6
LYSSA
Evening falls cold and uncomfortable around our small fire, the atmosphere thick with unspoken tensions that make even simple conversation feel dangerous.
Kaerith and Elira sit apart from us, heads bent together in whispered conference that excludes Thorrin and me as deliberately as physical barrier. Their voices carry just enough to tantalize without revealing content—fragments about "tactical advantage" and "necessary methods" and "acceptable losses" that make my chest tight with growing unease.
We used to share everything. Plans, fears, hopes for the future we were building together. Now they plot in shadows while treating us like children too naive to understand the harsh realities of survival.
"What are they discussing?" I ask Thorrin quietly.
He stares into flames with expression carved from winter stone. "Strategies I am not sure I want to hear."
Across the fire, Elira gestures sharply as she makes some point that draws approving nod from Kaerith. Whatever they're planning, it has his full support. Whatever darkness they'recontemplating, they're walking into it together while leaving us behind.
The exclusion hurts worse than I expected. We were family. The four of us against a world that tried to destroy what we'd built. Now that unity fractures along lines I don't understand, dividing us into categories of those who accept necessity and those who cling to naive idealism.
When did protecting each other become naive?
"Tomorrow we move closer," Kaerith announces without looking up from their private conversation. "Gather intelligence on their patterns, their defenses, their vulnerabilities."
"All of us?" Thorrin asks carefully.
"Elira and I will handle reconnaissance. You'll maintain perimeter security."
The dismissal is polite but absolute. Important work for the corrupted, guard duty for those who haven't evolved beyond sentiment. As if we're liability rather than asset, burden rather than family.
"We could help with—" I begin.
"You could compromise the mission," Elira interrupts with voice carrying patience reserved for explaining obvious truths to slow children. "This requires specific mindset you haven't developed yet."
The casual cruelty of it takes my breath away. Not anger or frustration, just matter-of-fact assessment that I lack whatever psychological transformation they consider necessary for real work.
Since when does my sister speak to me like I'm stranger?
The change reveals itself in small details that accumulate into portrait of someone I no longer recognize.
She catches the rabbit with efficiency that speaks of extensive practice—quick, clean trap that immobilizes without immediatekilling. Standard hunting technique. But it's what comes next that makes my stomach turn.
Instead of ending its life mercifully, she crouches beside the trapped animal and studies its fear with clinical interest. Watches how it struggles against bonds that only tighten with movement. Observes the exact moment when panic gives way to exhausted resignation.
"Elira," I say quietly. "Just kill it."
"Why?" She looks up with genuine curiosity, as if my discomfort is interesting puzzle requiring solution. "It's going to die anyway. What difference does timing make?"
"Because it's suffering unnecessarily."
"So?" The question comes without heat, without cruelty, just honest confusion about why suffering matters when outcome remains constant. "Fear doesn't change meat quality. Pain doesn't affect nutritional value. What practical difference does its emotional state make?"
I exchange glances with Thorrin, seeing my own horror reflected in his amber-lit gaze. This woman once spent hours teaching me to identify plants that ease pain. Who valued gentleness as strength rather than weakness.
Now she discusses animal suffering like academic exercise in resource management.
"It matters because causing unnecessary pain is wrong," I say, knowing how naive the words sound even as I speak them.
"Wrong according to whose standards?" Elira's voice carries patient tone of teacher correcting student's fundamental misunderstanding. "Morality is luxury we can't afford anymore, Lyssa. What matters is efficiency, effectiveness, results."
She turns back to the rabbit with renewed interest, experimenting with different pressures to gauge reactions. Taking notes, essentially, on optimal methods for extracting maximum fear response from helpless prey.
