I kept running.

  I don't know how long.

  The tunnel was a throat of cold stone, swallowing my ragged sobs and the frantic sp of my boots.

  My mind was empty, not a peaceful empty, but the hollow, echoing void left behind when a house burns down and only the celr remains.

  My tears had already dried, leaving itchy, salt-crusted tracks on my cheeks that felt like scars.

  I only knew one thing.

  Reach Crestin. Find Frederick.

  The name was a mantra, a prayer I whispered to the rhythm of my pounding heart.

  Crestin. Frederick.

  Crestin. Frederick.

  If I didn't reach them, the silence behind that stone door meant nothing.

  If I died here, Frans didn't die for a "battlefield of honor"…he just died.

  The thought was a cold weight in my stomach, heavier than the supply bag, heavier than the sidesword bumping against my hip.

  Fortunately, there were no monsters on this side of the passage.

  The darkness was absolute, but the path was straight.

  I fumbled along the wall, my fingers bleeding from the rough rock, until…

  I saw light.

  It was a tiny, shimmering needle in the distance.

  The exit.

  Relief flooded me for one second.

  Only one second.

  It was a warm, golden spark that told me the sun still existed, that the world hadn't actually ended.

  But as I got closer, the light revealed a nightmare.

  Three people were standing there, silhouetted against the bright green of the forest beyond.

  Two of them wore the same cheap, mismatched leather and iron as the emblemless soldiers we had fought in the forest.

  He was an old man. Three long, jagged scars tore across his face, pulling one of his eyes into a permanent, mocking squint.

  He wore light armor, but even I could tell it was different.

  It didn't cnk, it hummed with quality.

  It was expensive, high-quality gear, the kind used by people who kill for a living and get paid very, very well.

  He was on the same level as the Starheim Captain or the Blends Vice Leader.

  He looked at me as I stumbled out of the darkness, and he smiled.

  It was a horrible, thin-lipped smile.

  "…What bad luck," he sighed, though he didn't sound sorry at all.

  "We took this route in advance, thinking there might be some harvest. A back door for the rats, so to speak."

  One of the soldiers ughed, a greasy, wet sound.

  "Yeah. I was hoping more of them would come so we could harvest the eyes ourselves without giving them to the knights. Those colorful eyes fetch a fortune in the capital."

  The old man looked me up and down, his one good eye glinting with a cold, predatory hunger.

  "…Hmm? Just a kid?" He chuckled, a sound like dry leaves skittering on a grave.

  "Are you lost, little mouse? Where's the rest of your nest?"

  Then he waved a bored hand.

  "You two go. I'll watch. Try not to damage the eyes."

  They came at me.

  I panicked.

  I didn't feel like a warrior

  I felt like a cornered rabbit.

  I drew Frans's sidesword, the weight of it nearly pulling my arm down.

  One rushed me, his face twisted in a greedy sneer.

  I swung a wild, desperate arc, but I only scraped his shoulder.

  Pain exploded in my back.

  A heavy boot smmed into my spine, and I was kicked forward, tasting dirt and iron as I hit the ground.

  The old man ughed.

  "Oh? That's it? The great Avenir bloodline is down to a pup who can't even hold a bde straight?"

  They attacked together.

  They were not weak.

  My judgment was wrong.

  These weren't the clumsy conscripts from before.

  They moved with a cruel, practiced synchronicity.

  I was pushed back, my heels catching on roots.

  One soldier's bde hissed through the air and cut my left hand.

  The stinging heat made me gasp, and then the other guard hit my face with the hilt of his sword before I could even scream.

  Stars exploded in my vision.

  I was driven into a corner against the rock wall.

  One soldier raised his sword high, the sunlight catching the edge of the steel.

  I saw death.

  It looked like a piece of sharpened iron.

  I'm sorry, Frans, I thought, closing my eyes.

  I'm too weak. I can't do it.

  Then I remembered.

  Frans.

  His face through the closing door.

  The way the light caught his tears.

