I charge. Rip my axe free. Blood sprays—mine, the wraith’s, a cocktail of red and black that paints the bone walls. The distance between me and Ivalys is six paces, maybe seven, and the wraith is already reaching for her throat?—
She moves.
Not away. Not backward. Into the attack.
Her hand closes around a broken stalactite—a shard of ancient bone that fell from the ceiling, sharp as any knife. She drives it forward, up, through the soft tissue under the wraith’s chin. The point erupts from the top of its skull in a spray of ichor and corrupted brain matter.
The wraith collapses. Inches from her face. Close enough that its death-rattle sprays black fluid across her shoulder.
She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t flinch. Just yanks the bone shard free and turns to face the last attacker.
The wounded one. The one I left alive.
It’s crawling toward her. Half its chest is gone, one arm hanging useless, but the hunger remains. The hunger never dies.
I reach it in three strides. Bring my axe down on its neck. Once. Twice. The third blow severs its head completely.
Silence falls.
Six corpses surround us. Black ichor pools on the floor, mixing with my blood in patterns that look almost deliberate. The pain is starting to surface now—chest, hand, a dozen smaller cuts I don’t remember taking. I force it back down. Pain is for later.
I turn to Ivalys.
She’s still standing. Still holding the bone shard, knuckles white around its blood-slick surface. Ichor splattered across her shoulder, her cheek, matting her dark hair to her skull. Her chest heaves with rapid breaths.
But her eyes are steady. Clear. Meeting mine without flinching.
“You didn’t run.”
“Would running have helped? I’m not useless.” She’s trembling—I can see it in her hands, the fine vibration she can’t quite control. But her voice is steel.
Something shifts in my chest. Something I don’t have a name for, don’t want to examine.
She’s not prey.The realization settles into my bones. She never was.
“That was a debtor-wraith you just killed.” I move toward her, can’t help myself, need to see that she’s whole, that the thing didn’t touch her before she ended it. “Some people train for years before they can face one.”
“I didn’t have years.” She tucks the small weapon into a back pocket. “I have a brother in trouble and a monster in front of me.”
I reach her. Stop. The urge to touch her is overwhelming—to check for wounds, to confirm she’s alive, to feel the warmth of her against my blood-slicked palms. But I don’t trust my control right now. The shadow-curse is singing in my veins, the aftermath of combat flooding my body with urges I can’t afford to indulge.
“You’re hurt.”
She looks down at herself. At the ichor painting her clothes, the tremor in her hands, the scrape on her forearm where she must have hit the wall when I shoved her.
“This isn’t mine.” She gestures at the black fluid. “Well. The scrape is. But everything else?—”
“Is theirs.” I finish for her. “Good.”
She looks up. Our eyes meet. The night-sight washes everything in shades of blue and gray, but I can still see the fire in her gaze. The stubborn defiance that hasn’t dimmed even after watching me tear five corpses apart with hands, tusks, and axes.
“You’re bleeding.” Her voice has changed. Softer. Concerned.
I look down at myself. The claw wounds on my chest are weeping steadily, the leather of my armor hanging in tatters. My palm is a ruin—the bone dagger punched straight through, and pulling it free did more damage than leaving it in would have. Blood—my blood, red and hot—drips from a dozen smaller cuts.
“Flesh wounds. The shadow-curse heals minor damage quickly.”
“Those don’t look minor.”
