2
LYSSA
Ican't stop shaking as I work, and it has nothing to do with the cold.
Vicky lies exactly as they found her—curled against Tuskon's chest in the embrace that should have been safety itself. Her throat bears the precise cut that ended her life, but her face holds the peaceful expression of someone who died without pain, without fear, without ever knowing death was coming for her.
They killed her in her sleep. In the sanctuary she'd helped build. In the arms of the male she loved more than life itself.
The intimate cruelty of it makes my stomach turn.
I begin with warming water over the fire Thorrin has rebuilt—the same fire ring where she cooked her last meal, where she prepared medicines with the careful attention she brought to everything that mattered. The basin steams in the frigid air, each cloud of vapor carrying the scent of herbs I know she would have chosen. Lavender for peace. Rosemary for remembrance. Sage for protection in whatever realm awaits beyond the final breath.
She taught me these combinations during our weekly visits, her hands steady and sure as she demonstrated proper proportions. "Women's magic," she called it with that smile thatcould light up the darkest winter day. "The kind that keeps families whole while men worry about territory and threat."
Now her hands will never move again.
The blood comes away slowly from her skin, reluctantly, as if it knows its presence marks the line between sleep and death, between safety and violation. Underneath, her flesh bears no other marks of violence—just the single, precise cut that ended everything. Whoever killed her took no pleasure in causing additional suffering. Clinical. Efficient. Almost... respectful.
The contradiction makes my chest ache with confused grief. Who shows such surgical precision while committing murder? Who takes care to minimize suffering while destroying everything their victims built together?
As I work, I study the shelter's interior. The carefully arranged furs and blankets, now soaked with blood but still bearing the impressions of bodies that slept in perfect trust. The small personal items arranged with loving care—Tuskon's hunting tools cleaned and ready for tomorrow's journey, Vicky's medicine bundles prepared for the meeting that will never happen.
They'd been planning for tomorrow. For the permanent alliance. For the community we'd all dreamed of building together.
Instead, they got the curse carved into their sanctuary's walls and death delivered while they dreamed.
"I should have been here," I whisper against her cooling forehead. "Should have stayed the extra day like I wanted to. Should have insisted on better protection."
But the words feel hollow even as I speak them. What protection could have prevented this? What vigilance could have stopped killers who moved like ghosts through the forest, who struck without warning or chance for resistance?
When her face is clean, I begin on her hair. The golden strands Tuskon loved to touch while they planned their future. Three sections braided tight with ribbons that weren't there when she went to sleep—blue for sorrow, white for purity, red for the love that brought them together and couldn't keep them safe.
Someone else braided these ribbons into her hair after killing her.
The realization hits like physical blow. One of the killers—probably the human woman who worked with the corrupted Waira—took time to tend Vicky's appearance after murdering her. Showed care for dignity while destroying life.
Why? Respect for a fallen enemy? Mockery of the gentleness they'd rejected? Some twisted form of mercy that preserves beauty while eliminating the soul beneath it?
I may never understand their motivation. But the attention to detail, the careful arrangement, the almost ritualistic positioning—all of it speaks to killers who saw this as more than simple murder.
This was ceremony. Statement. Declaration of war against everything we represent.
Across the violated shelter, Thorrin tends to Tuskon with the ancient reverence our kind shows their dead.
He's removed Tuskon's body from the bloodied furs, arranging him with the dignity death tried to steal. The younger Waira looks smaller in death—not the fierce protector who'd fought dark elves for Vicky's freedom, but a young male who'd found love and safety only to have both torn away by those who see such bonds as weakness requiring surgical removal.
Low humming fills the space—frequencies that vibrate through the ground beneath my feet and make my teeth ache with sympathetic resonance. Thorrin's heart-light shifts through colors I've learned to read: amber for mourning, blue for respect,brief flashes of white-hot rage quickly suppressed in favor of ceremony.
This is how his people honor their dead. Not with flowers or spoken words, but with light and sound that carries meaning older than language, that speaks to parts of the soul untouched by rational thought.
The ancient rituals help contain his fury. I can see it in the deliberate control he maintains, the way he channels rage into reverence and grief into action. But underneath the ceremony runs something harder, something that measures our loss not just in terms of emotional devastation but strategic disadvantage.
We're being hunted. Systematically. Our very existence as bonded pairs makes us targets for those who see love as corruption requiring cleansing.
How many others have died like this? How many sanctuaries have been violated, how many dreams destroyed by killers who move like shadows through the forests we thought were safe?
I watch Thorrin prepare Tuskon for burial and feel something cold settle in my chest. Not just grief, though grief is there. Not just rage, though rage burns bright and hard.
