Sea of Glass ✔️

Chapter 10 - Threats and Promises

The dagger at Haydn's throat should have scared him. The metal already cut into his skin and it was only a matter of time before he could feel the blood drip into his collar. But it wasn't the first time that week an attempt had been made on his life.

Damon Artois, after all, was supposed to be dead. And technically, he was. Haydn had made sure of that.

He shoved the hooded man away from him, knocking the assassin off his feet in a single swift motion. A nagging itch took up residence at the back of his head. He snatched the blade out of the assassin's hand, stabbing him in rapid succession. His vision fully turned red as life left the assassin's body.

It was unusual for him to have any passion for killing. He viewed it no different than a carpenter would view the act of cutting wood: it was tedious, but it kept him alive. He never enjoyed it despite being quite skilled at the task, but he didn't dislike it either. He was entirely neutral about murder.

But recently, that changed. Killing left a strange thrill in his chest, creating an unsettling warmth in his heart that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He never felt anything like it. Not even a full belly could rival the satisfaction of homicide.

He became aware of the feeling first when he joined the Duke on one of Damon's favorite pastimes: hunting. He found that shooting down fowls was more enjoyable than he anticipated, feeling a small tingle in his hands as he watched their fragile bodies crumple in the snow. The feeling multiplied tenfold when he accidentally executed the first assassin that snuck into his room.

Haydn knew the Dracenians sent them after him without even checking the crest on his victim's sword. A part of him expected it especially since he was the one that took care of the original Damon. The Duke doubled the security around his living quarters when he told him, but that didn't stop the skilled ones from slipping through the defenses.

Maybe the previous Damon would have thought that the situation was a nightmare. He might have even lost sleep over the fact that several people were trying to end his life. But Haydn found the challenge enjoyable. He was, after all, one of them.

Back when he started the trade, he used to frequent an underground tavern to find jobs that he could take. There were all sorts of odd assignments, ranging from the typical royal political assassination to jealous husbands who wanted to murder their cheating wives. But the people he met were even more abnormal, coming from all walks of life. They hailed from all five dukedoms, some poor like he was and others wealthy from mastering the craft. There were a few deranged people who did it for the excitement of it, but Haydn never understood them. Why kill people when it was so much easier to hurt animals?

How naive he had been back then, confident in his abilities to remain unattached from his work. Little did he know that he was just as crazy as the worst of them.

But he still retained a scrap of sanity from the practice of pretending to be a scholar examining his own life. He noticed that these urges were strong so long as he kept up his glamour. The more he used the God-given magic, the more intense the compulsions.

To manage the strain of keeping up his facade, he started to wear Conductors to filter Odi's raw magic. Ordinarily, these tools were reserved for combat Mages because the instruments wore out easily in battle, especially once they attached weapons to the Conductors. But being the son of the Duke, they could spare a pair of the metal palm accessories for him. It was even more convenient that the original Damon was born a Mage, although the late royal served a different God.

"He had a contract with the boorish Bjorn," Odi informed him. "Who would have thought that there would be a bond between a wild man and the God of Animals."