Stirring from the deep, deathlike coma enveloping him, the anguish of the wound in Kaden's chest immediately overcame him. Suddenly, now having to think about it, it felt hard to breathe. Like there was a hole clean through him. The pain flared until the fire on his nerve endings compelled his body to collapse and simply succumb to death rather than endure the agony of life.

"Easy," an old voice attached to a pair of wrinkled hands forced Kaden painfully back into a laying a position upon the soft mattress beneath him. The voice warned him, "You're not fully healed yet. Might never be, if truth be told."

Kaden struggled to open his eyes more than a crack. The light from the world of the living flooded in and burned his senses as he tried to comprehend exactly what the source of the intense agony was. Then he began to remember.

He recalled heading into the Abyss. The dead soldier. Taking Courage. Finding the prince and fighting for their lives against a monstrous Koronai. And finally, a demon's claw puncturing his body through his chest. The mere remembrance caused the lingering injury to flare to new heights of pain. As though the demon's claw was still within him.

"How am I still alive," Kaden whispered, accepting that he would not be going anywhere.

"If there were gods, I'd suggest you thank them." The old man belonging to the voice with his dingy white robes and aged skin leaned over him. "But, as that's not the case, you have simply had very good luck." The man smiled. "Extremely good luck. And, if I dare say so myself, an excellent physician to care for you."

Kaden groaned. Every breath was a fire stoking a response from the nerves in his body.

"Be careful," the man said. "The demon's claw missed piecing your heart by a mere breath. But not entirely. It damaged some of the muscle, even as it did not skewer it." He shook his head. "And punctured your lung. Also by the greatest of happenstance missed your spine. You are lucky indeed." The man turned away and proceeded to a washbasin where he wrung out an older and blood stained set of wraps.

Kaden assumed they were from his care. "Luck nothing. I have a feeling it's you who saved me. That being the case, I should at least like to know your name."

"Touran, my boy. Touran."

Kaden laid there, staring at the ceiling and it's flaking paint—blue like the clear desert sky on a sweltering day. "Just Touran?" he asked. "You didn't have a father?"

"If you must have more, then you may call me Touran, Chief Physician of his Royal Highness, Prince Relastin."

"The prince's doctor? What did I do to earn such an honor?"

"Saved the prince to fight another day," Touran laughed as he stated the obvious. "That's what you did. Now he has returned the favor through me. And you will be back in the Abyss soon."

"Well, I don't know if the prince told you this or not, but I'm no warrior."

Touran's smile continued to dance on his face. "That is as obvious as the nose above my mouth, my scrawny friend."

"And I personally don't plan on fighting. Not ever again." His body adapting to the constant pain in his chest, Kaden came to focus on the now obvious pang upon his brain.

The splitting headache added insult to injury, and he recognized it as a common symptom of withdrawal from taking essences. One of the reasons why addiction to the vapors of emotions was so high was the often painful after effects. Made better only through either repeated use and building up a tolerance or the continued and perpetual use keeping one in the haze of the emotions themselves.

"Ah, but sad to say that's going to happen." Touran replied to his patient's expressed desires.

"What do you mean?"

"I'll let the prince explain. In fact, here he comes now." Touran nodded towards the door. "Impeccable timing, your Royal Highness. Look who has finally awoken."

Kaden rolled his head only as much as he could without increasing the existing pain gripping him.

The prince did not engage in the previous banter that had been taking place. He merely marched to the bedside where Kaden laid and hovered over him like desert hawk looking for a snake to eat. There was a silence that was only broken when the prince chose to do so. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'd be lying if I said I hadn't felt better," Kaden said in return.

The prince gave a slight nod. "Considering the wound you suffered? You are blessed by luck to be alive. Dare I say the luckiest person I've seen. I have never seen a man take a blow such as that and survive to see another sunsrise. And you Kaden, Son of Orl, Traitor to Ison, are not even a man. Just a skinny boy."

"And your slave," Kaden reminded him with bitterness upon his tongue. "Let's not forget that."

The look exchanged between Touran and Prince Relastin was not lost on Kaden. But he didn't know what it meant, or how to respond.

"You are not my slave anymore," the prince told him.

Kaden creased his eyes in distrust. "And why that honor, my prince?" He added the bare minimum of an honorarium with a distinct sour note to his voice.

"Valor twice fold," the prince informed him. "Once for entering the Abyss and twice for standing with me against the Night Terror. Per the Decrees, I have lifted that burden from your meager existence. But you are still the son of a traitor. Make no mistake on that point, boy."

Kaden now understood what Touran had said earlier about him not getting his wish to never fight again. Sons of traitors were conscripted into the military. The only thing that saved him from that fate previously had been his designation as also a slave. A designation bestowed upon him because of his knowledge of chemistry and the art of distilling emotions. And his better talent at such that with a sword.

Trying to get comfortable, Kaden shifted in the bed that wasn't his own. But every movement, no matter how slight, didn't help and only increased his pain. "Well then, guess I will be fighting again. And probably rather soon. Also dying."

