Chaos: Histories of Purga, #4

By Rustin Petrae

Blak spent endless time in the empty. The void. The dark place. He was banished there by the Sentinels. but he only bided his time. He gathered his strength and waited for when he would be set free.

That time is now.

Blak has regained his full strength and now Purga is in danger of being completely overrun and destroyed. Both of the great nations, the Rooks and the Terraquois, are all but decimated. The few survivors of both peoples must now pull their remaining armies together. Without a unified force, the peoples of Purga cannot hope to defeat the evil, chaotic, and god-like being.

Keiara has spent her entire life dreaming about adventure and Purga. Of seeing the entirety of her world. Rone has always gone out of his way to help those that needed it. Even to the point where he would risk his position and even his life. Niku lives and breathes to test his might against the strongest foes he can find. These are the traits that set these three apart and marked them as the ones prophesized. The Prince. The Savior. The One Born of Both Worlds.

Now, they must find a way to fully harness the powers of the Sentinels they command, and bring everyone together in a final, titanic battle to defeat an ancient evil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rustin Petrae
• Release date: Apr 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224027699

Rustin Petrae

Rustin Petrae is the author of the Histories of Purga Novels, the Bane Pack Novels, Hybrid Earth, and Forfeit. He is also an art director/graphic designer and recent BFA graduate from The Ohio State University. Currently, he lives in Ohio but was actually born in San Antonio, TX. However, he spent most of his childhood and early adulthood overseas in Japan and Korea. The experiences gained from living in Japan (Misawa Air Force Base) and Korea (Yongsan Army Base and Osan Air Force Base) helped shape his writing. Living among other cultures did a lot to expand his worldview. He started writing very early on but was interested in becoming an author even back in elementary school. In fact, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up as part of a school project, he said he wanted to be either a cartoonist or an author. While he still draws here and there, he spends most of his time working to hone both his writing and graphic design skills. He's written several stories, flash fictions, a few novellas, and six novels. He also creates his own cover art and promotional materials. To get up to date news on Rustin's projects, freebies, and more, check out his official website at: rustinpetrae.com.

Book preview

Chapter One

Eternity.

Millenniums and millenniums.

Forever.

Infinite.

That is the true length of Blak's lifetime.

Countless worlds began, and countless others were destroyed. Gone as if they'd never been. It continued that way, an endless cycle, for as long as Blak had come into existence. At first, he simply observed. He watched as civilization after civilization came into being, only to let themselves be destroyed.

Why?

It was simple, really, and always the same.

They destroyed each other. And they always did it in spectacular, creative ways. It was predictable. He watched them over the span of millenniums, and again, it was always the same. Beings would evolve and become sentient only to war and murder each other.

His existence became tedious after that. Pointless even. But then he realized something. He knew the outcome of all of the civilizations in all the universes. The outcome was always total destruction. So, instead of just observing, he started progressing things along himself. He started interfering. It was a subtle thing at first. He would nudge the thoughts of others with his own. He would push them toward a path of chaos and death. Over time, he realized that the more chaos, death, and destruction he sowed, the more powerful he became. Until he happened across a strange world tucked away in a corner of the universe far from any other worlds. A curious creature evolved on this planet. They were like the others before, but they were somehow different. He sowed his seeds. He corrupted these strange creatures. He stirred their hearts down dark and twisted paths. He turned them to war and destruction. And like all the others, these creatures obliged.

They killed. They tortured each other. They caused great wars for petty, selfish reasons. They destroyed themselves.

But then somehow survived to rebuild.

So he tried again. He sowed his seeds of chaos.

And again, these creatures he was so curious about nearly let themselves be destroyed. They created powerful weapons that not only killed themselves but destroyed their world as well. Poisoning it and even making it uninhabitable. But against his plans and incredible odds, these creatures managed to survive and rebuild.

Fed up and sickened by his failures, Blak decided to make his presence more overt. He used the power he amassed over his countless years to create devastating weather and natural disasters. He used their religious beliefs to warp and twist their thoughts into acts of suicidal destruction. He spread famine. He spread pestilence. He spread war. He spread death.

But nothing ever worked.

They rebuilt time and time again.

So, in a fit of childish fury, he caused their sun to go supernova and destroyed the pests right down to their infernal atoms.

