Because what was the alternative? To live one more year? Two? Then die anyway, for the entertainment of a psychopathic god.

Given the choice between a long, happy life and what Song had proposed, he might have found temptation eat away at his resolve. It was not the choice in front of him.

And there was selfishness in it too. Better to die quickly, in a flash of light, than be torn to pieces by slavering beasts. That was the fate that awaited him. The fate that awaited Amber and his friends, if he did not do what he had to.

He stared out for a while longer. It was peaceful here, in the empty sky. No dangers. No timer, counting down. Not even the Codex, watching over his shoulder.

Here, he would make peace with himself. With his choice. Alone on a nameless planet.

Cade did not know how long he waited. Time ran into itself, with only his thirst and hunger to measure it. He did not need anything else. Just a break. A break from the relentlessness of it all.

It was only when his head began to nod, exhaustion endangering a fall from his perch, that he stood and screamed at the sky.

“I’ll fight,” he yelled. “Is that what you want to hear? I’ll fight!”

The Codex materialized in front of him.

“Good boy,” Abaddon’s voice said.

Desert. White as a lamb’s back, stretching to the horizon. Cade turned slowly, then breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the bone fields, and the walls of the keep at its end.

Abaddon had taken him home. He had almost thought Abaddon had another punishment for him—a trek through the desert to reach home. Small mercy, but mercy nonetheless.

He walked forward, his armor clanking, legs burning. He still clutched the Gray’s toy, so tightly he had to relax his grip. It was his lifeline. His path to vengeance.

The keep neared as his feet scattered bones and squelched through the mire. He reveled in the cool mud, sopping his aching feet.

He pictured the cold, clear water of the keep’s baths. Imagined the sweat, grime, and blood of an entire week sloughing from him like a second skin. Heaven was but minutes away.

And then, a yell. Faces appeared over the wall, alongside javelins and drawn bows. For a moment, Cade was startled. He was so used to the keep being near empty.

But he recognized the helmets of the legionaries, even some of the faces above the parapet—men he had fought alongside in the battle.

He frowned. Their weapons were still drawn.

His frown deepened as his eyes scanned the walls. There was plenty he did not recognize. The walls, once crumbling, had been repaired and refaced. There were stakes in the ground too, and a deep trench in front of them. Only a narrow path allowed entry to the keep, and he navigated it with care, even as he saw smaller stakes, tips just above the mud, waiting for an unwary foot to step onto them.