She jerks back slightly, but I catch her wrist before she can fully retreat. Not hard, just firm. Present.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't you?" I move into her space, my shadow falling over her. She doesn't retreat, but her chin lifts in a clear challenge. "You chose me at that auction for a reason. You're here for a purpose. But I don't think it's what you believe it is."
"Let go."
I release her immediately. She doesn't expect that. The instant compliance throws her off balance more than force would have.
"You're going to train every day," I say, stepping back. "With Mikaere. With the constructs. With me when I have time."
"Why?"
"Because violence makes you honest. When you fight, you stop thinking so hard. You just exist." I turn to leave, then pause. "And because watching you destroy things is... educational."
"About what?"
"About what you'll do when you discover you're hunting the wrong monster."
I dissolve into shadow before she can respond, but I feel her confusion deepen. Good. Confusion is better than certainty. Doubt is the first crack in her armor.
The shoulder wound doesn't seem to bother her; she's had worse. But my words do. They've planted seeds she doesn't want to water.
The tremor that hits is a seismic shock to my very essence, and my form fractures, threatening to fly apart into a thousand useless fragments of shadow. When I finally pull myself back together, I’m barely visible, even to myself. The dissolution is accelerating.
The Bone Collector's signature has been growing stronger these past weeks. He's following patterns, searching for something. Or someone.
Yorika's dreams bleed through to me, tasting of silver and shadow, heat and hunger. Her unconscious mind is already reaching for me, even as her conscious mind plots violence.
Perhaps that's the key. Not forcing the bond, but letting her body's wisdom override her mind's resistance.
Tomorrow, we'll see how she handles proximity without violence as a buffer.
Tomorrow, I'll push a different boundary.
YORIKA
The library refuses to give up its secrets.
I've spent three hours trying to access anything useful about Void Walkers. Every attempt meets the same response: books flying out of reach, shelves rearranging themselves, texts shifting into unreadable scripts.
"I need information about the Void," I tell the seemingly empty air.
Päivi materializes from scattered index cards, her vellum skin covered in moving text that spells variations of 'no' in dozens of languages.
"You need nothing." She gestures and the book I was reaching for shoots forty feet up. "Your presence here is temporary. Your access is nonexistent."
"How am I supposed to understand this place?"
"You're not."
"Then how do I survive?"
"Survival isn't guaranteed. Check your contract."
"There was no contract."
"Exactly." Her smile is all paper cuts. "No contract, no rights, no access."
