Edrin’s glasses slipping down his nose during their first combat class, one finger pushing them back up without breaking his sentence.
He was explaining so tactical formation to Ronan, who wasn’t listening at all, and Edrin didn’t care because he was going to finish the explanation regardless of whether anyone heard it.
She’d liked him imdiately. Not romantically, just – liked. The kind of person who kept thinking even when nobody was watching.
****
Training ground, evening, Zavier practicing alone.
His spear slipped and clattered to the ground. His ears turned red as he looked around to see if anyone noticed.
She was sitting under a tree thirty ters away, pretending to read.
She saw.
But she didn’t say anything. Just watched him pick up the spear and start again, his ears still red, his grip too tight, his form terrible but his determination absolute.
He dropped it again.
And again.
And again.
Each ti his ears went red, each ti he checked if anyone was watching and each ti she pretended she wasn’t.
By the twentieth drop, sothing in her chest had shifted, she didn’t know what to call it then, didn’t know what to call it now.
She just knew his red ears made her want to smile and cry at the sa ti.
****
The creature’s grip tightened as sothing inside her chest folded in a direction it shouldn’t, blood filled her throat.
The mories didn’t stop. They ca faster now, overlapping, bleeding into each other like watercolors left in rain –
****
The night after the Outer Region sweep.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, she’d killed more people that night than she’d ever imagined killing.
The arrows had found throats and skulls and hearts, and each one had made a sound she couldn’t unhear.
Katya had asked if she was okay.
"Just adrenaline."
It was a lie and Katya let her have it. So lies were kindness.
Later, alone in a corridor, she’d sat against the wall and shaken until her teeth rattled.
Then... Damian had appeared.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t give her a speech about strength or duty or the greater good and didn’t tell her it got easier.
He just sat down next to her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched and waited.
Ten minutes... Maybe fifteen...
The shaking had stopped on its own.
He’d stood up, nodded once, and left.
That was the night she understood. Not why people feared him — that was obvious. But why others followed him.
Because he stayed.
****
The pain was enormous now.
She could feel the creature’s breath on her face, hot and chemical, its jaw so close she could count individual teeth, each one the length of her finger and each one designed for exactly this.
Why did her body move?
She’d seen the creature above Zavier, her legs had just... moved.
No thought, no debate and no heroic mont of deciding to sacrifice herself. Her body had simply refused to let him die and she hadn’t been part of the decision.
Was that –
****
So ti ago, inside this nightmare.
Damian, his eyes going vacant, blood and dark flesh sared across his mouth, teeth tearing into creatures.
Eating them alive, swallowing chunks of monster flesh while his humanity dissolved piece by piece.
She’d looked away.
She wished she hadn’t.
He was destroying himself to keep them alive, feeding his own mind to that sick Art like firewood, burning through sanity so they could survive another minute, another hour and another battle.
And she’d looked away.
If she survived – if by so miracle she survived – she would never look away from soone’s sacrifice again.
****
But she wasn’t going to survive.
The creature’s teeth touched her skin with the beginning of sothing final.
The mories ca in a last flood – not images anymore, just feelings and stripped of everything except what they ant:
The kitchen, the humming, the stuck window.
The blue umbrella she never returned.
Her father’s seven words, folded in her bag, carried everywhere.
Edrin’s glasses, one finger, always one finger.
Ronan falling off his chair.
Zavier’s red ears.
Damian’s back, walking away, not looking at anyone.
The sound of her bowstring, Thwip, the cleanest sound in the world, the one thing that had always been hers.
Her mother’s hands braiding her hair, tugging too hard, humming sothing without lody.
’Mom... I’m sorry I didn’t hold on longer. I’m sorry I was in a hurry. I’m sorry I said "I’ll be fine" like it was nothing, like leaving was nothing, like I’d definitely co back and there’d be ti for everything I didn’t say–
Dad... I read your note four tis. I carried it every day. I wanted you to be at the door that morning and you weren’t and I never told you it mattered because I thought there’d be another morning–
There’s no other morning.
I don’t want to die.’
The thought arrived without courage or dignity, just a girl, just a sixteen-year-old girl who wanted to go ho to a kitchen with a stuck window and a mother who humd.
’I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I want to hear Ronan laugh again! I want to see Edrin push his glasses up! I want to watch Zavier drop his spear and go red! I want Boss to sit next to and say nothing until the shaking stops!
I want to go ho!
I want my mom!
I don’t want to–’
****
[Monts Earlier]
The small creature controlling the horde fixed its white eyes on Damian.
Recognizing threat and identifying the priority target.
Every creature in the chamber shifted focus simultaneously, their mindless hunger directed by singular will.
They poured toward Damian.
Dozens...
All converging on one target.
SLASH! RIP! TEAR!
Damian fought on instinct, his fragnting mind unable to process strategy, just reacting, killing, eating and barely aware of anything beyond imdiate threats.
[Will: 30 → 10]
His consciousness was dissolving, humanity bleeding away and madness consuming what little remained.
Then he heard them.
Through the haze, through the bloodlust, through the primal hunger dominating his thoughts–
Desperate screams that cut through everything.
"NOOO!"
"LYSA!"
Edrin... Zavier... Ronan...
His team.
His people.
His family...
Damian’s head turned, movents jerky and chanical, eyes finding the source.
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