I pivot, letting Blade of the Wind guide my movements, but I am faster than the form requires. My body tracks his weight shifts, the heat blooming in muscles preparing to contract, vibrations in the air that should not be perceptible.
Something has changed in me.
The familiar forms flow through me as naturally as breathing. His next attack comes low, a vicious sweep meant to shatter my knee, and I lift my leg in Silent Gale, letting his momentum carry him past. My own Skathrith hums in approval, white light pulsing above me.
"Fight back." Castor's voice remains controlled despite the violence of his strikes.
I dance away, maintaining distance. The sunlight streaming from above catches his Skathrith's dark pulse, creating a strobe effect that makes the chamber seem to stutter and jump. My eyes water from trying to track both his physical form and the disorienting shadows his construct casts.
A feint turns into a brutal straight punch, dark energy coating his knuckles. I read the tell in his shoulder, sliding into another Silent Gale evasion, but his shadow-enhanced speed closes the distance faster than the form anticipates.
His fist connects with my ribs.
Silver light flares across my torso in the instant before impact.
The barrier simply appears, erupting from somewhere deeper than conscious thought, and Castor's shadow-wrapped knuckles strike the protection with a sound like shattering glass. The force still reaches me. Still drives breath from my lungs. But the cutting edge his Skathrith carries slides off the momentary shield without penetrating.
The barrier collapses immediately. Already gone. But for that instant, it was enough.
I stumble backward, gasping. Through the bond, I feel the Skathrith's satisfaction. A wordless sense of glory.
That terrifies me more than the pain.
Castor's eyes narrow. "You learn quickly."
The shadows around Castor begin to twist and writhe, his Semblance bleeding into the darkness. This is his power. Shadow manipulation, the ability that manifested during the attack at the Festival of Retrospection. But the Skathrith enhances it, feeds it, makes the illusions tangible enough to strike.
His form becomes fluid, uncertain, one moment solid and the next dispersing like smoke. Seven copies ripple outward, each moving independently. Not mere visual deception. These shadows carry weight. Substance. His Skathrith pours energy into his Semblance, and the cost shows in the strain around his eyes, the slight tremor in his hands between strikes.
I feel them all. The coordination of their movements creates a rhythm like a swarm, and my stomach turns. I know this pattern. The way they flank and converge. The way three feint while four position for the real strike. The Thrynix moved like this. Hunted like this.
Castor's true form launches from behind me. The seventh shadow, the one hanging back to exploit my divided attention.
I am already pivoting, already redirecting. My body moves before conscious thought, responding to pressure changes I should not perceive.
His eyes widen as his strike meets empty air.
An opening appears. Castor's shadow-wrap feint leaves his true form exposed for a fraction of a second.
I lunge, and my arms move with an instinct that should not exist. Four limbs coordinated in perfect opposition, upper pair striking high toward his throat while the lower pair sweeps his legs. The motion feels so natural, so right, that for a heartbeat I do not question it.
My body knows this is correct. The counterbalance of limbs working in coordinated opposition.
My mind knows I have two arms. Five fingers each. Of course. Of course.
But the phantom weight remains, and the realization hits mid-strike. I have committed my balance to limbs that do not exist, distributed my force across appendages that are not there. My actual arms flail wildly, trying to compensate for a body plan written into instincts I never knew I had.
I crash into the ground, throw myself into a roll.
Castor's counterattack crashes toward my exposed jaw, shadow-wrapped fist descending with force meant to shatter bone.
Silver light erupts across my face.
The barrier appears by my command this time, and his knuckles strike the flash-shield with a scream. Not sound. Something deeper. The protest of two Skathrith-channeled forces meeting in opposition.
The impact still reaches me. Still snaps my head sideways. Stars explode across my vision, and the taste of copper floods my mouth. But his cutting edge slides off the momentary protection, and when the shield collapses a heartbeat later, my face remains whole.
"What was that?" Castor backs away, his stance uncertain. "You moved like..."
