Scribe Willem’s hands trembled as he lifted the ebonwood box from Grand Master Kelvin’s desk. The silver hawk inlaid on its lid gleamed. Inside, six red vials caught the candlelight like captured flames.

  He should close it. Return it to its locked drawer. Walk away, back to his quarters and forget this madness.

  His fingers closed around a single vial instead.

  The glass was warm, almost alive in his palm. Over thirty years he’d lived with the Presence coiled behind his thoughts, and still the elixir felt wrong. Too heavy for its size, too red to be natural. The liquid inside moved like it had a heartbeat.

  What am I doing?

  But Amalia was already waiting in the cell block below.

  “Please,” she’d whispered earlier, her fingers curled around his. “If you love me, let me prove I’m as worthy as any Brother.”

  He loved her. Old Gods forgive him, he loved her more than The Order, more than the Tenents, and more than his own life.

  Willem pocketed one vial and returned the box to its place. His hands had stopped shaking. That should have been his first warning.

  The cell block stairs seemed longer than he remembered. Each step down echoed off ancient stone, counting out his betrayal. All those chances to turn back, all forty-seven of them.

  He didn’t.

  Amalia stood outside the last cell on the left, her bare olive skin shimmered under torchlight, her training tunic folded neatly at her feet. In the torchlight, he could see every scar she’d earned over nine years. The line across her shoulder from Master Theron’s blade, the mottled purple on her ribs from a Brother Crixus’ knee. Proof of her dedication. Proof she’d earned this.

  Amalia’s walnut eyes locked on him. “You came.” Her voice was steady, but he could see her pulse hammering in her throat.

  “I came.” He pulled the vial from his robes. In the dim light, it looked less like liquid and more like something solid. Crystallized blood.

  She reached for it, but he held back. “Amalia. Once you drink this, there’s no stopping it. The Trial will run its course. If you—”

  Amalia placed a gentle hand over his mouth.

  She stepped closer, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin. “Willem, I’ve been preparing for this my entire life. Every Brother who told me I wasn’t strong enough, every Master who dismissed me, every time Kelvin looked through me like I was invisible. It has all led here.” She cupped his face with both hands. “I’m ready, my love.”

  He wanted to believe her. Needed to believe her.

  “The others,” he said quietly. “The Sisters who’ve tried—”

  “Were not me.” Her eyes held his, unflinching. “I’m not them, Willem. I’m stronger. You know I am.” She paused looking at him deeper than before. “Tonight I will make the history Ophelia failed to achieve.”

  He did know. He’d seen her fight. Seen her endure. Seen her push past pain that would have broken most Brothers.

  But what if strong isn’t enough? What if there’s something else, something biological, something we don’t understand—

  “Willem.” She took the vial from his hand. “I love you. Trust me the way I’m trusting you.”

  The words cut through every doubt, every fear, every rational argument his mind was screaming at him.

  “I love you too,” he whispered.

  She smiled, Old Gods, that smile, and pressed her lips to his. The kiss tasted like goodbye, though he refused to name it as such. When she pulled back, she was already uncorking the vial.

  “Wait—” The word came out strangled. “Wait, let me… let me stay. Let me be here through it.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “If something goes wrong, if Kelvin returns early, you need to be able to deny involvement. I won’t let my choice destroy you.”

  “The Presence, remember what I told you—”

  “Please.” Her voice was soft but final. “Go upstairs. Wait in the main hall. When I walk out of here tomorrow morning as a Huntress, you can claim you heard sounds and came to investigate. Found me having done this on my own.” She held up the vial. “One Sister, desperate and foolish, who stole from the Grand Master’s desk.”

  The lie came too easily to her. She’d already planned this out, he realized. Already built the story that would protect him.

  He ran his fingers through her hair. “I can’t leave you alone down here.”

  “You have to.” She stepped back, toward the open cell door. “For both our sakes. I must do this alone.”

  He wanted to argue. Wanted to insist he stay, consequences be damned. But she was right.

  “Tomorrow morning,” she said, lifting the vial to her lips. “I’ll walk out of here, and change everything.”

  She tipped her head back, as a cascade of black hair flowed, and drank.