He praised himself for his victory.

He praised himself for finally destroying humanity. The silly, resilient creatures he hated so much.

But he was wrong. He was tricked, and he realized his mistake too late.

Something with power to match his stepped in. He had never come across anything like it before. For eons, he'd been alone, free to do as he wished. But suddenly, he had to fight. He had to use his power just to survive. Two things happened in the moments before he caused humanity's sun to explode. Energy like he never felt before rippled through the solar system. It came from the one (or ones) he fought against, and their power was great. He felt it hit him, and he experienced pain for the first time. The second was that the same energy that caused him pain also opened several temporal and dimensional shifts in space-time. He didn't realize what was happening until it was almost too late to do anything about it.

The being or beings, he wasn't sure how many there were, had plucked humans (he wasn't sure how many either) from different times and eras of humanity's past, present, and future. And then, they were transported through the dimensional gates to a different world where their race would survive.

Again.

He was furious. After everything he did to wipe out humanity, it was all for nothing. The being, or beings, countered his every move and beat him. It had taken an untold number of humans through the rifts to a haven it thought he couldn't reach. He remembered feeling strange when he saw that he could follow the humans. It was, he believed, what the humans called an emotion. It made him feel good. Strange, but good.

The emotion was happiness.

He was happy because the being didn't know he was as strong and powerful as it was. He opened his own dimensional rift and followed humanity to its new home. The other being tried to block him off, but he wouldn't be stopped. Humans had their time, like all the others. He had decided that their time was over. He had made sure of it, and he would not be denied.

The rift opened onto a new, fresh world. A world just brought into being. He could still sense the immense power coming from it. The power was strong, and he realized the being against whom he’d pitted his strength was not a singular entity but multiple ones.

Three, to be exact.

[Leave this place. Humanity will survive here, and they will do so without your meddling. You have failed,] one of the beings said to him.

Time has taught me something. It has opened me up to the truth. Civilizations big and small all fail. They all wipe themselves out. And why? Because sentient beings do not care about their own destruction. They care only about power. They strive only to obtain more of it. Humans are no different. They will destroy each other. I've already seen to that many times over now, Blak responded. It is the way of existence. Why should humans prove to be any different?

[They are more resilient than you care to believe. Even though you've witnessed their strength many times after your continued failures to destroy them,] another being taunted.

Blak bristled with anger.

[Again, we say, leave this world. Go your own way. This is your last chance. If you elect to continue on your path of destruction, we will stop you,] the last being threatened. [You cannot match our combined strength.]

Who are you? Blak asked, curious.

[We are timeless, like you. We are guardians. We are Sentinels. And we will not let you destroy what we have sworn to protect.]

You do not have a choice, Blak hissed.

Then he pushed the three back and out of his way. He unleashed himself fully on the remnants of humanity. He polluted their minds and destroyed the goodness in their hearts. They were easy prey. They were all frightened at being ripped away from their planet and brought to a new place.

They were practically killing each other already.

He feasted on their chaotic emotions and drank in the surges of new power he got in return.

He caused more and more chaos.

But no matter what he did, they survived. They even became stronger each time they were forced to rebuild. The surviving humans began to grow in technological advances by leaps and bounds. They created vast cities with amazing machines. They used their collective intelligence to invent nanobots, and their strength became even greater. But as their technology advanced, so did their strength with the primal forces of nature. They learned how to tap into that power and manipulate it to their own advantage. They learned how to shift their own forms and change into other creatures and use that skill to suit their needs.

He was furious because it was becoming harder to warp and twist them to his purposes. His power over them was waning.

[Leave. You will not destroy them. They will rebuild. They will survive. You cannot destroy what makes them special,] one of the Sentinels told him.

And what, exactly, makes them special? Blak asked, mocking them.

[Hope,] another Sentinel responded. [Hope is what makes them so resilient.]

Then I will crush that hope from them, Blak swore.

The Sentinels did nothing to stop him.

He was confused about why they did nothing, but the answer quickly became apparent. Hope would not be crushed. He did everything he could to erase it, but it would flare back up every time, even from the smallest of sparks inside a single human.

I will just destroy this sun as I did the other one, Blak screamed.

