mama. Sorry, Alice. I'm sorry I can't be strong.

  Old salt, dull steel dug into fat, and pushed to bone. I felt fire run down from my skull's socket, across cheek and chin. Around the neck, I cut a noose that spiraled lower and just barely crossed to meet that first line.

  And I was gone.

  Dark.

  Quiet.

  Painless and deep.

  Then.

  One note and two, the first in a song I heard often as a boy.

  Writ by a Northman Skald for a warrior dying in the dark. Distant still, but growing into its own.

  Fitting.

  Ironic, maybe, if I knew what the hell that actually meant.

  Light crept in as the music became clear. Space, weight, time, all joined to create something like a dream. Or an afterlife.

  "You just going to sleep the whole way through? Warriors got lazy since my time, it seems..." came a voice of gravel and smoke, thick accent, rural and North. Sounded like my grandpappy before the cancer took him.

  I opened my eyes and winced at the bright light.

  "Fuck," I croaked and tried to sit up, then realized I already was. I raised my head up from a polished bar and blinked at the low light.

  A familiar picture hung on a dirty wall. Beside it, a familiar mirror, and an almost familiar man behind that.

  "Good morning, sunshine," snarled the scar-crossed old bastard. He grinned at me through a face that looked like a dime’s worth of dog meat, flashing gold and black teeth.

  Then he wiped a dirty glass and filled it with amber ambrosia. The scent of oak, honey, and sweet sinner’s fire wafted through the air and mixed in with the salt and rust.

  I reached for it, but it was like I was moving through tar, slow and thick.

  "Easy there, son. You're too weak to do much in the Dream," the old man said. Then scratched the mess on his face, dirty fingers lost in writin’ black hair, “For now. We’ll fix that in time.”

  "Where am I?"

  "Your soul, my friend. Our Dream. I'll admit, it's nice to be free of that little gem. It's been a long wait since that damned Hunter put me to the long sleep, and a longer wait in the dark. Company there is shit. I'd have gone mad if not for my music," The stranger waved a hand behind me, and the song on the piano changed.

  A guitar joined it, and the pair played something merry and bright, but… wrong. The hands of man didn’t hit half so many notes, and not half so fast.

  "Now look up, it's time you and me made a deal..."