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Darius closed his diary, slid it into a fissure of rock, and licked the slice in his wrist that he had made to create “ink.” His quill made from a pheasant’s tail feather was failing fast, and he wasn’t sure whether he would ever be back here again to use it, but he tucked it away.

As he picked up the candle and lifted it to his mouth, he was struck by the buttery quality of the light. He’d spent so many hours writing by such kind, soft illumination . . . in fact, that seemed the only tie he had between his life of the past and his current existence.

He blew out the small flame with a single breath.

Getting to his feet, he gathered his weapons: a steel dagger that he had been given off the cooling body of a dead trainee, and a sword that was from the communal training weapons stall. Neither hilt had been fitted for his palm, but his wielding hand cared not.

As the Brothers looked his way and offered neither greeting nor dismissal, he wished that among them was his real father. How different this would all feel if he had at his side one who cared what his outcome would be: He looked not for quarter given, and sought no special dispensation, but he was ever alone now, set apart from those around him, separated by a divide he could see across but never cover.

To be without family was a strange, unseeable prison, the bars of loneliness and rootlessness enclosing ever more tightly as years and experience accumulated, isolating a male such that he touched naught and naught touched him.

Darius did not look back at the camp as he walked toward the four who had come for him. The Bloodletter knew that he was going out into the field and didn’t care whether or not he returned herein. And the other trainees were likewise.

On the approach, he wished he had more time to ready himself for this test of will and strength and courage. But it was now and here.

Verily, time moved forward even if you wanted it to slow to a crawl.

Stopping afore the Brothers, he yearned for a bracing word or a well wish or a pledge of faith from someone. As there was none coming, he offered up a brief prayer to the sacred mother of the race:

Dearest Virgin Scribe, please let me not fail in this.

ONE

Another fucking butterfly.

As R.I.P. looked at what was coming through the door of his tat shop, he knew he was going to end up doing another fucking butterfly. Or two.

Yup. Given the pair of long, blond, and bubbly that was jiggling their giggly way up to his receptionist, he was so not going to be rocking any skull-and-bones shit into their skin.

These Paris Hiltons and their we’re-so-bad excitement had him looking at the clock . . . and wishing he closed now, instead of one a.m.

Man . . . the shit he did for money. Most of the time he could be all yeah, whatever about the lightweights who came in to get marked up, but tonight the bright ideas of cutie-pies annoyed him. Hard to get enthused about the Hello Kitty set when he’d just spent three hours doing a memorial portrait for a biker who’d lost his best friend on the road. One was real life, the other a cartoon.

Mar, his receptionist, came over to him. “You got time to do a quickie?” Her pierced eyebrows went up as her eyes rolled. “Shouldn’t take long.”

“Yeah.” He nodded to his padded chair. “Get the first one over here.”

“They want to be done together.”

Of course they did. “Fine. Grab the stool from the back.”

As Mar disappeared behind a curtain and he got set up, the two by the cash register held each other’s hands and twittered over the consent forms they had to sign. From time to time, both of them shot him wide looks, like with all his tats and his metal, he was an exotic tiger they’d come to admire at a zoo . . . and totally approved of.

Uh-huh. Right. He would cut his own balls off before he threw them as much as a pity fuck.

After Mar took their money, she brought them over and introduced them as Keri and Sarah. Which was more than he’d expected. He’d been bracing himself for Tiffany and Brittney.

“I want a rainbow carp,” Keri said as she got into his chair