He raced toward the sun of that new world, but he could not affect it. His power was blocked.

[It will not work. We've seen to that,] a Sentinel explained. [Now we ask you again to leave. You will not win here.]

But Blak would not be denied.

I will destroy them! he screamed defiantly.

He amassed his strength and once again attacked the humans. But he made a mistake. A colossal error. The humans knew of him. They knew he was out there, and they knew he was coming for them.

So they set a trap.

They combined their technology and magical skill and opened a dimensional rift. He was so shocked by what they'd done, that they possessed the ability to create rifts by themselves, that he was ill-prepared to defend himself. He tried to escape, but the humans were clever. They sprang their trap at precisely the right moment, and he could not fight it.

He screamed out. He tried using his power to fight against what they had done.

It was all useless.

He was sucked into the rift, still screaming and yelling, and watched as it sealed itself after he was inside. He bashed against where the rift had been moments before, but it would not open back up. He tried to create his own rift but quickly realized that his power did not work in this new place. He continued to fight his way out, but ultimately, he could not. Spending untold amounts of time looking for a way to escape, he eventually quit fighting and explored his new surroundings instead.

All he saw was darkness.

There were no worlds to destroy. There was no one to corrupt and nothing to pollute. It was nothing but emptiness. It was endless. And it was cold. He forced himself to stop fighting against this prison he found himself in and decided to save his energy for when he would need it. He waited patiently instead. Or as patiently as he could. Eventually, he could feel the prison around him grow weaker and weaker.

He felt that emotion again.

Happiness.

He knew beyond a doubt that the prison was weakening because the humans were creating their own chaos. They were causing their own wars. Their combined efforts from before was what gave the prison its strength.

That was slowly fading.

He waited. He wasn't sure for how long. He had no concept of time in that prison. It could've been a hundred years, or it could've been thousands.

But then he saw it. The rift that had sent him to this place was visibly weakening.

It won't be long now, he whispered to himself.

And he was right. The rift continued to weaken, and soon, it could not hold him anymore. But he had to use the rest of his stored power to open it, weakening himself. He burst out of the rift and back into the humans' world. He was barely able to move, and he was so weak. He realized that he needed a host body to survive, so he began his hunt. He wandered through that world for a suitable body but could not inhabit just anyone. The humans possessed an inherent strength that, in his weakened state, he could not overcome.

He would need a willing host.

He glided through Purga (he picked up the name of their world as he was trying to possess a human) and ended up near a tree city named Ledun. Fires raged there, and people fought. He feasted in the chaos of emotions there and gained a bit more power.

[I'm dead.]

Blak heard the thought clearly, and with that thought came the owner's emotions of anger and betrayal. He felt glee again because his hunt was finally over. He knew he'd found his host. He was sure of it. He tracked down the owner of that thought, using the intense negativity of its rage to find it quickly. This took little time. Not nearly as long as he spent caged like an animal in that desolate void of utter darkness. His new host was easy to spot. It was a man. A burnt and nearly dead human man amid the raging fires. The pain this man felt was immeasurable.

Blak drifted closer to him.

[I'm dead. I'm dead, and it's his fault! Rowan's fault,] the voice thought. [Rowan's fault. Rowan...]

The voice was weakening, so Blak surged ahead. His time was growing shorter as the man was getting closer and closer to death. He plucked the man's name from his mind like a fruit from a tree.

[Wilhelm Coran,] he said.

[Who is there? Help me, please. It hurts so much.]

[I can help you. I can save you and give you what your heart desires most. I can give you vengeance on the man who caused this and all those who wronged you. That betrayed you,] Blak whispered to him.

[How?] Wilhelm asked.

[You must let me in. We must merge.]

[How?] Wilhelm asked again. He was even weaker than before.

[Accept me and do not fight it. Then I can give you everything. I can give you this world. I can give you power. What do you say? Time is short.] Blak was growing increasingly anxious.

Wilhelm said nothing for a long time. Fear and hesitation was flowing through his mind. But then he thought about Rowan, his king, and how the man had gotten him killed for selfish, stupid reasons.

So he made up his mind.

[Yes,] Wilhelm said. [Do it.]