  The empty vial dropped from her fingers, shattering against the stone floor. “The Trial of Change has begun,” she said.

  “Go now, my love,” she said before giving him a final kiss and walking into the cell.

  “I’ll be right upstairs,” he promised, though the words felt hollow. “If you need me—”

  “Don’t lock me in, they will know I had help if you do.”

  He nodded. What else could he do? There was no going back now.

  She smiled at him before he made his way to the stairs.

  Willem ascended on legs that felt disconnected from his body. Forty-seven steps back up. Forty-seven chances to realize what he’d done.

  The main hall stretched empty before him, torches guttering in their sconces. Through the high windows, he could see the blood moon hanging fat and crimson over the mountains. An old commoner superstition whispered in his mind: Red moon brings red deeds.

  He tried to sit. Couldn’t. Paced instead, his boots echoing off stone that had witnessed centuries of Trials. How many Brothers had walked these floors waiting for their friends to emerge from below? How many had waited in vain?

  The first scream tore through the silence.

  Even muffled by stone and distance, it was unmistakably Amalia. High and raw and threaded with terror. His feet moved toward the stairs before his mind caught up. No. She’d told him to wait. She’d planned for this.

  But Old Gods, that sound.

  He forced himself to stop at the top of the stairwell. His hands gripped the rough stone wall hard enough that his knuckles went white. The screaming continued, rising and falling in waves. He could track the Trial’s progress by the changes in her voice, pain becoming panic becoming something beyond words entirely.

  This is normal, he told himself. Brothers scream too. This is just how it works. She’ll come through it. She has to come through it.

  An hour passed. The screaming didn’t stop.

  Willem found himself at Kelvin’s desk, quill in hand, though he couldn’t remember sitting down. The monthly supply requisition sat half-finished in front of him. His handwriting looked strange, the letters shaking and uneven. He set the quill down. His hands were trembling again.

  Below, Amalia screamed herself hoarse.

  Two hours. Three.

  He’d witnessed Trials before, monitored them over three decades at Last Pass. He knew the rhythm. The initial shock as the Presence invaded, the hours of psychological warfare, the moment where the Brother either broke through or broke entirely.

  But those had been Brothers. Men whose Trials The Order had seen success over centuries. Amalia was mapping unknown territory, and every scream reminded him that he’d sent her there alone.

  Four hours in, her voice changed.

  It wasn’t louder, if anything, it was quieter. But there was something underneath it now, something that made the hair on his arms stand up. A resonance that human throats shouldn’t produce. Like multiple voices layered on top of each other, harmonizing in frequencies that set his teeth on edge.

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  His own Presence stirred in response. After thirty years of careful control, it woke like a hound scenting blood.

  No, Willem thought, pressing his palms against his temples. I refuse to treat with you.

  But the thing behind his thoughts pushed back, feeding on his fear, his guilt, his love for the woman screaming below. It wanted out. Wanted to join whatever was happening in that cell.

  He stumbled to the water basin and plunged his hands in, the cold shocking his system. His reflection stared back at him from the disturbed surface, black eyes wide, and pale faced.

  What have I done?

  Five hours. Six.

  The screaming took on a rhythm now, almost like words. He couldn’t make them out, but he could feel their weight. Amalia was fighting something, arguing with something, and losing ground with every passing minute.

  He’d returned to the stairwell without realizing it. His hand rested on the wall, and he could feel the vibrations of her voice traveling up through the stone. The ancient fortress was carrying her agony to him, refusing to let him forget his part in it.

  Please, he thought, though he didn’t know if he was praying to the Old Gods or the True God or just the universe itself. Please let her survive this. I’ll never ask for anything again. Just let her walk out of there.

  Seven hours.

  The quality of the screaming changed again. Desperate now. Broken. Like she was begging something to stop, to leave her alone, to just let her die.

  Willem sank to his knees at the top of the stairs, hands pressed over his ears, though it did nothing to block the sound. Nothing would ever block that sound. He’d hear it for the rest of his life, however long that might be.

  Eight hours.

  Then, between one heartbeat and the next. Silence.

  Complete. Total. Absolute.

  Willem’s hands dropped from his ears. He held his breath, listening so hard his ears rang with it.

  Nothing.

  No screaming. No breathing. No movement from below.

