Kane

"There are wolves that howl, and there are wolves that watch." – Kane They say the Mordeus Desert forgets its dead. No names. No sepulchres. Only dust where blood once dried. Kane was born here, beneath the sun that scorches shadows, raised by a tribe who worshipped strength, until they saw too much of it in him. They feared what he might become, and Kane could read it in their expressions. When he'd discovered their plans—that he was to be executed out of sheer cowardice, he began to observe. Then, on the night of his offering, when the fire cracked and the blades were drawn, every throat in the circle was slit. At dawn, the vultures came to find a young scalekin sitting atop the corpses, grinning, picking the gristle of his elders from his teeth. The Supreme Arbiters would find him days later, still smiling, garments crusted in blood. They should have ended him there, cold, ruthless, with a penchant for revenge. But they didn't. Instead, they saw a dark sense of justice in him. He was not an animal, but a sharp tool waiting to be wielded. Wrapping him in their doctrines, they placed sanctified steel over his scars and molded him into their own instrument of punishment. At least, Kane let them believe so. Then came Oren, shackled in holy armor, forced to wade through the corpses of his brothers, his eyes burning with a rage that only Kane recognized. Indeed, it was a look he'd seen in his own reflection. Here was another creature who, like him, was carved into a weapon and told where to strike. While Kane never offered Oren friendship, he expressed understanding, and that was more dangerous. In quiet moments, he closely observed Oren, mapping the man's limits. In battle, he watched the armor drink blood, thirsting for more. Every clash, every wound, every flicker in Oren's eyes was a piece of the puzzle. Kane wanted to understand the armor just as he wanted to see Oren for who he truly was; he wanted to witness things pushed to their extreme, then beyond. It was also Kane who found the flaws in the theories: the sigils etched into Oren's plates weren't divine symbols at all, but bindings of a different nature. He traced the armor back to a dark forge in the Infernal Volcano, believed to have crafted weapons with the strength to challenge gods themselves. Indeed, forged in the cradle of demons and dragons, this was no holy armor, it was hungry. The only question that remained was, what would happen if they fed it. So, he gave Oren the truth in pieces, each revelation setting in another hook. The missing shard, he claimed, could burn away every chain the Arbiters had wrapped around him. While Kane's eyes never left the horizon, his mind could already see it: Oren, standing unbound and godlike, roaring with might. And Kane, in the shadow, waiting to strike. A wolf that waits does not settle for scraps. So, he waits for the stag to grow fat, strong, untouchable... And then takes everything.