Chapter Two

Wilhelm Coran stood on the crest of a large dune dressed in a tattered cloak with a hood that covered his head, shadowing his face in darkness. Absent-mindedly, he raised a hand to his face and ran fingers over the burn scars there. The ridges and melted wax-like skin only cemented his desire to implement his plan. And the pain. The pain was a constant, unceasing, unrelenting presence now. It made it hard to keep moving, to just keep going, but he did so primarily out of stubborn rage and a need for revenge. The trek from Ledun was unbearably arduous. There were times when he didn’t think he would make it. Food and water were scarce, so he had to find it where he could, which consisted of small animals he managed to catch and water from dubious sources, which he filtered as much as he could. The sun's heat across his scorched skin was like the fires of Damnation, but again, his stubborn rage carried him onward. There were many days during his months-long journey when he wanted to give up and just die like he should have at Ledun, even begging for it on occasion. Each time he was on the precipice of giving in, he would let his hatred and rage take over and keep to the path he set himself on. Him and the voice, of course.

The voice inside his head.

[You will keep going. You will persevere. If you keep moving forward, little human, all your desires will come to pass.]

It was his constant companion in those long, tortuous months, and Wilhelm quickly began thinking of it as a friend. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it had saved his life, and that was a debt he could never repay. The voice encouraged him and helped him keep his sanity. It guided him. Mentored him. It cautioned him and gave advice. Once, he thought to use his nanos, thinking in his delirious state they could help him, but the voice chimed in. It understood the technology and knew that Rowan might be able to find their signal and track him through it. So he refused to use them. The last time he did so was right after the voice found him, and they came out to heal his broken body enough for him to walk and move again. It was hard. Being with his nanos for so long and not using them felt like not using his limbs. It was nearly unnatural, but that iron-hard fortitude inside his mind to get revenge was enough to force himself to restrain the urge and complete the trek solely on foot.

And now, here he was, on the footsteps of Roanoke herself.

He peered across the desert at the glorious splendor of his homelands. Elegant, silver spires erupted into the air in a beauty so reverent he nearly wept. The sun shone off their surfaces and created brilliant rays of light everywhere, adding to his homesickness deep inside himself. Surrounding those tall and beautiful buildings was a massive wall of cytium and steel. He was familiar with its design and knew where to circumvent the guards patrolling it but he waited, still taking in the sight of his home.

[We must keep going,] the voice insisted, urging him onward. [I am still too weak. If someone finds you, I cannot help you. We must hide. Hide and raise our strength to bring down your betrayer king and everything he has built.]

Aye, Wilhelm whispered, feeling the edges of his lip curl into a sneer of hatred at the mention of Rowan. Let us go then.

Wilhelm secured the hood around his head a bit more tightly and then started walking again, his feet slipping in the fine sands of the Javardi. The pain flared up, but over the course of months, he had trained himself to ignore it. What once was a bright fire ravaging through his body’s nervous system was now only a dull, ceaseless pain. Something easily pushed down to the depths of his consciousness.

[Good. You learn well,] the voice encouraged.

Wilhelm didn’t respond, but the praise nonetheless gave him a sense of pride. He continued on his way. It took nearly five more hours to get to the wall surrounding Roanoke. This suited him because night had set in by the time he reached it. There was a chill sweeping across the desert that cooled his burning skin, but he barely stopped to notice it. His mind focused on navigating his way across the ground and avoiding the security protocols put in place to prevent any Terraquois advances. These included drones that routinely patrolled the area just outside the wall, land mines, and even a laser grid that, if tripped, would sound a loud and blatant alarm. Wilhelm knew them all and exploited a spot where the land dipped severely, making it easy to bypass the invisible laser grid to relative safety. From there, he made his way along the base of the wall, making sure to hide in the densest shadow whenever a drone happened by, and eventually came to a completely unknown hatch set flush in the wall so that it was invisible to anyone who didn’t know it was there. Wilhelm knew of it and used it now to make his way back into Roanoke. The passage was small and extremely dark. Once he closed the hatch, no light got through, and he had to fumble along its length for what felt like several miles. In reality, it was more like one, but because he went slowly, the walk felt endless.

And extremely foul-smelling.

