fence on his father's estate. Bodies littered the bloodied courtyard. His father knelt before a man in black robes. White hands held his father's sword as if examining its balance. Then, the blade struck with stunning swiftness and Calm's father crumbled. A tiny voice screamed in the night, but Caim pushed past the cacophony to focus on the mysterious figure. The cowl was pulled back to reveal pale, ruined features like melted tallow, features without remorse or pity. And those eyes, sunken within their hollow sockets. Just as he saw them now.
Caim shifted to face his father's killer.
The stranger didn't move. Wrapped in his voluminous cloak, he watched Caim in the manner of someone observing the movements of an insect. Caim eyeballed the span between them. Six paces. A long lunge, but he could cover that distance in a heartbeat. He ignored his jangling nerves as his fingers tightened around the hilts of his knives.
Pasty hands emerged from the cloaked man's sleeves. Each held a short dagger, no longer than an eating knife, but their blades were as black as the stranger's cloak. Black as his father's sword. A greasy finger slid down Calm's spine, but he shook it off. He wouldn't be put off by odd weaponry or eerie stares. He was beginning his leap when a flash to his right triggered long-honed instincts. He stopped and ducked as Ral's stiletto traced a path over his head.
A spasm pulsed in Calm's chest, sudden and painful, as if his heart were trying to escape from his rib cage. He clamped down on the feeling and pushed it back down into the depths. He couldn't lose control. Not now.
Sword in hand, Ral advanced beside the cloaked man. Caim edged away. He could take Ral, but the stranger was a wild card. He didn't look like a fighter, but his movements were sure and quick. Caim didn't know if he could beat them both at once.
"I'll give you one last chance." Ral sounded genuine despite the patronizing sneer plastered across his too-perfect face. "Join us and reap the benefits. You can be my lieutenant, elevated above the slime of this city. You'll have power, money, women-everything you've ever wanted."
Caim didn't bother answering. Because of him Josey was going to die. She might be dead already, but he could still perform one last act as penance for his failure. He eyed Ral's guard, sword held off-center, ready to strike at any angle, but it left a lot of territory unprotected. Caim bent his knees. The pressure in his chest expanded, making it hard to breathe.
"Your words are wasted on this one," the cloaked figure hissed. "Kill him and be done."
"Yes," Ral replied with a sigh. "Perhaps you're right, Levictus."
Levictus. Caim allowed his rage to filter through his body, down through his arms and legs, and banish the tingles from his flesh. His vengeance had a name.
Caim feinted at Ral, but shifted in midstride. His suete knives stabbed, and aimed for the chest and gut of his father's killer, but they found only air as the cloaked man drifted away like smoke on the breeze, then flowed back with astounding speed. The black blades wove at Caim in a complicated pattern. It was a fighting style he had never encountered before. The man flitted like a hummingbird, first coming from the left, and then the right, faster than anything Caim had ever seen.
At the same time, something wriggled in his peripheral vision. He spared a glance and was almost spitted on the cloaked man's knives before he extricated himself with a fast parry-and-backpedal. Tiny blobs of darkness detached from the room's shadows. They ran down the walls like monstrous black tears. For a moment, he panicked, thinking he had lost control of his powers again. But he still felt the pressure, bursting to be free. The inky things resembled the shadows he had summoned before, but they were different in some ineffable way. Meaner, perhaps. He thought he could hear them hissing like a nest of asps as they crawled across the floor. He deflected a thrust from Ral's sword. When he looked down, the darknesses were all around him.
But where had they come from? A sibilant hiss made him focus his attention forward as the cloaked man launched a concerted series of attacks. Caim dodged and wove. He spun his blades in circles to disengage, and then stomped forward to press an attack, anything to evade the cloaked man's sinister weapons. It was