Even if you add a little wood to a tiny spark, it will flare up into a conflagration.

Well, for Xanther, it only took one little wood, long ago — an icy look, a cold silence, and an act of strange, disturbing mercy — to set the fire in his chest hard to breathe and make him tear the skin off his fists to the flesh in each deliberate act of self-destruction.

He didn't know exactly why he hated so much. Perhaps because he knew nothing else. It was unknown whether his cruel heart had never had a shred of warmth in it except the heat of the forge, or whether it was buried under a pile of ash. Anyway, in his already rather long life, drowned in madness, wine, and cruelty, he hardly knew how to be anything more than a threat.

He lived for it. It was his steel skeleton, and he had to give it credit, even against his will his enemy had supported him all these years.

Even when these nagging thoughts of revenge tormented him with a particularly desperate intensity, even when he woke up at night with a dirty sheet, watching his shameful ejaculation after a particularly vivid dream in which he tore his enemy's heart out of his chest, strangled him, beat him and plunged into his hot flesh again, he was still grateful. Without all of this, he was lost.

He had long since ceased to be excited by anything other than thoughts of violence and punishment of the infidels.

Luckily, he always knew how to find a way out of it. His temper spilled over the edges like hot metal, and service in the state army fully contributed to this.

And now, lazily twirling his spear in his hands, he waited for his moment, like a true loyal soldier.

In Aurepolis, a city in ruins, usually so peaceful and carefree, a real rebellion suddenly broke out. Xanther's eyes flared unhealthy — finally something interesting. The people were unhappy with the increasing control of the archons, believing that they had given them too much power, which was now turning against them — it had already reached the point where any political associations were illegal, and getting into the authorities was becoming more and more difficult with each passing year.

Xanther only grinned, noticing the intent, suspicious look of the soldier next to him. He knew that his comrades disliked him for his past, connected with the legendary bloodbath, but he could not bring himself to worry.

"It's especially hot today, huh?" he said mockingly, scratching the shaft with his nail. "Be careful. Suppressing a rebellion is not like crushing grapes. It can be really scary."

But as they drew near, automatically, as if guided by his own will, honed over the years, Xanther's gaze picked out one single face from the crowd, that one face.

At first he couldn't believe it.

He had kept to himself for so long, cherishing thoughts of sweet violence... For his enemy to stand so modestly in this hood among the uncouth commoners and show himself to him first?

He froze. Then a desperate, mad, ragged laugh bubbled up in the depths of his throat. His breath caught, convulsive and dry, until finally it became too painful to breathe. The rest of the world faded into the background, fading in comparison to this modest, almost invisible figure, whose features he had obsessively learned as his own over these long years. Xanther gripped the shaft so tightly that the poor tree, like his own joints, creaked before he lunged forward.

There was no longer a crowd for him. Only fate, which had brought him here, to the object of his burning hatred. Its roar was ringing in his ears, and he swung desperately, aiming for the heart.

And this time it wasn't just a fantasy. He was actually going to hit.