The initial reason for the mysterious tunnel’s creation was to quietly and secretly expel troops from Roanoke in case a surprise attack was warranted against an enemy. About half a dozen of the secret tunnels were leading outside Roanoke’s walls. However, this one’s lack of use had made the air stale, and something had died in it—or several somethings. Given the extreme pungency of the air inside it, he figured there had to be more than one creature that had met its end, left to rot and pollute the air further. He placed a sleeve of his cloak across his nose and mouth and did what came naturally to him. He soldiered on.

The voice inside his head was absent now, so he was left with just his thoughts and his thoughts alone. Not that those were a soothing balm to snuff out his rage. If anything, they only fanned those particular flames. He didn’t care. He even relished giving in to the anger now.

He continued his trek through the tunnel. If he remembered correctly, it was eighty-five feet long, so he had a good way to go before he could exit it. He decided to spend the time going over what his next steps would be. The first thing he knew he wanted to do was see Katrina, his wife. His anger was the primary force that drove him onward, but the prospect of seeing the woman he loved again was also there, only to a lesser extent. He missed her. Missed being with her. Holding her. Kissing her. The thought of being unable to tell her he loved her before falling from the tree in Ledun had broken something deep inside. But now, he could mend that break.

[Remember what you came back from the dead to do. Remember your mission,] the voice whispered insidiously through his mind. The sudden sensation caused him to twitch lightly, and his heart sped up. That was all though. His years of rigorous training and combat had steeled his nerves so much that he rarely felt fear anymore.

Except that day, his mind whispered back. It was not the voice that said those words. They came solely from him. The day you burned.

He pushed those thoughts away and the beginning stirrings of memory that came along with them. Being burned alive was a torture he still lived with. He did not want or need reminding of it.

Eventually, he came to the end of the tunnel. He guessed the trek took nearly an hour, thanks to the cramped conditions and the state of his still-healing body. But that was okay. It was over now, so he could rest easy. He placed his hands on the hatch leading to Roanoke proper and pushed.

It didn’t so much as budge.

He pushed harder.

Still nothing.

The beginning stirrings of fear and panic started to set in, and despite his training, it was getting harder and harder to ignore them. He didn’t want to be trapped, left there to die and rot like the carcasses he had walked through. He bashed at the hatch with the entire weight of his body repeatedly. The impacts on his shoulder were starting to hurt worse than the pain of his burns. His breathing became rough and ragged. His chest pumped rapidly in and out like a bellows. His throat started to go dry.

[You will damage yourself if you keep this up,] the voice stated. [And I am not strong enough to mend you should you do so. I advise caution.]

Wilhelm wasn’t sure what the voice meant by that, but the logic was sound, so he quit bashing into the hatch. Instead, he calmed himself down and concentrated on a possible solution to opening the door. Nothing, however, came to him. It was either sealed shut from the other side, or its internal mechanisms had simply corroded due to lack of use. Whatever the case, it appeared he would be stuck in the tunnel if he didn’t think of something. He searched his mind for an idea, but the only solution that came to him was to create a tool or machine with his nanos. It would be risky, but he thought enough time had passed since Ledun and that no one would be actively looking for his nanos’ signal anymore. They would all think he was dead.

It was risky. If he were wrong and someone was tracking the use of his nanos, then his plans would get ruined, and his quest to get revenge on Rowan would end before it started. He didn’t want that, but there was little else he could do. In his mind, it was a risk worth taking.

He raised his right mechpak to his face and gently tapped it. Immediately, a soft blue glow emanated from it as the vents in the mechpak closed to form a screen. He sped through several blueprints in a few seconds, each wholly inadequate to the job of busting him out of his tunnel prison. What he needed was something quiet and surgical. Being in the military, however, afforded him relatively few options suited to the task. Most of his blueprints consisted of weaponry that would...cause a commotion. In the end, he found one that might do the job and do it quietly. He pressed the engage button on his mechpak, and the screen abruptly shut off as the vents opened again. A low hum suddenly filled the air, and the sound was soothing to him. It felt like a healing balm. He hadn’t realized how much he missed that sound until he heard it again. It was like putting a piece of his shattered life back together again.

