It happened on the afternoon of the fourth day in the Greymist Stretch, during a routine scouting sweep.
Selene had split the group into two-person teams for the sweep — wider coverage, faster mapping. Cassian went with Yuelan. Kaelen went with Lin Yueying. Lyra stayed at the camp with Eira and Vesper. And Ren was paired with Iris.
He hadn’t been thrilled about it. An hour alone in a corrupted forest with the one person in the group who was most likely to notice things he didn’t want noticed was not his idea of a relaxing afternoon. But Selene assigned the pairs, and Selene did not take requests.
For the first twenty minutes, they moved through the forest in professional silence. Iris navigated well — better than Ren expected, actually. Her footwork was clean, her awareness was sharp, and she read the terrain the way soone reads a report: quickly, accurately, without wasting ti on things that didn’t matter.
— • —
They found the corrupted Spineback Lizard nest at the twenty-five minute mark.
It was hidden in a depression between two massive corrupted oaks — a cluster of hardened mud and twisted roots sheltering four lizards, each one bigger than the pair they had fought two days ago. These were mid-range Tier 1, their scales darker, the energy along their spines crackling with visible intensity. An adult nest, not a roaming pair.
SCAN.
Target: Corrupted Spineback Lizards (4). Tier 1, mid-range.
Mutation level: heavy. Enhanced armor, stronger spine discharge, pack-defense behavior.
Alert: nest proximity increases aggression.
Recomnd retreat or coordinated strike — do not engage individually.
Ren looked at Iris. Iris looked at Ren.
"Four," she said quietly. "Mid-tier. Armored. And we just walked into their territory."
As if to confirm this, the nearest lizard raised its head, locked its red eyes on them, and hissed. The sound was low and wet, and the energy along its spine brightened.
"We could fall back," Ren said.
Iris considered it for about one second. "If we move away slowly, they might not follow. But if they decide we’re a threat, they’ll chase us back to camp and we’ll be fighting four Tier 1 lizards near our sleeping bags."
"So we handle it here."
"We handle it here."
— • —
They didn’t have ti to plan. The first lizard charged.
It ca fast and low, jaws open, spine crackling. Ren sidestepped and hit it with an energy strike to the eye — the weak point from last ti. The lizard flinched and skidded sideways, but the second one was already coming from the right.
Iris intercepted it.
Ren had seen her fight during the assessnt — precise, controlled, efficient. But the assessnt had been a training hall with formation dummies and scored drills. This was four armored predators in a corrupted forest with nobody watching except the trees.
It was completely different.
Iris moved like a machine. Her first strike hit the charging lizard’s jaw at an angle that redirected its montum sideways instead of trying to stop it head-on. Smart — these things weighed more than she did, so blocking was pointless, but redirecting used their own weight against them. Her second strike caught the exposed underbelly as the lizard stumbled past, precise and hard enough that the creature dropped and didn’t get back up.
Two seconds. One lizard down. No wasted energy, no wasted motion, no hesitation.
The Blackthorn training was real. Not just reputation. Not just money buying expensive instructors. Real combat skill, drilled into muscle and bone until it moved faster than thought.
The third and fourth lizards attacked together. They ca from both sides, coordinated, trying to flank. Ren took the left one. Iris took the right.
Ren struck low, targeting the underbelly. His lizard twisted away from the first hit, spun, and lashed out with its tail. He jumped the sweep, landed, and drove a hard strike into the base of its skull. The lizard went down heavy.
On the other side, Iris was handling hers with the kind of cold precision that reminded Ren, uncomfortably, of Kaelen. But where Kaelen’s combat was cold because he was cold, Iris’s was cold because she was focused. Every move was calculated. Every angle was chosen. She feinted high, drew the spine discharge, sidestepped it by centiters, and hit the lizard three tis in rapid succession — jaw, throat, underbelly. It collapsed.
Four lizards. Maybe thirty seconds total. Both of them still standing.
— • —
The clearing went quiet. The corrupted oaks creaked in the wind. The downed lizards twitched once, twice, then went still.
Ren was breathing hard but steady. Iris was breathing hard too, though she was doing a very good job of pretending she wasn’t. A thin scratch ran along her left forearm where one of the lizards had grazed her, and a faint energy burn marked her shoulder where she had dodged a spine discharge by the smallest possible margin.
She looked at the scratch, then at the four downed lizards, then at Ren.
"You fight well," she said.
It was the most direct complint Iris Blackthorn had ever given him. No qualifiers. No ’but.’ No sharp observation attached like a hook.
"You too," Ren said. And he ant it. What she had just done with the second lizard — the redirect, the angle, the three-hit combo — was genuinely impressive. Not student-level. Professional-level.
"I don’t usually get to do this," Iris said. She was looking at the lizards with an expression Ren hadn’t seen on her face before. Not the sharp, calculating look. Sothing quieter. "At ho, everything is controlled. Training halls, scored drills, instructors watching every move. You never actually fight anything that’s trying to kill you. You just practice fighting things that might try to kill you soday."
She wiped the scratch on her forearm absently.
"This is better."
Ren looked at her. Without the political armor, without the Blackthorn composure, without the constant analysis running behind her eyes, Iris looked younger. More real. Like soone who had spent her whole life preparing for sothing and had finally gotten to do it.
"Yeah," he said. "It is."
— • —
They cleared the nest site and headed back toward camp. The walk was different from the walk out. The professional silence had been replaced by sothing easier, looser — the kind of quiet that exists between two people who have just fought the sa thing and co out the other side together.
Halfway back, Iris spoke again. "Your fighting has changed since the assessnt. You’re faster. Your technique is sharper. Your instincts are better."
’Here it cos,’ Ren thought. The analysis was back.
But what she said next surprised him.
"I’m not going to ask how. I’ve spent two weeks trying to figure you out, and I’ve decided that whatever you’re hiding, you have your reasons. I don’t need to know what they are." She paused. "I just need to know one thing."
"What?"
She stopped walking and turned to face him. Her eyes were steady, direct, and for once completely free of calculation.
"Are you dangerous? To us. To this group."
Ren t her eyes. He thought about lying, deflecting, giving the vague non-answer he usually gave when soone got too close to the truth. But Iris had just fought four Tier 1 beasts beside him without hesitation, and she deserved better than that.
"No," he said. "Not to you. Not to any of you."
Iris studied him for a long mont. Then she nodded once.
"Okay," she said. "That’s enough."
She turned and started walking again. After a few steps, she added, over her shoulder, "For the record — you’re a good partner in a fight. Better than most people I’ve trained with."
"Careful, Blackthorn. That almost sounded friendly."
"Don’t push it, Valis."
But she was almost smiling when she said it.
Ren walked behind her through the corrupted forest and thought: ’Sothing just changed.’ He wasn’t sure what it was yet. But the way she had looked at him after the fight — without the armor, without the analysis — had left sothing behind that he couldn’t quite na.
Kaia pulsed gently. Curious, maybe. Or amused. It was hard to tell with her sotis.
— • —
Author’s Note: Iris drops the armor. Four lizards, thirty seconds, and a question that matters more than any combat test: "Are you dangerous to us?" His answer was honest. That changes things. Thanks for reading!
User Comments
0 comments from readers