Sleep thee well, my bairn, sleep thee tight,The bone-kin guard through shadowed night.His cloak is deep, his step is still,He walks the dusk 'gainst evil will.

  His eyes like fme 'neath starless sky,They lead thy dreams as still winds sigh.He bringeth peace, he keepeth woe,In his hush, the night doth glow.

  -Lulby for children in the old time-

  -Record of Frejord folk tale-

  -^-^-^-^-^-^-

  Marcus stepped out of the tavern, the creaking door closing behind him with a soft thud. He left behind a bowl of half-finished salty broth and a bottle of foul-tasting wine that had barely passed as drinkable. Still, he’d dropped a few silver coins on the table—enough to cover the food, maybe even a bit more. He didn’t want unnecessary trouble over a meal, especially not in a pce like this.

  The evening air had cooled slightly, and the stone-paved road had begun to clear out as market stalls closed and people returned to their homes. He walked at a steady pace, the hood of his cloak casting shadows over his face as he began to piece together a pn.

  “Should I check the mine first? Or head straight for the castle?” he thought. Both were important. The mine might tell him what was so valuable that it needed a sudden surge of sves, while the castle was where the so-called God-Chosen one resided. That man—or whatever he was—might have answers Marcus wanted.

  But he didn’t get far before something itched at his senses.

  Gazes. Watching. Following.

  Subtle, but present.

  He took a few turns through side streets, casually, as if he were simply taking a longer path. But the pressure behind him didn’t fade. If anything, it grew more focused. Like wolves slowly closing in on a lone deer.

  With a subtle twist of will, he opened a hidden eye—just beneath the shadowed hood, where no one could see. The world behind him became clear. Four figures, trailing at a distance, trying hard to stay discreet.

  Four of them. Rough-looking men, trying to act casual as they followed. Not guards. Not organized. Just thugs.

  “Robbers,” he mused. “Figures. They must’ve seen the silver in the tavern.”

  He kept walking until he spotted a narrow alleyway between two old buildings. Crates and broken carts littered the way, and the path led to a dead end behind some storage sheds.

  Perfect.

  Marcus turned into it without hesitation, and once hidden from the street, he stepped into the shadowed wall and vanished, blending into the dark like water sinking into soil.

  A minute passed.

  Then the sound of footsteps.

  The four men came into view, slowing as they reached the dead end.

  “What the hell?” one of them said, confused. “He was just here!”

  “I saw him turn in!” another snapped, already agitated.

  The group spread out, searching the alley, kicking aside crates and peering behind barrels. There was no sign of him.

  “Damn it,” the broadest one growled. “It’s been days since we found a good target, and you lot lose the guy?”

  “He paid with silver. He’s gotta be loaded,” one of them muttered, frustrated.

  “Now we’ve got nothing.”

  A new voice cut through the alley—calm, clear.

  “Well, you could’ve just asked. I might’ve spared a few coins.”

  They spun around. Standing at the mouth of the alley was Marcus, his cloak swaying slightly in the breeze.

  “The idiot came back,” one sneered, already drawing a knife.

  Another followed suit. “Hand over your coin. Maybe we’ll leave you with a few broken bones before we sell you off.”

  Marcus remained silent, hands at his sides, expression unreadable beneath the hood.

  “Not talking, huh?” said the man closest to him, taking a step forward. “Bad move.”

  He lunged. The bde aimed for Marcus’s stomach, quick and practiced. But the knife hit something solid—too solid. There was a dull clink as the bde jammed in pce, barely piercing the outer yer of Marcus’s cloak.

  “What the—” The thug tugged, but the bde wouldn’t move. It felt like it was stuck in stone.

  Before he could react, Marcus’s arm moved—fast and clean. A solid punch to the side of the man’s head sent him flying into the wooden wall with a loud crack. He dropped to the ground, out cold.

  The others froze.

  “He’s got tricks—take him down!”

  Two rushed him at once. One swung low, the other came in from the side. Marcus stepped between them, ducked the first strike, and drove his elbow into the second man’s ribs, lifting him off his feet before smming him into a stack of crates. The st attacker hesitated, then charged in a panic.

  Marcus caught the man’s wrist mid-swing and twisted. The knife cttered to the ground. With a simple palm strike to the jaw, he sent the man spinning into a pile of barrels.

  Within seconds, the alley fell quiet again. The only sounds were the groans of the four men strewn across the ground, struggling to stay conscious.

  Marcus adjusted his cloak and stepped over a loose bde.

  “If this is the best muscle this city has, then I’m not impressed,” he thought.

  Marcus stood over the groaning bodies, his eyes calm, thoughtful. Their pitiful whimpers echoed faintly against the alley walls, mixing with the scent of dust, sweat, and fear.

