The thugs stopped walking. Vivenna looked up, blinking away her dizziness. There was something in the dark, wet street in front of them. A black sword. The weapon, silver sheath and all, had been rammed into the dirt.

The street grew still. One of the thugs stepped forward, pulling the sword from the ground. He undid the sheath clasp. Vivenna felt a sudden nausea, more of a memory than a real sensation. She stumbled back, horrified.

The other thugs, transfixed, gathered up around their friend. One of them reached for the hilt.

The man carrying the sword struck. He swung the weapon, sheath and all, into the face of his friend. A black smoke began to twist off the sword, rising from the tiny sliver of blade that was visible.

Men cried out, each one scrambling for the sword. The man holding it continued to swing, the weapon hitting with far more force and damage than it should have. Bones broke, blood began to run on the cobblestones. The man continued to attack, moving with terrible speed. Vivenna, still stumbling backward, could see his eyes.

They were terrified.

He killed his last friend—the one who had robbed her on that day that now seemed so long ago—by slamming the sheathed sword down against the man’s back. Bones cracked. By now, the clothing on the sword wielder’s arm had disintegrated, and a blackness—like vines growing on a wall—had twisted up around his shoulder. Black, pulsing veins that bulged out of the skin. The man screamed a piercing, desperate cry.

Then he twisted the sword around and rammed it, sheath and all, through his chest. It cut skin and flesh, though the sheath itself didn’t look sharpened. The man stumbled to his knees, then slumped backward, twitching, staring up into the air as the black veins on his arm began to evaporate. He died like that, kneeling, held upright by the sword that came out through his back, propping him up from behind.