He does not finish. Does not want to name what he saw.
I push myself up, hands trembling. Two hands. Five fingers each. Of course. Of course.
But when I stand, my balance expects weight that is not there. The absence feels like amputation.
"Your eyes..." Castor is breathing hard, his platinum hair plastered to his skull. "They glow in the dark."
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He raises his shaking hands. "They said you were a demon. I thought they meant your bloodline."
I breathe deep, settling into Wave of Stillness. The form comes naturally, my body remembering countless hours of practice. Like moonlight on water, I let my awareness expand.
But I force myself to stillness first. To center. Horizon's Breath. Let the form anchor me.
Two arms. I have two arms. Fight with two arms.
The chamber shudders, and a deep vibration travels up through my feet as water begins streaming from hidden vents in the walls. The metallic floor becomes slick beneath us, gathering puddles reflecting our shadowed forms in fractured, wavering images.
Castor's next attack forces me backward through ankle-deep water, each missed strike sending spray into my eyes. His Ardent Fang style becomes even more dangerous here. The water adds weight to every movement, resistance to every dodge.
The water rises to our knees.
Something brushes past my leg. A sinuous, glowing shape cuts through the murk, and more shapes emerge, their bioluminescent bodies casting an eerie blue glow across the chamber. Eel-like creatures, drawn to our Skathriths' resonance.
The water continues rising. The eels circle, their luminescent bodies casting trails of light.
Fourteen eels. Seven shadow-duplicates. One real Castor.
My body knows which ones are real. And I deliberately ignore it.
I keep my arms close. Tight. Moving in the forms Mother taught. Only those forms. Refusing to trust the instincts that scream for limbs I do not possess.
It is like fighting with weights tied to my sides.
Castor comes again, his Ardent Fang style adapted to the water's resistance. His shadows multiply, creating a forest of false threats, and I see the cost now. The way his shadows flicker when he channels speed. The way his protective coating wavers when he maintains the illusions. He is burning reserves I am not, power flowing out in three directions simultaneously while I conserve, coating only my hands.
One eel latches onto my calf. Pain shoots up my leg as it thrashes, trying to tear flesh, and I slam into Root of Stone, channeling Iron Roots through my stance to maintain balance. The form lets me redirect the creature's momentum, ripping it free and throwing it against the wall. It ruptures into a spray of blood that flies toward my Skathrith.
Castor roars as two eels strike his arm. Dark energy coats his forearms as he tears them apart, but his shadows flicker when he shields. His enhanced speed stutters when he maintains both.
He is paying for every advantage. And the price is compounding.
Another eel whips around my torso. I grab it behind its head before it can bite, but its powerful body constricts, making it hard to breathe.
Castor sees the opening and attacks.
I barely deflect his strike while maintaining Iron Roots, fighting both opponents at once. The water slows my response, and his Skathrith's energy pulses through the liquid, sending concussive waves that make my teeth rattle.
The water creeps up to my waist, turning each movement into a battle against resistance. A strike comes at my ribs. I block, but the water slows my response. His next attack catches my shoulder.
Blood clouds the water where his Skathrith's energy rips through my guard.
The chamber spins. Pain blooms where he struck me. More blood blossoms.
Through the haze, I see his shadows converging for a killing blow. Time seems to slow as I recall Mother's teachings of Flame of Renewal. The form ignites in my muscles, my body remembering countless repetitions in the training yard.
I gather my strength and launch into Phoenix's Ascension, exploding upward through the water.
The form is human. Purely human. Two arms. Two legs. One spine. Mother taught me this.
But at the apex of my leap, something changes.
I do not fall. Gravity demands it, but I hang suspended in the shaft of sunlight, water streaming from my body in defiance of every natural law.
My stomach lurches. This is wrong.
The pulse fades. I descend, but the wrongness lingers, the memory of defying physics burned into nerves that remember what should not be possible.
Castor's eyes widen as I fall toward him.