"Do not take this lightly, Kaden, Son of Orl, Traitor to Ison. I offer you a great opportunity. One few slaves ever get the chance to take."

"You mean to fight demons?" Kaden laughed. "Or my fellow citizens of Imeron? Look at me! Do I look like the kind of boy who becomes a man? Much less a soldier?"

The prince's hard stare barely fluctuated. "I have made noble warriors out of things lesser than you," he said.

"And that's the problem. You think I'm lesser than you. I'm not. In fact, I dare say, without me and those like me, you're not very much of a man at all."

"Stay your tongue!" Touran erupted, drawing back his hand to strike Kaden as a repercussion for the insult behind the words he was daring to speak.

Prince Relastin waved off his intended course of discipline. "You will not strike this boy," he admonished.

"Your Highness? His insolence cannot go unpunished."

"I have fought countless men up the Barrens and hundreds of Koronai within the Abyss. I fear this child not."

"Words are as deadly as steel, your Highness." Touran's agitation at being told to stand down was evident.

"As I said to you before, he is to become my Karo Shar."

"Karo Shar?" The dryness in Kaden's mouth parched further. "Your Warrior Guard?"

"Yes." With a nod, the prince confirmed Kaden's understanding of what was being discussed. "You will be my right hand. In all matters. And you will bless me with this great luck you possess and serve me. As such, you will be granted a certain deference to make your opinions known. But only in private. When it is you and I alone. At all other times, you will perform as I decree. And you will affirm all my decisions."

"I'd rather be set loose in the Barrens." Kaden snarled out the reply. "Or cast into the Abyss to fight another Night Terror."

"Regardless of your attitude towards the news, boy, it is a significant upgrade from your previous status. You can go as you please, but you must return when I command it. And you will, at all times, be present when my court is in session. To hear what is said, and to understand all that we do to keep Ison and all of Imeron safe."

"And if I refuse?"

"Do you hold to the Decrees?" the prince asked with a growing but contained annoyance. "That day in your father's shop, you cited them fiercely. Or do they only suit you when they serve your purpose."

Kaden looked down at the bandages wrapped tight about his chest. They itched and enhanced the persistent and stabbing pain beneath them. "My father always said, without the Decrees, we have nothing. I do believe in them."

"And who went against them? Me, your prince? Or your father?"

"My Father did." Admitting to such caused Kaden more pain than the wounds from the Night Terror's claws.

"And did I treat him unjustly? Or did I treat him in accordance with the Decrees?"

"There were other options." Pleading his case now would be fruitless, Kaden knew. But he felt he had to. "You didn't have—"

"Did I treat him in accordance with the Decrees?" The prince demanded not only an answer, but an honest one.

"Yes. At least as far as you've chosen to interpret them."

"And is that not my right as Prince of Ison?"

"It is."

The prince gave a harrumph. "Then this matter is settled. By the Decrees I name you my Karo Shar. And you will, in accordance with the Decrees, perform that task. Unwavering. Unquestioning. Until death takes you."

Kaden snorted. "Which won't be long. Look at me! As tried to tell you before, I am no warrior. I'm an alchemist's son."

"You are not now, but will be. Your training starts in the morning next. I will see to it personally."

"I haven't accepted yet." Kaden's stubbornness drew out even more of the prince's visible annoyance directed at the boy who'd saved his life. "The Decrees say I must, and I will. But they also allow me to make a reasonable request of you in return."

The prince may not have liked it, but he was obviously willing to consider it. "And by the Decrees, you may."

"All right." Kaden paused to think. He needed the words to come out right. He only had one shot at this. "I want to be named your Royal Alchemist and Chief Apothecary as well. My father's former title. And I want my father's old shop back so I can do work there."

"The Karo Shar is not an alchemist," the prince rebuffed. "He is a warrior, not a chemist."

"No offense, your highness, but your facilities here are shit compared to my father's. And Hundu, Son of Wactto, is a fool. Tell me I'm lying. Ison's warriors have suffered under his incompetence. I'm ten times the alchemist he'll ever be. My father's facility sits idle. The red mark of a traitor placed upon it, no doubt. I want the mark removed. And I want Sahl, Son of Durra, placed as my assistant and his terms of servitude transferred to me."

That the prince was not inclined to accept was as clear as the scowl on his face. "That is not one request you make, but many."

"Consider it one request with multiple stipulations."

Prince Relastin could not help but laugh. "You have negotiated before. I can tell."

"I handled my father's deliveries," Kaden felt pride at stating that. "Which meant dealing with people often unwilling to hold up their ends of already negotiated bargains when seeing a boy instead of a man. People are foolish and think they can act dishonorably."

"Indeed. This is a failing of many men." The prince agreed.

"And your answer?"

"I accept. And as such, so do you." Upon saying as much, the prince turned to Touran as though Kaden didn't even exist. "I expect you to have him ready for his first lessons at sunsrise tomorrow." Without any further words, the prince left.