What pain hadn’t he inflicted on Logan? He’d allowed the murder of Logan’s friend Aleine, concealed the truth about Serah’s and Aleine’s affair, got him sent to prison for murder, and forced him to break his engagement. Now Logan had been forced to marry a girl he didn’t know and had been murdered, his wife of less than an hour raped and killed.

Sinking to the floor, Kylar wept. “Logan, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.” He reached a hand to steady himself, and found it in the puddle of blood. He looked at his bloody, bloody hand. Bloody as it had been bloodied in this very chamber, five years ago when he’d finished his first solo kill. Bloody as it had been bloody continually since he murdered his first innocent. This was where murder had brought him. It had brought him full circle, his murder of one innocent leading inexorably to the murder of more. In the last five years, he’d done exactly what he’d intended to do: he’d become more and more like Durzo Blint. He’d become a killer. He slept uneasily, so he slept light, so he was ever more dangerous. He was always on edge, and the blood that first covered his hands in this very room had never been washed clean. It had only been added to. It was no mistake that Logan’s blood was on his hands now, no coincidence.

The Drakes liked to talk about a divine economy: the God turning weeping into laughter, sorrow into joy. A wetboy was the merchant prince of the satanic economy. Murder begat murder, and as Durzo had said, others always paid the price.

Must others always pay for my failures? Is there no other way? The blood on his hands said no, no. This is reality; it’s hard, uncomfortable, hateful, but it’s true.

“I’m breaking my own rules,” a blur of shadows said.

Kylar didn’t look up. He didn’t care if he died. But the man said no more. After a long moment, Kylar asked bitterly, “‘Don’t play fair. A kill is a kill’?”

Durzo stepped out of the shadows. “Kylar, I have one last rule to teach you.”

“And what’s that, master?”

“You’re almost a wetboy now, Kylar. And now that you’ve learned to win almost any fight, there’s one more rule: Never fight when you can’t win.”

“Fine,” Kylar said. “You win.”

Durzo stood there a long moment. “Come, apprentice. Here is your Crucible.”

“Is that all your life is?” Kylar asked, finally looking up. “Tests and challenges?”

“My life? That’s all life is.”

“That’s not good enough,” Kylar said. “These people shouldn’t be dying. Khalidor shouldn’t be winning. It’s not right.”