A little over a week had passed, Alessia continued her lessons with Scribe Willem and Master Vickers. Begrudgingly playing the part of a diligent student, to subjects she had no interest in. Her Brothers resumed training at a controlled, gradual pace. Under the strict eye of Master Tormund. They were truly Hunters now. Alessia found her own skills lacking compared to theirs. Painfully so.

  Varian sparred with Konrad, their enhanced reflexes evident in every block and strike. What had once been adequate exchanges now were honed with deadly precision.

  “Not bad for an old man,” Varian commented.

  “What are you talking about? I’m younger than you.”

  Varian snickered and Master Tormund couldn’t help but share in the levity.

  Once, she would have been in there trading barbs with Varian, earning one of Master Tormund’s grudging nods. Now she was an observer of bonds she could no longer share

  “What?” Konrad asked, looking between the two of them.

  “Finally revealed it, did you, Brother Varian?” Master Tormund chuckled.

  “Revealed what?” Konrad demanded.

  “You still haven’t noticed?” Damian asked.

  “Your hair has turned white,” Alessia chimed in.

  I wonder what would happen to me.

  “Oxshit!”

  The three of them laughed as Konrad ran his hands through his short hair, as if his hands would be able to see the change for themselves.

  “Master Tormund,” Alessia called to him. “Damian seems to be without a partner. May the two of us spar?”

  “Are you sure?” He asked. “Damian is not the fighter you once faced.”

  “I’ll be gentle with him,” she said.

  He looked between her and Damian carefully. “Damian,” he said firmly. “Control. Keep yourself in check. Emotions stay in check.”

  “Of course, Master.”

  “That goes for all of you.” His voice was louder than before, but not quite yelling. “the Presence wants you to feed it, it promises power in return, but what it really wants is possession.”

  She looked at Damian’s black eyes with new understanding. Behind them, something else was always watching, always waiting. Always hungry. Scribe Willem was right, the Final Hunt would find them all in the end.

  “Damian, Alessia,” Master Tormund said to them. “Blunted steel only, no live blades.”

  They gathered the equipment, two longswords with untapered tips. They had been staged in the main hall, just like every practice session before since they were children. The only difference this time was less equipment.

  Alessia directed the blade’s point at Damian, turning her body to make for a smaller target. He mirrored her as the two slowly closed the gap between them. Varian and Konrad had stopped their own sparring to watch. She knew their eyes were on her, waiting to see what the best among them could do now against a new Hunter.

  The tips of the two swords nearly touched, and in a flash Damian batted her blade away. Steel on steel rang out, as he swept his sword in a tight semicircular cut. She had no choice but to backstep from the sudden attack, but he didn’t stop, as he immediately lunged forward. Alessia remained evasive as she sidestepped and struck with a horizontal slash.

  His own sword came down vertically, pinning the point of her longsword to the ground. She forced the blade free, aiming for his shin, but he hopped over the strike and rammed her with his shoulder. The wind left her lungs, a direct hit to her diaphragm. She gasped and fell on her backside.

  “Yield, Sister,” Damian said.

  She saw from the corner of her blurred vision that Master Vickers and Scribe Willem were watching from the wing that led to the offices. Master Tormund took a step forward, he was about to end it for her.

  Alessia rolled and sprung to her feet, her guard perfect once more. She quelled the overwhelming desire to hunch over, stifling the pain from the onlookers view.

  She looked to Master Tormund and shook her head and refocused on Damian.

  Damian was taken aback, she knew he had her outmatched. She would have bested him by now under normal circumstances. He looked over to Tormund, who only nodded in return.

  Alessia charged him, longsword leveled, just before bringing it low and into an upwards stroke. He deftly deflected it, but she swirled it overhead and connected between his neck and shoulder. A death blow with ordinary steel.

  He fell to one knee.

  “Yield, Brother,” she said.

  “What the…” Varian said in disbelief.

  “That’s enough, both of you,” Tormund commanded.

  Deep audible breaths were Damian’s only response. Something was changing. His veins began to protrude against his skin, as his body shook. His void eyes locked to hers. His fingers and jaw began to elongate as sickening cracks filled the main hall.

  “Enough Damian!” Master Tormund hollered. It was obvious to him what was happening. “Control!”

  Damian was up near instantly, storming towards her with inhuman speed. The longsword, poised to impale her. He had Awakened.

  “Damian!” she shouted, but he continued the advance.

  Master Tormund moved to intercept, but it was too late. The gap had been closed, Alessia sidestepped the sword, as he flew by.