  Just the terrible, waiting quiet of a tomb.

  No. No, please, no—

  Then he heard it, something worse than screaming. Faint but unmistakable.

  Laughter.

  Not Amalia’s laugh, the bright sound he’d fallen in love with. This was wrong. Layered with those same impossible harmonics he’d heard earlier, but worse now. Triumphant. Like whatever had been fighting her had won, and was celebrating its victory.

  The doors to Last Pass opened. Grand Master Kelvin, Master Theron, Master Lucian, Master Bevkin, eight other Hunters and the students had returned.

  The laughter grew louder.

  Coming up the stairs.

  Willem’s mind fractured into impossible calculations. Kelvin and the others were forty paces from the stairwell entrance. Amalia’s laughter was twenty paces below and rising. He had seconds, maybe less, to decide who he was. The man who’d enabled this, or the Scribe who’d discovered it.

  “Grand Master!” His voice came out higher than intended. “Something’s wrong in the cell block—”

  The thing that had been Amalia exploded into the main hall.

  Thing was the only word for it. She still wore Amalia’s face, her arched brows, but wrong. Her jaw distended, eyes sickly yellow and gleaming with hunger, fingers elongated into claws that scraped furrows in the stone floor as she landed in a crouch. Her olive skin had taken on a corpse-grey pallor, veins bulging black beneath the surface. When she smiled, her teeth had multiplied into rows of serrated bone.

  Silence.

  For one frozen heartbeat, everyone stared.

  Then Master Theron moved, forty years of Hunter instinct overriding shock. His blade cleared its sheath in a silver flash as he charged. “Get the students back! Grand Master, evacuate—”

  Amalia was faster.

  She crossed fifteen paces in the time it took Willem’s heart to beat once. Her clawed hand punched through Theron’s chest before he could complete his swing, bursting out his back in a spray of blood and splintered bone. She lifted him off his feet with one arm, studied his dying face with something like curiosity, then hurled his body at Master Lucian hard enough that both men crashed into a support pillar.

  The screaming started. Brothers and Sisters scattered like rodents before a hawk.

  “Defensive formation!” Grand Master Kelvin’s voice cut through the chaos. His own blade was drawn, black eyes calculating as four Hunters moved to flank him. “She’s Awakened! Don't let her separate you—”

  Amalia laughed again, that wrong harmonized sound, and blurred into motion.

  What followed wasn’t a fight. It was a slaughter.

  She moved with speed that made tracking her impossible, bouncing to the right only to leap left in a flash. One moment she was gutting Brother Crixus, the next she’d torn Master Bevkin’s throat out with her teeth, the next she was hanging from the rafters like some massive spider, dropping onto Hunter Garrett and crushing his skull against the stone floor.

  The Hunters were trying, Old Gods, they were trying to coordinate attacks, using the Presence to enhance their speed and strength. But Amalia was something else entirely. She’d stopped being human and become pure predatory instinct wrapped in rage.

  Willem stood frozen at the top of the stairwell, watching the woman he loved reduce his entire world to blood and screaming. His Presence thrashed behind his thoughts, demanding he join the fight, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Could only watch as she killed everyone he’d ever known.

  A Sister, young, maybe fifteen, was running for the main doors. Amalia landed in front of her, cutting off escape. The girl froze, tears streaming down her face.

  “Please, Sister,” she whispered. “Please, I don’t want to—”

  Amalia’s head tilted, studying her. For a moment, just a moment, Willem saw something flicker in those yellow eyes. Recognition? Hesitation?

  Then her claws flashed and the girl’s head rolled across the floor.

  “Kelvin, we need to retreat!” one of the remaining Hunters shouted. “We can’t—”

  “We hold Last Pass!” Kelvin snarled, but Willem could hear the desperation beneath the command. The Grand Master knew what Willem knew. If they couldn’t stop her here, she’d hunt down everyone who fled. “Surround her! Don’t let her—”

  Amalia caught Kelvin by the throat mid-sentence and slammed him against the wall hard enough to crack stone. His blade clattered from nerveless fingers. She held him there, suspended, her face inches from his as he struggled uselessly against her grip.