My attack connects, a shimmering foot slashes across his chest. My Skathrith descends on his own, a hunger from outside tearing through sheets of folded space. My Skathrith catches the weapon's dark surface in its maw, transforming it into a blinding star.
The sound is wrong.
Something deeper than the crack of impact or the splash of water, more fundamental, like the world itself screaming.
Castor's Skathrith wails. The sound vibrates through my bones, through the water, through the very air. A noise that should not exist.
Castor's shadows shriek.
All seven duplicates collapse simultaneously, the Semblance-enhanced illusions dissolving as the Skathrith that powered them is torn away. The dark energy coating his arms flickers, fragments, vanishes like smoke. His enhanced speed cuts off mid-motion, borrowed power ripped from muscles that suddenly remember their limits.
He falls at normal speed. Human speed. Defenseless.
Light explodes across my vision, and through the glare I see Castor stumbling backward toward the central hole, his arms windmilling as he loses balance.
He falls with a massive splash, disappearing beneath the churning surface.
The taste floods my mouth. Copper and ash and bitter dregs that coat my tongue, and I gag, but the sensation persists, settling deeper. Feed. Consume. EAT. The words are not thoughts. They are pulses, rhythms, a heartbeat that is not mine demanding satisfaction.
Power rushes through me, intoxicating and immediate, and my Skathrith blazes brighter as it gorges on its brother's essence. Every nerve ignites with borrowed strength, and it feels right in a way that terrifies me because I recognize the pleasure for what it is.
I descend into the knee-deep water as conquest made flesh. The eels scatter in panic, their luminescent bodies streaking away like falling stars.
Silver light still wreathes my hands. The flash-shield waits beneath my skin. The hovering ability lingers in the bond, alien and available.
And Castor lies in bloody water, stripped to flesh and bone.
Water gurgles as hidden drains activate.
I take a step forward, stop.
The level drops rapidly, leaving Castor and me standing in spreading puddles. His chest heaves with each breath, blood seeping from dozens of small wounds where the eels struck. He stares at me, pain and confusion warring with something deeper in his eyes.
And beneath the Skathrith's satisfaction, something else stirs.
My own hunger.
It coils in my stomach like recognition, a kill without consumption, effort without reward. Patient. Waiting.
Mine.
And that makes it so much worse.
"Finish it." His voice does not crack. Does not waver. Each word precise despite the trembling in his limbs.
"No." I whisper in a voice that seems to come from the chamber itself.
"You must." He tries to stand. Cannot. Water drips from his fingers, and when he speaks again, his voice carries the weight of acceptance. "You have taken everything. My Skathrith. My sister."
Movement catches my attention.
Binah emerges from the darkness, her gaze wavering just for a moment, as though she sees something in me she cannot reconcile. When she steps forward, it is tentative, her hands trembling as if reaching for someone already slipping away.
"Please." Castor's voice remains steady. Controlled. But beneath it, something breaks. "It hurts. I am broken. Finish it."
I take another step forward, and my vision tunnels to a single point. His throat. The pulse visible there. Perfect angles for a proper kill. The hunger coils tighter, recognizing the pattern, anticipating completion.
I am so hungry.
The silver light ripples along my hand.
"Tell her." Castor tries to smile. Blood and water run down his face. "Tell her I died bravely. Tell her I approve."
The question I asked Uncle Titus rises unbidden, his answer crystallizing in this moment. And those who shattered. What became of them?
They fell. And Malkiel does not weep for the broken.
Malkiel does not weep for the broken. It is doctrine, tradition, the foundational truth of what we are. Survival through strength, no compassion for those who cannot endure. Uncle Titus said it with such certainty, such finality, as though mercy itself were weakness to be culled.
My vision blurs. Whether from blood loss or something deeper, I cannot say. I blink, trying to see clearly, trying to see only what is in front of me and not what I am becoming, not what I have already become.
Malkiel does not weep for the broken… but I do.
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Nightbreak (Patreon-exclusive)
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Ablations (ongoing)