Page 40 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

“Starving.” Zarek’s answer came rougher than he intended. He forced his voice smoother, because control kept the world from burning. “Good, my brother. No, better than good.” Zarek turned toward the nearest servant. “Food, Tamarr.”

“At once, Captain.” Tamarr bolted for the server like her life depended on it.

“Our brother returns.” Lord Gellar rose from his chair at the head of their dining table and clapped a hand to Zarek’s shoulder—only for his hand to ease back as if bitten by the heat. “You are strong.”

“Aye.”

“How?” Martar demanded. “The Poison Blade got you.”

“It did.” Zarek lifted his jacket, exposing the faint red line along his side. A scar that should have been a blackened, gaping wound, was already fading.

“But to heal so fast… how?” Martar’s brow pulled low. While Gellar’s eyes narrowed, as if zoning in on the details.

“I have no idea.” Zarek took his seat and greeted the others with curt nods. Then the plates hit the table. He ate like he hadn’t eaten in a week. Meat. Bread. Eggs. Pancakes slick with butter. Bacon. More meat. His body devoured it as if the food would disappear before he could satisfy this animalistic need.

“I see you have an appetite almost equal to Condorr’s there,” Gellar said, amused.

“Yeah.” Zarek just kept eating because if he stopped, he might be forced to think. And then she would be there, invading his thoughts with memories of her scent, her green-and-blue eyes locking with his as her voice snapped at him like she owned the world. But most of all, her small hands holding his, while asleep and at peace. She reminded him of no one, and yet everything reminded him of her.

He was supposed to have built walls strong enough to keep everything out, to keep everyone away, because he was dangerous if he lost control for one second. And with her…

He swallowed hard and forced himself to focus on the table. On the woodgrain itself. “Did we work out why the Black Cloaks attacked like they did last night?”

Martar’s expression shifted. “Last night? Brother, you’ve been gone four days.”

But to Zarek it was only four hours. Just last night.

Helviti!

The Poison Blade should have had him broken and in bed for weeks.

“There is a new power.” Gellar scooped up his mug and took a swig. “It is weakening Katarra’s collective. Four of his Black Cloaks have not returned to him for the resurrection process.”

Zarek paused with his own cup halfway to his mouth. “How?” Sure he was there, but he needed to hear their side. He swallowed the black, bitter coffee, washing down his meal before refilling his plate with more food.

“Not sure. But neither Katarra nor our Seers can see it. We know they attacked us that night you were…” Gellar paused, his eyes dropping to Zarek’s chest, clear of any wound. “… to regain strength and numbers. And—”

“To capture one of us,” Zarek finished. “It had to be their reason for deploying the Poison Blade.”

He’d known the moment it had struck him. What surprised him wasn’t that they’d brought it out—it was how quickly it had worked, slicing through his armor as if it weren’t there at all.

Martar nodded. So did Condorr, who had never been one to soften a truth, with a mind that told Zarek everything.

They’d assumed he’d been taken.

And if he’d been taken… the next question would follow soon enough to know if he’d been compromised, especially as he’d returned healed. Zarek straightened slightly. “How many were killed?”

“Seven,” Martar replied. “At the warehouse. Didn’t you kill one?”

Zarek nodded.

Gellar leaned in slightly. “The Seer said one of the Black Cloaks died that night in pain. And not at the warehouse. It was some kind of burning. That after its death, it did not return to Katarra for the rebirth, and that somehow weakened the collective. The Seer believes it wasn’t killed by us. Did you see that death?”

Zarek’s knife and fork clattered onto the plate as he leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes. His appetite vanished as the memory hit hard of the rain in that dark alley, the stench of his own blood, and the wrong black blade burning into his side. Overshadowed by a Black Cloak that Death may finally win his hand in their game of life, only for her to arrive like a storm in a small car.

He felt it again, that low rumble in his chest. That heat building like a primitive wildfire spreading through his ribs, enough to make his hands curl into fists to control himself.

Zarek had to keep control, forcing the fire down.