  “Grand… Master…” Her voice was layered, multiple tones speaking in unison. Words were clearly difficult for whatever she’d become, but she forced them out anyway. “Denied… me…”

  Kelvin’s eyes were bulging, face purpling, but he still managed to choke out: “Sisters… can’t survive…”

  “I will bring down… The Order around you. No more… dead children.” She squeezed, and his neck made a wet cracking sound.

  She dropped him. He didn’t move again.

  The last three Hunters charged together, a desperate final attempt. Amalia met them head-on.

  Jin was disemboweled before his sword could swing against her. The horrible part was he was still alive. Screaming as his hands raked at spilled intestines.

  Hunters Johan and Zeke both struck in unison, but Amalia was already gone. She might as well have vanished as she snapped Zeke’s neck from behind.

  Johan lunged his blade towards her, but she used Zeke as a shield, and flung both the body and lodged sword across the main hall.

  “Willem!” Johan shouted as he reached for his dagger. “Help me, Brother!”

  Johan might as well have been shouting at stone. Willem stood frozen still as Amalia impaled Johan with both arms before bisecting him.

  A wet thud. Jin moaned on the floor. Then silence.

  Amalia stood in the center of the main hall, chest heaving, covered head to toe in blood that wasn’t hers. Around her: twenty-seven corpses. Brothers, Sisters, Masters, Hunters. Everyone who’d been alive when the doors opened.

  Yet Willem remained.

  He realized with distant horror that he’d pressed himself against the wall beside the stairwell, making himself as small as possible, instinct overriding courage or loyalty or love. He was still alive because he’d hidden while everyone else died.

  Amalia’s head turned, tracking movement he hadn’t realized he’d made. Those yellow eyes locked onto him across the carnage.

  She took a step toward him.

  Then another.

  Her movements were predatory, unhurried. She had all the time in the world. There was nowhere left to run.

  Willem’s hand found the dagger at his belt, a pathetic gesture against what she’d become, but his body insisted on trying to survive. His Presence roared to life, flooding his system with strength he’d suppressed for three decades.

  She stopped a couple meters away.

  This close, he could see that she was exhausted. Her face kept shifting between Amalia and the thing she’d become, as if two forms were fighting for dominance. Her breathing was ragged, almost pained.

  “Willem.” His name came out mangled by her changed throat, but unmistakably his name. “Willem… help me…”

  The plea struck him harder than any blow. Some part of Amalia was still in there, trapped, aware of what she’d done and begging him for an answer.

  “Amalia, my love.”

  Something changed. She moved faster than thought, knocking the blade from his grip. It skittered across blood-slick stone. Her clawed hand closed around his throat, lifting him off his feet the way she’d lifted Kelvin.

  This was it. He’d die like the others. It was what he deserved.

  But she didn’t squeeze.

  Her face twisted, expressions flickering across it too fast to follow. Rage, anguish, love, hunger, recognition. The hand at his throat trembled. Her other hand rose, blood-soaked claws catching torchlight, poised to strike.

  “Willem,” she whispered again. All the wrong harmonics were gone. Just Amalia’s voice, for one brief moment. “Run.”

  She released him. He collapsed, gasping, as she staggered backward. Her body was shaking now, convulsing, as if two forces were tearing her apart from inside.

  “Run!”

  The word came out as a roar that shook dust from the rafters.

  Willem ran.

  He crashed through the main doors into the night, the blood moon sinking toward the western peaks like a dying ember. An accusation. Behind him, Amalia’s howl, no longer remotely human, echoed off the mountains.

  He ran until his legs gave out. Ran until he collapsed in snow that burned against his skin. Ran until the screaming in his head drowned out even the Presence.

  She let me live.

  Of all the people in Last Pass, Amalia had spared only him. The man who’d given her the vial. The man who’d loved her. The man who’d destroyed her.

  Behind him, Last Pass stood silent against the stars. Somewhere in the darkness, the woman he’d loved prowled as something no longer human. Twenty-six corpses cooling in the main hall. And one missing Sister who would never be found.

  Because Willem would make sure no one ever looked.

  He would lie. He would hide the truth. He would carry this secret until it killed him.

  And he would never, ever, let another Sister take the Trial.

  Not because they couldn’t survive.

  But because Amalia had.