The darkness enfolded him again, but he could hear the nanos surging together to make the tool he told them to make. It coalesced, fully formed, in his hand a few seconds later, and the weight of it was a much-needed comfort to him. He groped with his free hand and found the hatch, tracing its outline until he found the wheel-like handle stuck shut. He applied his tool to it, making sure the fit was correct. It was a simple bar-like object but, when fit into the handle, would give him enough leverage to open the damned thing. Even with the bar, getting the handle to move was still hard. After his third try, it budged and started to turn. A loud screeching sound immediately made him stop what he was doing for fear someone might hear him, but after thinking it through, he realized there was nothing he could do about that now. If someone heard him, he would just have to deal with it. Lethally.

No one could know he was back.

It took a good twenty minutes or so to get the hatch’s handle to finish its rotation. There was a soft hiss of escaping air, and then, mercifully, he was free. The hatch opened, and he scrambled into a dimly lit hallway with orange light. He looked to his left and right but found it empty. It looked like fate was on his side, and a twisted, dark smile spread across his face as he picked a direction and walked. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later, and navigating carefully through several other hallways and rooms, he found his way outside and into Roanoke. He breathed in the familiar scents of his home, like the surrounding buildings' sharp, almost antiseptic scents mixed with the contrasting smells of blossoms, restaurants cooking food, perfumed men and women, and so much more. Each new scent he encountered seemed to trigger latent memories of his younger days. Days of when he, Rowan, and Milo trained together. The times they snuck out and went drinking. The nights spent with Katrina. The way her fingers felt sliding across his chest, his neck, and his cheek.

Tears started to fall as these memories of better times overwhelmed him. Inside, the voice withered away from them, almost as if their touch burned.

[Stop. Now,] the voice hissed, clearly angry. [This is not the time to indulge in forgotten moments already lost to you.]

He was right, Wilhelm realized. Those days were long past. He took a long breath and returned to a more neutral, emotional state. He looked around, trying to get a sense of things now that the tunnel was past him. It was morning, and the sun was low in the eastern part of the sky. He must have been in that blasted tunnel for hours. But that was okay.

Because he was finally home.

His twisted smile grew wider.

*

Wilhelm kept to himself and made sure his hood never dropped from his head. Even as severely burned and mutilated as he was, someone could still recognize him. The streets were bustling, and hovercraft of varying sizes and shapes were zipping up and down the streets. People were walking and milling around, going about their own business. Friends were going out for a morning coffee. People were walking their pets. Others were heading to their jobs. But all of them, he noticed, gave him a wide berth. He couldn’t understand why, but it was almost like they were instinctually avoiding him. He might have paused to take note of that if he hadn’t been so happy to be back. But he was, and he didn’t. Instead, he focused on his primary goal.

Katrina.

He wanted to see his wife again.

[I do not think that wise, human,] the voice suddenly piped up.

Wilhelm realized that he had been left without its presence for some time now and hadn’t realized it. The voice was a friend, yes, but he did enjoy his solitude, and with the voice locked inside his mind, he got very few moments where he was just himself.

She is my wife, Wilhelm murmured, keeping his voice low. The last thing he needed was to appear crazy. Those touched with insanity often stuck out and became memorable. He didn’t want that. Instead, he wanted anonymity. Invisibility. He tried to stay well outside everyone’s personal islands of awareness.

[It could prove disastrous to our plans,] the voice whispered back.

I have to see her, Wilhelm said. She can be with me as we work to take down Rowan. She can be by my side. You will see. Our love will conquer.

The voice did not respond, but Wilhelm could feel its hesitation and uncertainty regardless.

He didn’t care.

Katrina had spent the last several months thinking he was dead, killed in a Terraquois battle. When she saw that he was alive, she would be overjoyed. How could she not? He was her husband, and they loved each other. Had loved each other ever since they were in school together. There was no other woman for him, and he knew there would be no other man for her. They were soulmates. Destined to be together forever.

