The man who called himself Voss moved like a predator—fast, precise, utterly without hesitation. Caleb barely had time to register the blow before it connected, a sharp, brutal strike to his wounded side that sent him crashing into the wall. Pain exploded through his body, white-hot and blinding, and for a terrible moment, the world went dark.
"Pathetic," Voss said, his voice cold and measured. "You're everything my son said you were. A weapon that learned to feel. A tool that imagined itself a man. And now, at the end, you're nothing but a broken blade."
Caleb forced himself to his feet, his hand pressed against the fresh blood seeping through his bandages. The man before him was older than Elias, but harder—his face a map of old scars and colder cruelties. This was the man who had shap
