Five years. Five years of grit, grime, and the persistent thrum of the Varnak curse, a tattoo of impending death that had become as familiar as the calluses on my palms. Bhavar, now less of a haughty heir and more of a grimy insurgent, ducked under a swinging chain and drove his blade into the neck of a charging pit-beast. Its segmented carapace cracked with a wet pop. We stood back-to-back, a well-oiled machine in the reeking underbelly of the Dazhan Pits, our covert network of informants and saboteurs humming around us like a nest of angry hornets. “The royal tithe shipments are secured,” Bhavar grunted, wiping a smear of iridescent beast-blood from his cheek. His customary sneer had been replaced by a permanent scowl, etched by countless late nights plotting in the gloom. “But the northern routes are tightening. That new royal commander, Darak, is efficient. Too efficient.” “Efficiency is a weakness when you’re building an empire on quicksand,” I said, parrying a practice blow from one of our recruits with a casual flick of my scavenged shard-sword. The boy stumbled, off-balance on the gravel, before recovering. He’d live to fight another day, if he was lucky. Most weren't. My gaze drifted to the crimson brand on my left wrist. It had been a steady burn, a slow countdown, a nagging reminder. But today, it pulsed with an angry, malevolent heat, the fiery sigil of the Varnak clan flaring brighter, deeper. The ache bored straight into the marrow, iron tendons contracting until my fingers locked. “Tavira?” Bhavar asked, his voice sharp with concern. He knew the signs. He’d seen me wince from it, seen me grit my teeth. But never like this. The brand flared white-hot. My fingers went slack, dropping the shard-sword onto the red dust as my knees hit the gravel. The five-year countdown, which I’d so carefully calculated, had just been ripped to shreds. Days. I had days, maybe hours, before the Varnak patriarch’s blood-magic claimed me. It wasn’t just a countdown anymore; it was a detonation timer. “The curse,” I whispered, my voice rough, “It’s changed. It’s… fast-tracking.” Bhavar dropped his hand to his hilt. “How fast?” “Too fast. We’re out of time.” My retirement cabin on the southern coast was evaporating into blood-mist. Suddenly, the distant, muffled roar of the Pits’ main gates shuddered through the very ground. Not the usual clamor of arriving merchants or gladiatorial crowds, but a sound of splintering stone and metal shrieking in protest. A high-pitched, desperate alarm blared across the canyon, cutting through the usual cacophony. Bhavar broke into a sprint toward the northern overlook ledge. I tracked behind him, gripping my wrist against the searing pulse. Beneath the parapet, imperial infantry in black lacquered plates poured through the splintered timbers of the main gates. Hundreds of pike-heads formed an advancing wall across the sand. A shadow swallowed the gorge, blotting out the pale canyon sun. A subterranean wyrm, scaled in ridged jet, reared six fathoms above the ramparts. It moved with unnatural speed, its serpentine body coiling around the royal vanguard, crushing dozens of soldiers into paste with a single, contemptuous squeeze. Its maw opened, a cavern of jagged fangs, and a gout of emerald acid dissolved a formation of shield-bearers into screaming vapor. Perched atop its ridged skull sat a figure in a saddle of boiled hide and rusted rivets. His shoulders stretched broad as an ox-yoke, scarred muscle knotting across a bare torso. His hair, once ash-pale, now hung in long, dark ropes braided with teeth and polished bone. Black gore coated his armor—cuirasses hammered from beast-plates and imperial steel. The breath stuck in my throat. He hauled on the reins, his face turning up toward our ledge. His irises burned the same brass-gold I had left in the dark five years ago, stripped of all terror, fixed on me with raw fixation. A slow grin split his soot-streaked lips. Karnal. My little ash-slave. The traumatized boy I’d thrown into the abyss to become my weapon, my shield. He hadn’t just survived. He had consumed it. He had conquered it. The colossal serpent below him answered every tug of his harness. He dropped his hand, and the beast drove its bulk across the imperial lines, smashing wagons and splintering pikes into kindling. The vanguard broke into a panicked rout. He dropped straight from the skull, hitting the flagstones with an impact that cracked the masonry. A slab of fossilized bone served as his greatsword, cleaving through cuirasses as he forged a red trench straight toward our terrace. “I asked for an assassin,” I muttered. “Not an extinction event.” Bhavar looked from the slaughter up to me, his knuckles pale on his crossguard. “That butcher belongs to you.” Karnal kicked through the splintered terrace screen, boots leaving dark grease on the limestone. Up close, his bulk blocked the doorway entirely, radiating the stench of copper and swamp-gas. He halted an arm’s length away, his brass glare pinning me in place. Without a word, he reached into a pouch at his hip and tossed something heavy onto the dirt floor at my feet. It rolled, coming to rest with a dull thud. It was the severed head of Gorok, the pit-boss who had tried to short-change my last shipment and had been particularly vulgar in his insults yesterday. Its teeth were smashed inward, tongue protruding between dried lips. “No one looks at you wrong again,” Karnal rumbled, the bass grinding like millstones. His gaze dropped to my wrist, to the now-fading, dying glow of the curse, and a flicker of something cold and dangerous passed through his eyes. He turned, his massive hand closing around the heavy iron doors of my sanctuary. With a grunt of effort, he began to pull them shut, the grinding of metal on stone echoing through the small space. The last sliver of the outside world, the last hint of escape, vanished as the doors clanged shut with a final, echoing crash, plunging us into a suffocating intimacy. His golden stare locked onto mine in the iron-scented gloom. “You never lift a finger again, Tavira.”

Sovereign of the Wastes