Despite that, fear and nervousness inched into his mind as he got closer and closer to the villa they shared in the Noble Quarter. A section of Roanoke housed a good portion of the Upper Tier. Being a noble himself, a great military general and a close advisor to King Rowan himself afforded Wilhelm a vast and enviable estate. Upon his seeming death, that estate would have gone to Katrina. He knew her and knew she would still be living there. The more he thought about her, the more he realized walking was too slow. He decided to risk using his nanos again and created a slim hoverbike. It merged in minutes on the street in front of him. Once it finished, he got on it and zipped through the streets. He had no trouble remembering where to go, and he was outside his estate in about thirty minutes. It was a large, sprawling building with hard edges, large glass windows, a well-manicured lawn, trees, and three fountains. An eight-foot wall surrounded the property, and a gate barring entry to those passing by it. The gate was comprised of solid steel bars that slid into the wall when opened. A black half-dome with a camera and scanner concealed inside was on the topmost bar. As he drove to it, the gate’s scanner ran Wilhem’s features through its face-recognition software to determine his identity. It could not, thanks to the hood concealing him. The gate had long, white lights running through it, and when the scan failed, those lights turned red.

Open, Wilhelm commanded, his voice authoritative.

The gate ran Wilhelm’s voice through its voice-recognition software, but his self-repaired voice box's mechanical tones were also not recognized. The red bars started blinking rapidly now, and his heart sped up. He let his hoverbike dissolve back into nanos and then went up to the gate and placed a hand on the center bar, right in the middle. He made sure to use his mostly intact hand for this because the fingerprints of that hand were still viable. There was a quick beep, and the lights stopped blinking and turned white again. Then the gate slid open, and he walked through it, once more setting foot on the driveway to his house. He breathed in the air and reveled in it. It smelled like freshly mown lawn and heated stone. Vaguely, he could smell the barest hint of flowers and knew Katrina’s garden must be in full bloom.

He continued up to the main house and stood at the door, hesitating. His fingers absently went to his face to trace the ridges of his burn scars again. He feared Katrina would be scared of him now and wasn’t sure what to do. But the thought of spending one more second away from her felt like getting shot through the heart with blaster fire, so he raised a hand and knocked on the door. It was a weird thing to do, he noted. Knocking on one’s own door. But he didn’t want to startle Katrina, especially not when he dressed like someone dangerous and terrifying. He tried to ease her into the fact that he was still alive.

There was no answer, though.

He knocked again.

And waited again.

Still nothing.

He was about to try and knock for a third time, but before he could, it opened, and there she was.

Katrina.

Chapter Three

Katrina’s eyes widened in fear when she saw him, and he couldn’t blame her. He must look like a genuinely threatening figure. She backed away. Scrambled away, really. Her mouth started to open, getting ready to scream out in terror, but he held up his hands in as non-threatening a manner as possible.

Katrina, stop, he told her, hating how his voice came out mechanical as it traveled past his nano-reconstructed vocal cords. It’s me. Wilhelm.

Her scream of fear faltered as her mouth slowly closed in shock. Her eyes wide, bulging look changed when she started to squint at him. She looked like she was trying to stare at something far away.

N-no, she whispered. He could see tears in her eyes, and he had to restrain the urge to go to her. To wipe them from her face like he used to do before the Battle of Ledun. He...he’s dead.

The tears spilled from her eyes, and he couldn't restrain himself any longer. He went to her and reached out a hand, brushing the tears from the corners of her eyes, just like he used to. It was a gentle gesture, tender and full of his intense love for her. But the minute his hand touched her skin, something changed. The fear returned but much worse. She froze and trembled at the same time. She wanted to back away from him, but he could see it in her eyes. She couldn't make herself move.

I don’t kn-know who y-you are, she started to say, forcing the words past a throat that wanted to lock up just like the rest of her. But you are n-not m-my Wilhelm.

Katrina, he tried to say, but she shook her head violently back and forth. He pulled back the hood of his cloak so she could see him more clearly. It is me. I know I look horrible, but I swear it is me!

He seized her arms around the biceps and tried to hold her in place. He was a lot stronger than her, but she was hard to control in her state of fear. She bucked against him, trying to do whatever she could to get him away from her.

Don’t touch me! she screamed. The sound was too loud. Too shrill. It hurt his head, and he released her. She stumbled back and fell on her butt in the foyer of the house.

What Wilhelm thought was that his hideous features caused her to be afraid of him. What Wilhelm didn’t know was that his maimed and burned face had nothing to do with it. If he had been less concerned with Katrina’s reaction to him and paid more attention to when the reaction happened, he might have realized that his touch inspired the fear. Because when he had touched her, she felt something fundamentally wrong with him. But it was more than that.