  He tilted his head.

  “Hmm... lucky for you, I’ve been meaning to test a new spell.”

  He willed his cloak to melt downward, sinking into his shadow like water draining into soil. Then it shifted—unnatural, alive—stretching outward and thickening into tendrils of shadow. The tendrils slid across the ground and wrapped tightly around each of the thugs, binding them to the dirt and silencing their cries as if the shadows themselves smothered the air from their lungs.

  Marcus stepped forward, eyes fixed on the nearest man—who now stared up at him with sheer terror, body trembling beneath the grip of shadow.

  “Not sure if this’ll work,” Marcus muttered, crouching down, “but honestly... no one’s going to remember you either way.”

  He pced both hands on the thug’s head. Instantly, his mana surged forward, worming its way through the man’s skull and into his mind. The thug groaned, his eyes rolling back. His limbs convulsed as the raw mana cshed violently with the fragile structure of his thoughts. Blood streamed from his nose, then his eyes.

  Moments ter, he went limp.

  Marcus clicked his tongue. “Ah... dead. Too forceful. His mind couldn’t house that much of my essence.”

  He stood and moved to the next one.

  “Lucky I’ve got a few more to spare.”

  The second attempt was worse. The man’s head swelled unnaturally, veins bulging before his skull burst in a wet pop. Bone and blood spttered the crates behind him. Marcus flinched slightly, more out of inconvenience than horror.

  The third died in silence—his body dissolving from within as Marcus’s mana unraveled him down to his base matter. A puddle of half-liquefied tissue soaked into the dirt.

  It wasn’t until the st man that something clicked.

  Marcus adjusted the flow, gentler now, threading his essence carefully through the man’s synapses like stitching through cloth. The man’s body twitched, then went still. His eyes turned pitch bck, thin cracks forming along his face as if the flesh itself strained to contain something foreign.

  Marcus stepped back and released the shadows.

  The st thug stood upright—his posture stiff, but responsive. A puppet.

  Marcus moved a finger. The thug’s hand mirrored him.

  He moved a leg. The thug took a step forward, awkward but precise.

  “Not bad,” he muttered, watching the puppet go through the motions. “Clunky... but functional.”

  Unlike the skeletons he could summon freely, this was something different. This required him—his mind, his will—connected directly. The body moved only because he moved it. It was like controlling a human-shaped marionette with invisible strings tied to his own nerves.

  It wouldn’t st forever. The body was too fragile. The mana would eventually break it down, and it could barely contain even a sliver of his true power. But for now, it was enough.

  A flesh avatar, he thought, with a faint smile.

  With another pulse of mana, Marcus conjured a rough cloak over the puppet’s shoulders, concealing the cracks and decay. Then, he sank back into the shadow beneath his own feet, vanishing into the earth like mist swallowed by stone.

  The puppet—now cloaked in shadow’s image—turned and walked out of the alley with Marcus guiding its every step. Its movement stiffened briefly as it adjusted to the street’s uneven stone, but it blended in well enough.

  No one spared a second gnce.

  And so, Marcus—through his puppet—headed toward the mine.

  Finding the mine took little time as night fell. The sky had turned a dark, cloudy gray, cloaking the nd in shadows. With one of his skeletal scouts flying overhead, Marcus used its vision to map the area quickly. The mine was roughly an hour’s distance from the city by horse—but his puppet had no need for rest or stamina, allowing it to run non-stop across the open terrain, reaching the location much faster.

  The mine itself sat at the base of a shallow hill, tucked between low ridges. At the entrance, three buildings stood behind a short stone wall—simple in construction, likely built more for function than defense. Two were rger, built from rough timber and stone, while the third, slightly smaller, sat closer to the slope of the hill. Lanterns hung zily from hooks, their fmes weak against the growing dark.

  Keeping the puppet cloaked in a thin veil of bck mist, Marcus silently moved toward the rgest building.

  Two guards stood at the front, chatting in hushed voices to pass the time. Neither noticed the unnatural stillness that passed by them.

  At the back, the building had a sliding wooden door left slightly ajar. Inside was a warehouse, lined with crates stacked in rows. The air smelled faintly of iron and old wood. The puppet stepped in, and Marcus took a moment to observe the interior.

  He pried open a nearby crate—inside were rough chunks of ore. Most were iron, unrefined but visibly higher in quality than what he had seen at the troll mines. The pieces had fewer impurities, and the color was more consistent. He examined several others, finding some silver-veined rock and smaller samples of other minerals mixed in lesser quantities.

  "Do mines usually yield this variety? Or is this pce just built on a richer deposit?"

