He ran.
The wind screamed in his ears. His boots pounded the cracked earth like war drums—over broken trails, through cursed woods, across frostbitten plains still tainted by Dahaka's rot. Behind him, the battlefield was burning. In front of him, nothing but distance and air.
Aden Vasco ran.
His cloak snapped against the wind, half-shredded from the fight. The armor on his left side was gone entirely, torn off when Egmund reshaped his body like it was just meat. His chest burned with every breath. His vision flickered at the edges. But he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
'Don't stop. Don't think. Just run.'
And yet, thoughts broke through anyway—sudden, sharp, like bones ripping through flesh.
'The way they looked at you.'
'The screams.'
'Telmuth reaching for you—'
'Your foot crushing his throat.'
He stumbled for half a step. His breath hitched.
"No," he whispered, shaking his head as he pushed forward. "That wasn't me. That wasn't—"
But it was.
He had watched it all happen. From behind the glass. Trapped in his own skull. A helpless passenger while Egmund wore his skin like a coat and painted the world with blood.
He remembered the grinning mouths. The black sun. The way the soldiers ran from him.
They'd been screaming his name. Not Egmund's.
His.
'You're the Butcher of Dahaka now.'
The name stung more than the cracked ribs, more than the burning lungs.
He ran harder.
Trees blurred past. The wilderness shifted around him—brush giving way to wide plains, then rising again into dark woodland. His legs kept moving out of sheer will, pain be damned. The world narrowed to the rhythm of impact. Boot to dirt. Wind to face. The steady, pounding beat of one more second survived.
Eventually, the noise in his mind dulled. Not gone. Just... muted. The endless scream quieted into a dull ache. The pounding of his pulse became something almost meditative. A rhythm he could cling to.
Step. Breathe. Step. Breathe.
He didn't know how long he ran. Hours, maybe. Or longer.
Time warped when there was no one to mark it, no voice but the one inside your head telling you to keep going or die where you stood.
At some point, the bleeding stopped. At some point, the sobs in his throat dried up. At some point, the rage turned cold and still.
And from that silence, something like thought began to form.
'You can't go back.'
The army would see him as a monster. The capital might too. The Twelve Seats wouldn't tolerate this kind of power if it wasn't under their leash—and he'd just shown them what happened when that leash slipped.
He remembered the Emperor's eyes, calculating. Cold.
'He'll use this. Twist it. Put you on a leash or put you in a box.'
So he'd need to move first. Control the narrative. Say it was the cost of victory. Say it was Wrath. A bloodline frenzy. Anything but the truth.
He couldn't tell them about Egmund. Couldn't tell them that something ancient lived inside him, laughing in the dark.
'Who would believe it?'
No, there was no one left to confide in.
Except maybe—
His hand brushed against the satchel at his side. The dagger gifter by Ed Vasco still intact. Heavy. Comforting.
But then he remembered that he had something no one in this world has.
A relic of a different life. A map of a future that wasn't supposed to be his. But it had given him knowledge. Names. Power. It could do so again.
He forced a breath through gritted teeth.
'Get to the capital. Use what you know. Control the message. Choose who sees what.'
'You're not done yet.'
By the time the sun began to set—grey and pale over the eastern ridge—he'd been running for nearly a day. The scent of wildflower fields met his nose. The wind changed. Roads began to disappear. Wagons. Signs of civilization.
In the distance, through a light night mist, the spires of the capital rose.
And Aden Vasco, bruised and bloodied, limped over the final ridge like a ghost returning from hell.
His eyes were dry now. Focused.
Not calm. Not healed.
But resolute.