He felt...evil.

But Wilhelm didn’t know any of that. He assumed her reaction to him was due to his appearance, not his touch. Seeing her like that, afraid of him, fanned his rage all over again, and he lost control. He snarled in anger, his face twisting and making it a horrendous mask of raw emotion. Katrina jerked back from him, but he didn’t see his wife at that moment. His warped mind twisted her into the image of Rowan. The king laughed at him before the image warped again and became the woman from the bridge, the Terra that had pushed him over the edge and sent him to his death. His mouth twisted, and he let out a howl right before he pounced on his wife like a wild predator.

Like a killer.

His hands wrapped around her throat, but still, it was the Terra woman he saw and not Katrina. She struggled against him, her hands beating uselessly against his body. He didn’t even feel them, and as he strangled the life from her, those futile punches and slaps got weaker and weaker until they fell limply to her side. Even after she was dead, he continued to strangle her, all his fury inside pouring out of him in a flood. When it was over, the form of the Terra woman disappeared, and it was Katrina again, but she was dead. Her lips were already starting to turn a vivid blue color. Her eyes stared sightlessly back at him as if in accusation.

No, no, no, he wailed. He picked her up in his arms, rocking her back and forth. Katrina? Please, no.

But there was nothing he could do to bring her back.

She was dead.

*

[You did not kill Katrina. Rowan did. Rowan and the Terras. They are the ones to blame.] It was the voice again, whispering inside him.

Wilhelm was in a dark place. A dark, cold, and wet place. He wasn’t even sure where he went after he killed Katrina. Everything had been a blur. He had been rocking her back and forth for hours, and then, all of a sudden, he was in this dark place. Looking around, it became apparent he was in an older, abandoned building. The only area he knew in Roanoke where buildings had fallen to ruin was the Renark District, a few miles east of the wall. He would have had to walk for several hours just to get there, but the frightening part was that he remembered none of that.

[You can tear Rowan down. You have the strength if only you had the will to do so,] the voice told him, but he didn’t want to listen. The only thing he could think about was how it felt strangling Katrina and killing her. He was wracked with guilt and broke down, sobbing harshly. The pain of her death hurt worse than being burned alive.

How am I supposed to go on? he cried. I killed her.

[No! You might have been the instrument of her death, but Rowan murdered your wife. He set in motion the events that led to her death. His arrogance. His need for glory. Do not forget why I chose you, Wilhelm Coran.] The voice was soothing and calm. It carried a weight of surety and logic that was undeniable. [Let us finish what we set out to do. Use her death to motivate you. Rowan must pay for what he has done.]

Wilhelm continued to sob, but he started to nod his head in agreement. It was true, he reasoned. Rowan was to blame. Rowan had murdered Katrina, not him.

And all of Purga would pay for his crimes.

*

Wilhelm bided his time over the coming months, taking the unused building he found as a base of operations. He spent most of his days walking like a ghost through Roanoke’s streets, preying on the minds of Roanoke’s citizens. He quickly found that he had an unusual ability to easily find those disheartened by Rowan Varlamagne’s rule and convinced them to join him. He spoke of bringing about an age of change, and they were happy to enlist in his army. It was small at first, just a handful of people, but as the months grew to years, that army grew. As the military grew, so did his plans. They would wait for the perfect moment, hiding like a mutating virus inside a living body. Replicating. Spreading. Destroying from within. He was patient in those days, trusting his instincts and the strategy he had come up with. And he knew, without a doubt in his mind, that it would succeed.

The voice was always there, guiding him and encouraging him. He learned more about it during those first few months of self-imposed exile. It was angry, too. Furious at the beings that had trapped it in the nothingness of the Reaches. He wanted revenge, and Wilhelm felt like they were kindred spirits, maybe even destined to be connected the way they had been. He learned other things about the voice, too. Learned that it was old. So old that Wilhelm could not truly wrap his mind around that bit of knowledge.

And he learned his name.

Blak.

For the first month or two, Blak was all there was, and together, they began planning the uprising that would bring Rowan to his knees. Blak wanted to take more direct action, but Wilhelm convinced him there was a better way to achieve their goal. They had to be patient and build up followers and soldiers. This approach would allow them to rot