  To test a theory, he pushed a small thread of mana into one of the iron chunks. It absorbed it with ease, the surface pulling the mana in like dry soil drinking water. There was no resistance, no rejection—unlike the troll iron, which required preparation to accept even basic enchantments.

  "Interesting. This mine may be more valuable than it seems."

  After checking a few more crates and finding nothing significantly different, Marcus quietly exited the warehouse and made his way to the second building—the smallest of the three.

  Through a small window, he saw the interior bathed in firelight. It was a barracks of sorts. A few soldiers sat around a firepce drinking, talking loudly and without care. Their armor was unfastened, helmets tossed to the side. Some had already passed out in chairs or on the floor. They didn’t notice the faint whisper of mist slipping past them toward the stairs.

  Upstairs was a row of pin wooden beds. Most were occupied—soldiers asleep, weapons stacked nearby. The puppet moved cautiously, checking each room without disturbing the occupants.

  Near the end of the hall was a small office. Inside was a desk with a half-burned candle and several scrolls stacked neatly along one side. The scrolls were made from a type of tanned leather—paper, it seemed, was not common here. Unrolling one, Marcus scanned the symbols, but none made sense to him. The script was foreign, completely unrecognizable.

  With a quiet sigh, he stowed the scrolls into his shadow. “Worth studying ter.”

  Leaving the barracks, he headed to the final building.

  The moment he stepped inside, a heavy breath escaped him.

  It was the sve quarters.

  Dozens—no, over a hundred—slept crammed into the space. Straw mats were id edge to edge, some barely enough for a person to lie down. Men, women, even children huddled under thin bnkets or curled into themselves. Many were asleep. Some were awake, staring bnkly at the walls, too tired to move.

  Marcus didn’t linger. He’d come back for them ter. Right now, he needed to know what else this mine held.

  He exited the building and moved toward the mine’s actual entrance. There were a few guards here, too, sitting by a small fire just outside the tunnel. They looked bored, leaning on their spears, barely keeping watch.

  The puppet avoided them easily, sticking to the shadows near the stone walls. With a silent slip between the posts, Marcus moved into the mine.

  Inside, the air was thick—musty and damp. Wooden supports held the walls and ceiling in pce. Dim torchlight flickered every few meters, giving off just enough light to see a few paces ahead.

  Not long after entering, a sound reached his ears—faint, muffled, but unmistakable.

  He followed it quietly, moving toward a bend in the tunnel. As he peered around the corner, his gaze narrowed.

  Two soldiers were crouched over a woman—a sve. One held her wrists down, forcing her still. The other was unbuckling his belt, already halfway through the act.

  The girl y motionless. Her eyes were open, but there was no expression—no reaction. As if she had simply stopped trying to fight.

  “...How disgusting.”

  Marcus let the puppet fade back, remaining hidden behind a beam, and emerged from the shadows himself—quiet, deliberate.

  The first man didn’t notice until it was too te. A hand reached from the dark and twisted his neck sharply to the side. A snap echoed briefly in the tunnel before his body crumpled.

  The second soldier froze, startled. He tried to turn and run, but Marcus grabbed his face, muffling the scream. One twist—and another corpse hit the ground.

  He turned to the girl. She was still breathing, but unresponsive. Likely in shock, or worse.

  Gently, Marcus lifted her and wrapped her in a cloak conjured from his mana. It clung to her body like cloth but gave off a faint warmth. She didn’t resist.

  Behind them, his shadows crept forward and consumed the bodies, breaking them down into nothing. A moment ter, two fresh skeletons rose from the remnants, ready and silent.

  With a thought, he directed the puppet and the two new summons deeper into the mine. Meanwhile, he sat with the girl and used what little medical knowledge he had—checking her vitals, cleaning minor wounds, ensuring she wasn’t at risk of colpsing immediately.

  Once the exploration confirmed that the mine was only what it appeared—no hidden chambers or oddities—Marcus stood, still holding the wrapped girl.

  His gaze shifted back toward the surface.

  This pce had resources. A location. Even a workforce.

  But the people running it?

  They needed to be dealt with.

  Permanently.

  -^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-

  The cold night wasn’t much different from the ones before. Just another long stretch of darkness for Milly to wait out, huddled beside the others for what little warmth they could share. Her hands, calloused and cracked, were curled close to her chest beneath the thin bnket. The stale air in the sve quarters clung to her skin, and the distant chill of stone seeped into her bones.

  Just one more night to survive. Just live long enough to see another day, maybe.

  Her thoughts drifted—like they always did when sleep refused to come. Back to her vilge. Back to the quiet hills and the smell of river water on cool mornings. Her mother’s gentle voice, her father’s strong arms as he lifted her into the air. All of it torn away when the soldiers came.