  “Damian, listen to my voice!” She pleaded. “This isn’t you!”

  He was back on her in a heartbeat, their swords met in a X. Before she could reason with him, he kicked her leg out from under her.

  Alessia fell to her knee. “I love you, Damian! Stop!”

  Damian didn't hesitate at the words. His longsword swung with supernatural speed and strength, arcing toward her neck. Blunted or not she realized this was a killing strike.

  Time fractured.

  Alessia saw the blade cutting through dust motes suspended in the torchlight. She saw the tendons in Damian’s forearm standing out like cords. She saw his black eyes, not his eyes anymore, something else wearing his face. the Presence focused on the point where her neck met her shoulder.

  “Alessia!” Voices shouted. “Damian!”

  Master Tormund was close now.

  Duck.

  Her body obeyed before her mind finished the thought. Her head dropped and the world tilted as she fell forward onto her lead knee. The sword passed overhead. She felt the displacement of air across her scalp, heard the whistle of steel seeking flesh that was no longer there.

  And then she was moving.

  Not thinking. Not choosing.

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  Moving.

  Her longsword was already in motion, the point rising from where it had been guard-low. She was lunging, weight transferring from her back leg, her whole body behind the thrust. Textbook form. Perfect extension. The blade moved through the space between them like it had always been meant to go there.

  The tip found the gap between his ribs.

  She felt it. The initial resistance of cloth and leather. Then skin, a membrane of tension that held for just a fraction of a heartbeat before it gave way. Then the deeper resistance of muscle, dense and fibrous, parting along the blade’s edge.

  Then nothing.

  The sword slid home into the hollow of his chest cavity as if drawn by magnetism. No bone. No obstruction. Just the terrible ease of steel finding the empty space where his heart waited.

  Time caught up with itself.

  Damian’s forward momentum stopped. His sword clattered to the stone floor. The sound of it impossibly loud in the sudden silence. His mouth opened but no sound came out. Just a small exhalation, almost a sigh.

  His weight came down on her blade.

  Alessia felt him sinking onto the sword, felt the metal moving deeper as gravity did its work. The crossguard pressed against his chest. She felt the warmth of him bleeding onto her palm, spreading between her fingers.

  She looked up.

  She couldn’t speak. Tears streamed down her face.

  Those void eyes stared down at her. The rage was still there, frozen in place. But behind it, for just a moment, so brief she might have imagined it. She thought she saw Damian looking back at her. Recognition. Confusion.

  Pain.

  Then nothing. The light didn’t leave his eyes because there had been no light to begin with. He just… stopped. Whatever had animated him, Presence or person. Simply ceased.

  His full weight collapsed onto her.

  Alessia tried to hold him but her arm was trapped, still locked straight on the sword hilt. He slumped into her and she fell backward, cushioning his fall with her own body. His face pressed against her shoulder. His blood ran hot across her hand, her wrist, soaking into her sleeve.

  She couldn’t let go of the sword.

  Her fingers wouldn’t open. They were locked around the hilt like they’d been forged there. She could feel his heart. No, where his heart had been, pressed against the guard. Not beating. Never beating again.

  “Damian,” she whispered into his hair.

  There were no final words. No goodbyes. Only lifeless black eyes filled with rage gazing down at her, as she realized her pride had led to this.

  Someone was screaming. High and ragged and animal. It took her several seconds to realize the sound was coming from her own throat.

  Master Tormund grabbed her sword hand, peeling her clinched fingers from the hilt. He lifted her by the stomach, as she reached for Damian. She was kicking and screaming, but didn’t realize it as she failed to grasp him.

  “His Hunt has ended,” Master Tormund said calmly, as he began carrying her to the dormitory wing.

  The walk back felt like hours. The only reminder that Alessia was still breathing was Master Tormund’s shoulder digging into her gut with each step he took, and even that felt muted.

  Somehow, she was sitting on the edge of her bed.

  Master Tormund stood by the door, watching her. Not with pity. Not with sympathy. Just… watching.

  She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at anything. Her hands were still covered in blood. Damian’s blood. It was drying brown in the creases of her knuckles.

  “Master Tormund,” she finally said, her voice hoarse from screaming. “Mark me.”

  He didn‘t move.

  “I killed him. You saw it. Mark me and be done with it.”

  “No.”

  She looked up at him, rage flaring through the numbness. “Why not? The First Tenent has been broken.”

  “I mark Hunters who lose control,” he said quietly. “You didn’t lose control, Sister. You did exactly what you were trained to do.”

