Free Mythborn: Rise of the Adepts by V. Lakshman

wanting.” He then reached up and tapped her forehead lightly. The flesh began to blacken and shrivel away.
    “I judge you wanting. You have much to atone for, Alion Deft. This spell will take several hours to kill you, and you will feel every moment of it. Call to your gods. Perhaps they will grant you solace in the next world.”
    * * * * *
    He stepped past her and came to stand by the girl, Kalissa, who had dismounted with a grimace that gave testament to the punishment she had suffered at the hands of Alion Deft and her men. She ran to and hugged the man, saying, “She deserves it. They all do.”
    Scythe laid a gentle hand on her head, stroking the soft hair. His eyes looked back through the forest to the mountain of Dawnlight, a black silhouette of jagged rock climbing up to stand illumed in the clear moonlight. There were forces at work in the ancient city that could aid him on his quest, ones he meant to investigate.
    He looked away from those moonlit peaks and could sense Davyd and the others hard at work in the decimated village. The youngest in particular bore watching, for he had Talent far beyond his father and elder brother. He could sense others too, doing what they could to create a better life far from the king’s Justice. He looked down, sadness in his eyes, then knelt in front of Kalissa.
    He froze her in place, then tapped her forehead lightly, watching the blackness spread like an inky stain. “I am the Scythe. Like the reaper’s tool, I ascend those found worthy, or wanting. I judge you wanting, Kalissa Galadine. You have hunted your own kind, killed others so you might live, and sown sorrow in your wake.”
    He looked again in the direction of Dawnlight, took a deep, cleansing breath and said, “Like your father, I do not show mercy.”

T HE K ING
    Be not so eager to strike first,
    Have instead a solid stance.
    Lethality comes from those who understand,
    The pillars that support them.
    —Tir Combat Academy, Basic Forms & Stances
    N iall’s father, Imperial King Bernal Galadine, paced the walls of Bara’cor, watching the barbarian horde with disgust written upon his torchlit features. One hundred feet below him spread a moonlit ocean of sand, dunes mimicking motionless waves washing toward the shore of his fortress walls. Running his fingers through his short, iron-gray hair, he readjusted his sword belt for what seemed like the hundredth time. Niall was sure that it was the waiting that drove his father mad, the knowledge of the inevitable clash with the nomads encamped at their doorstep.
    Niall, too, looked out over the wastes, breathing in the cool night air, his eyes striving to discern individual shapes in the campfires and tents of the barbarian horde, his hand on the hilt of his saber.
    “Will they attack again so soon?” he asked, looking to his father, and noting the deep lines of worry etched in his sun-darkened face. The barbarians had been encamped outside the walls for the past fortnight, a black, inky smudge on the white desert floor.
    Niall squeezed the hilt of the saber at his side for reassurance yet again, the leather wrapping soft and worn from summers of practice. He was, however, very conscious that the closest he had ever come to crossing live blades with an opponent was at practice with the firstmark. A mix of fear and anticipation had prompted his earlier question. He didn’t want his father thinking he was still a child, and he longed for a chance to prove the opposite.
    The firstmark would not have recommended me for duty if he had any doubts, he reminded himself.
    “They will wait until tomorrow, attacking under cover of the storm,” the king explained. Then to Niall’s unasked question he added, “It is the tactic I would use if I commanded their troops.”
    “But if you know that already, why not do something to stop them?”
    “And what, my prince, would you have your father do?”
    Niall spun at the deep voice, coming face to chest with Firstmark Jebida