  They struck without warning. Her home was burning before she even understood what had happened. Her father had tried to fight, and was cut down in front of her. Her mother was dragged away screaming—Milly never saw her again.

  She remembered the chains. The cold bite of iron around her wrists. The wagon crowded with survivors from her vilge, all of them hollow-eyed and silent. The soldiers cimed it was all for a greater cause, that they would be “serving the king’s will.” But their words meant nothing. Empty promises drowned in blood and ash.

  Here, in the mine, survival was the only thing that mattered.

  Three from her vilge were already dead. They'd colpsed from exhaustion—used up like tools. Their bodies weren’t even buried. Just thrown into the woods behind the barracks for the wild dogs to scavenge. The soldiers didn’t care. A new group would arrive soon to repce them. There were always more.

  And then there was Shann.

  She and Milly had grown up together, pyed in the fields, shared secrets under the moonlight. But now... Shann was taken. Some soldier had picked her out after work ended, dragging her away while the others pretended not to see. Milly didn’t need to ask what happened. She knew. And deep down, she also knew that Shann probably wouldn’t return alive.

  So she curled in tighter, pulling her knees to her chest, trying to block out the ache in her stomach and the fear pressing against her ribs.

  But then—something stirred the air.

  A sharp shout broke the night’s stillness. Then a scream, raw and panicked.

  Sves began to wake, blinking into the darkness, unsure if it was a dream. But more shouts came. Louder this time. The sharp cng of metal, the thud of boots, the sound of chaos rising.

  Milly sat up, heart pounding. Around her, the others were doing the same, whispering questions no one could answer. The sounds outside were too real to ignore now—fighting, screaming. Soldiers yelling orders that quickly turned into pleading cries.

  Then, without warning, the door to the sve quarters burst open.

  A soldier stumbled inside, covered in blood—his own or someone else’s, it was hard to tell. His eyes were wide with terror, mouth moving but forming no clear words. He staggered forward, then froze as the shadows beneath his feet came alive.

  Dark tendrils slithered up his legs like liquid smoke, curling around his thighs and waist. He thrashed wildly, falling to the ground, trying to crawl away—his nails scraping against the stone, leaving streaks behind.

  He didn’t make it far.

  The shadows yanked him backward in a sudden jerk. His scream tore through the room as he was dragged outside, fingers cwing at the floor, then disappearing into the night. His voice was cut short, repced by the sound of something wet—something final.

  Silence fell for only a second.

  Then came more noise. Screams. The csh of weapons. Something else. Something wrong.

  Some of the braver sves crept toward the door. Curiosity outweighing fear, they peeked through the opening. Milly followed, her heart racing.

  What she saw made her breath catch.

  The mine was a battlefield. Soldiers ran in every direction, striking at enemies that didn’t bleed. Skeletons—at least a dozen of them—moved like wolves, fast and relentless. Their hollow sockets glowed faintly as they tore through the soldiers. Swords and spears bounced off their bones without slowing them. Each attack they made was precise, merciless.

  Milly watched as one of the skeletons drove a long spear through a man’s chest, lifting him from the ground and pinning him to the barrack wall like a trophy. She recognized him—the same man who had beaten her when she colpsed during work, the same one who ughed as two of her vilge kin died in the tunnels.

  “Serve you right,” she thought, without pity.

  Then her eyes shifted.

  In the middle of the chaos stood a figure. Still. Calm.

  He wore a dark cloak that danced in the wind, shadows wrapping around him like loyal pets. His eyes glowed faint blue—cold, but not empty. They watched everything, missing nothing. And in his arms, cradled with surprising gentleness, was a girl.

  Milly’s breath hitched.

  “Shann?”

  There was no mistaking it. It was her. Alive. Unharmed. Sleeping, even—peaceful in a way Milly hadn’t seen in months.

  The figure turned slightly as a torch was lit nearby, casting brief light across his face.

  It wasn’t human.

  His face was shaped like a bird’s skull—sharp and smooth, with dark feathered edges and glowing eyes beneath the hood. His presence felt... unnatural. Like something from a dream, or a story whispered to frighten children.

  As the st of the soldiers were silenced, the battlefield quieted.

  The skeletons stood still among the bodies, like statues waiting for command.

  And then the figure looked at them—the sves—watching from the doorway.

  Dozens of wide eyes met his glowing gaze. Fear gripped many, but it wasn’t the same fear they felt for the soldiers.

  It was something else.

  Something older.

  Awe. Wonder. And something Milly hadn’t dared feel in a long time.

  Hope.