They’re not here to kill me.
The understanding arrives with knife-edge clarity.
They’re here to exhaust me shielding her.
I retreatto Soreia’s position without turning my back on the pack.
She’s where I left her—pressed against a petrified trunk, hands loose at her sides. No defensive posture. No reaching for magic she can’t afford to spend.
That burns where it shouldn’t.
“They’re targeting me.” Her voice stays controlled. Deliberate. “Not you.”
“I noticed.”
“If I move away from you—draw them off?—”
“No.”
The denial lands sharper than intended. She blinks, dark eyes tracking my face with an attention I don’t examine.
“It would be cleaner. You could pick them off while they’re focused on me. Better odds.”
“No.”
“Kaster—”
“You die, the kills stop sticking.” I force the explanation. “Without permanent kills, I’m fighting an infinite war.”
The lie tastes like ash. True enough to pass scrutiny. False enough that my jaw hurts holding it in place.
She stares at me for a long moment. Calculating. Reading.
Then she nods once and doesn’t argue further.
The second wavehits at full dark.
Three hunters from the north. Two from the east. The remaining two from the original pack closing from the south.Seven total, converging in a coordinated assault designed to overwhelm through numbers and angles.
They’re faster than the first group. Better armored. The gods have been iterating—taking what the scouts learned and building creatures specifically designed to counter my fighting style.
I adjust.
The first hunter reaches me two seconds ahead of the others. I catch its lunge mid-stride, redirecting momentum into the second creature’s charge. They collide—armor scraping, claws tangling—and I use the opening to tear through the first one’s spine.
The third one gets past me.
It angles toward Soreia with single-minded focus, ignoring the damage I deal to its packmates. Its orders are clear: kill the witch. Everything else is secondary.
I move faster.
Faster than necessary. Faster than smart.
The thought registers distantly as my claws punch through the hunter’s skull from behind. It drops three feet from where she stands, twitching in its death throes.
I don’t stop to watch it fall.
The fight becomes a pattern.