  The way he smiled, even though he knew he was going to be butchered.

  "Survive, brother."

  His st words appeared in my head, not as a memory, but as a roar.

  It drowned out the ughter of the old man.

  It drowned out the fear in my soul.

  …I can't die here.

  Then something opened inside me.

  It felt like a hot coal shattering in the center of my brain.

  The world slowed.

  Everything became clear.

  Too clear.

  The sound of the wind in the trees became a low hum.

  The dust motes dancing in the light became frozen diamonds.

  My vision sharpened until I could see the pores on the soldier's skin, the jagged nicks in his bde.

  Time stretched into a long, thin wire.

  I moved.

  I didn't think.

  The body that Frans had trained, the blood that Papa had given me, simply acted.

  I cut.

  A single, fluid motion.

  One soldier died before he understood what happened, his head lolling back as my bde found the soft red of his throat.

  I turned to the second soldier.

  He was attacking me, his sword moving like a slow-motion snake, but I easily blocked his attack with a flick of my wrist.

  Then I stabbed him in the heart.

  The second fell, his eyes wide with a confusion that would stay there forever.

  Both of them were dead now.

  I stood there, breathing hard, the world still vibrating with that strange, crystalline crity.

  The old man stared.

  His smile vanished.

  He cpped slowly, the sound echoing in the clearing.

  "…Oh? So those are the Avenir eyes? Even in a runt, they're magnificent." He walked forward, drawing a long, slender rapier that looked like a needle of ice.

  "Impressive. Very impressive. But the eyes of a child can only see so much."

  He attacked.

  At first, he was careless.

  Mocking me.

  I could still see his movement through the haze of my awakened sight.

  I could dodge him.

  I could parry.

  I felt a flicker of hope

  maybe I could win! Maybe I could survive this!

  Then, his smile faded completely.

  His stance changed, dropping low, his center of gravity becoming a literal anchor.

  His eyes sharpened until they looked like shards of gss.

  "…Enough pying."

  He moved.

  And suddenly, I couldn't see anymore.

  His sword was too fast.

  Even with the world slowed, even with my pupils burning with the four rings of my lineage, I was being overwhelmed.

  He wasn't just fast; he was precise.

  He was a master.

  I barely blocked.

  I barely parried.

  My arms screamed as his rapier bit into my skin again and again, small, shallow cuts that bled like stabs.

  A strike broke my guard, sending my sword arm flying wide.

  Another strike came to cut my side.

  Another strike, a brutal, ft-footed kick, sent me flying backward.

  I rolled away to reduce the damage, crashing through the underbrush until I hit a tree.

  I stood up, coughing, my ribs feeling like they were held together by a string.

  I could barely hold my stand.

  My vision started shaking, the blue and red rings of my sight flickering like a dying candle.

  My breathing broke into ragged, pathetic gasps.

  This man was different.

  This man was a real monster.

  I looked at him.

  cool, calm, not a drop of sweat on his brow.

  I felt a wave of absolute, crushing despair.

  I had survived the cave.

  I had watched my brother die.

  And for what?

  To die at the feet of a scarred old man who wanted to sell my eyes?

  I cursed my fate.

  I cursed the gods.

  I cursed my own useless, tiny body.

  "Goodbye, little monster," the old man said, stepping forward for the kill.

  SHRAAAK

  The old man's head flew into the air, his eyes still wide with the same mocking squint.

  I froze, my mouth hanging open.

  Blood sprayed in a warm, red arc shape, drenching the leaves.

  Someone else was standing behind him, a shadow emerging from the trees like a ghost made of iron.

  I couldn't see the face.

  I start losing my mind, everything suddenly becomes blurry. I heard one sentence, a deep, gravelly voice that sounded like it came from the earth itself:

  "…A young Avenir, huh. Not bad."

  Then everything went bck.

  I didn't even feel myself hit the ground.

  All I saw was Frans, smiling through his tears, as the world finally, mercifully, let me go.