  “I murdered him.”

  “You survived.” His black eyes held hers. “An Awakened Hunter came at you with killing intent. You defended yourself. That’s what happened.”

  “That’s not…” Her breath hitched. “I could have…”

  “What? Died instead?” His voice was flat, factual. “Would that make this better? Two bodies instead of one?”

  “He wouldn’t have…”

  “He was already gone, Sister.” Tormund stepped closer, but not too close. Keeping distance. “The moment the Awakening took him, Damian stopped existing. What came at you wasn’t your brother. It was the Presence wearing him.”

  She shook her head, tears running freely now. “Wasn’t it my fault though?” Her breath hitched. “I told Damian the same thing when Aldrick died. That it wasn’t his fault.”

  “Wasn’t his fault either,” Tormund said quietly.

  She scoffed through her tears. “I understand why he never believed me now.”

  “I understand perfectly.” He paused. “I’ve killed twenty-seven Awakened Hunters in my time. I remember every single one of their names. Every single face.”

  He didn’t elaborate. Didn’t tell her his own story. Didn’t try to create false kinship through shared trauma.

  He just let the number sit there. Twenty-seven.

  “Does it get easier?” she asked.

  “No.”

  The simple honesty of it hit harder than any platitude would have.

  “What do I do?” Her voice was small, childlike.

  “You sit with it,” he said calmly. “You feel it. All of it. The guilt, the anger, the grief. You don’t run from it and you don’t let it consume you. You carry it.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “You can.” He moved to the door. “I see it in you whether you do or not.”

  His hand was on the door when she spoke again.

  “Master Tormund?”

  He paused.

  “Do you think he knew? At the end? Do you think Damian was still in there?”

  Tormund was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful. Honest.

  “I don't know, Sister. I’ve never known and always wondered.” He opened the door. “Master Vickers will be here shortly. Don’t be alone with this.”

  Then he left, closing the door softly behind him.

  She closed her eyes.

  Minutes later, the door opened again. Master Vickers stepped inside, closing it behind her.

  She still had Damian’s blood on her tunic. Not much, just a spray of droplets across her hand and shoulder from when she’d removed the sword. She didn’t acknowledge it. Didn’t apologize for it or try to hide it.

  She sat down on the bed beside Alessia. Not too close. Leaving space.

  For a long time, neither of them spoke.

  Alessia stared at her hands. The blood had dried completely now, cracking in the creases when she flexed her fingers.

  “I need to wash this off,” Alessia said.

  “Not yet,” Vickers replied quietly.

  “What?”

  “Not yet.” Master Vickers’ expression was unreadable. “Sit with it a little longer.”

  “Why? I don't want to sit with it. I want it off.”

  “I know.”

  The urge to scrub her hands raw was overwhelming. To make them clean again. To pretend this hadn’t happened.

  But Vickers just sat there, immovable.

  “Washing it off won’t change what happened,” Vickers said. “And you need to know that. Feel that. Before you try to make it go away.”

  Alessia looked down at her hands again. At the brown stains. At the evidence of what she’d done.

  “I loved him,” she whispered.

  “I know.”

  “I didn't want…”

  “I know.”

  Alessia’s breath came in short, sharp gasps. The tears started again, hot and shameful. “I can’t… I can’t breathe…”

  “Yes you can.” Master Vickers’ voice was steady. “Breathe with me. In.”

  She demonstrated, slow and deliberate.

  Alessia tried to follow. Failed. Tried again.

  “Out.”

  Eventually, her breathing steadied. The panic receded slightly, leaving only the grief.

  They sat in silence again.

  After what felt like hours, Master Vickers finally spoke. “You can wash your hands now.”

  Alessia stood on shaking legs and moved to the washbasin in the corner. The water turned pink, then red, then clear again as she scrubbed. Her hands came clean but she could still feel the blood there, a phantom sensation that wouldn’t leave.

  When she returned to the bed, Master Vickers was still sitting there.

  “Will you stay?” Alessia asked. Her voice was small.

  “As long as you need.”

  Alessia sat beside her. Then, slowly, she leaned against Vickers’ shoulder.

  Vickers didn’t pull her into an embrace. Didn’t stroke her hair. Didn’t rock her like a child.

  She just sat there. Solid. Present. Real.

  And eventually, after the tears had run dry and exhaustion dragged her down, Alessia fell asleep sitting up, her head on Vickers’ shoulder.

  Vickers didn’t move. She stayed exactly where she was, keeping watch while Alessia slept.