The heat of last night persisted on me like cobwebs—tender, dissolving, but unshakeable. I could still hear her voice—"Welcome to the fight, Aurie." That gentle nickname, encased in her iron will, had awakened something within me. A name such as that didn't just ring in my ears. It breathed.
Of course, I'd never say it aloud, but sometimes I found myself grinning—blushing, even—just recalling the way she said it. But I couldn't let my mind wander too far.
Crim wasn't an ordinary girl.
She was a brute. A lovely, quick-witted brute with thorn-studded fists.
It wasn't long after that Kael caught up to me and gave me a crumpled piece of paper. I accepted it with gentle puzzlement, looking at him as if the paper could bite.
"Here," he said, already unceasing it before the words were fully out of my mouth.
You can't give someone something mysterious and not expect them to look. I mean, come on—rules of basic curiosity.
As I unfolded the creased paper, my gaze settled on the words—and I skipped a beat.
"Kael, you've got to be joking!" I exclaimed, almost dropping it. The paper slipped out of my hands.
Kael didn't even flinch. "Well, I suppose I'm terrible at telling jokes then—because I'm not.
I gazed at it, expecting the ink to disappear like some kind of nasty trick. But the words remained. The place was just east of Graft—not more than a stone's throw.
But the name?
Black Hollow.
I said it out loud, and it felt like ash in my mouth.
"That place is cursed." I swallowed hard, my own pride already bruised. "You know that, right?"
Kael stood statue-still, his gaze pinning me. "You'll have demons there. And you want to be a slayer, don't you?"
I looked up, hoping to catch even a glimmer of humor—a smile, a smirk, a raised eyebrow.
Nothing.
The guy might as well be made of mountain stone.
"This isn't training, is it?" I said, wiping dirt off the page. "And you're sending me… by myself?"
Kael crossed his arms. His lips twisted—not into a smile, but something harder, something smug.
"Get on, Auren." He leaned in close, voice low in my ear. "I didn't raise a coward… did I?"
That word.
Coward.
It dropped like ice down my spine. I despised it more than I could possibly say. It made me think of him—of the man I vowed never to be.
If death stood before me, I'd rather face it head-on than run and be compared to my father.
I crouched down and picked up the paper again, brushing a streak of dust from its corner. My hands were shaking, but not from fear. No, this wasn't fear. This was something else. Something colder. Sharper.
Resolve.
I said nothing initially. I stood with the mission in my hand and looked out across the way toward the eastern ridge, where the horizon fell into broken shadows. I knew that somewhere out there, beyond that line, Black Hollow was waiting.
"You're going to want to depart before sundown," Kael said at last. "Demons don't rest. But they hunt less under the watch of the stars."
I lifted an eyebrow. "That supposed to reassure me?"
Kael grinned. "No. But I thought you'd want a big exit."
I sighed, stuffing the paper into my cloak. "You're lucky I despise being referred to as a coward more than I despise cursed woods."
He nodded in approval.
I wasn't ready. Not by a long shot. But perhaps no one is ever ready for his first true battle.
Still. it was time.
Time to see if all the practice counted for anything.
Time to see if I could make it through the Hollow.
With that said, however, I still had no clue how to kill a demon—or even scratch one, for that matter.
So I did the only sensible thing I could think of.
I plopped down on the floor with an indignant huff, dust swirling around me, and folded my arms like a sulking kid.
"So how am I going to kill them? Do I just stare them down until they feel embarrassed and die?"
I grinned, thinking the sarcasm would at least get a snicker, but Kael just didn't blink. Hard crowd.
He walked over to the weapons rack instead, with that infuriating calmness of his. He went through the blades before grabbing one that looked. different.
Extremely different.
No guard, no rich wrapping. Only a long blade and a hilt wrapped in pure white cloth—one loose end waving like a ribbon in the wind. The steel glistened in the morning light, more brilliant than anything I had ever seen. It glimmered like it should be in a shrine, not a battlefield.
Lovely. Unbroken. Untouchable.
And at the same time, as soon as I saw it, something hollowed out inside of my stomach.
This sword did not wish to be wielded.
It did not shriek power like Crim's serrated blade or vibrate with age like Kael's. It fought back. Even at arm's length, I could sense it appraising me, doubting my worth.
Yet Kael advanced and held it out before me, the tip aimed straight at my face with a superior smile. "Here you are. This is what you will use to kill."
Of course he would pull something like this.
"You want me to fight with that? Are you serious, Kael?" I asked, blinking twice to ensure I wasn't hallucinating. He simply smiled and wrapped another piece of cloth around the blade, tucking it in like tucking a sleeping child into bed.
There was something ritualistic in the way he did it. Almost worshipful.
And then—I don't know what came over me—I blurted something out before I thought.
"Why can't I just use another sword? Maybe. maybe yours?"
The words tumbled out too quickly, and the instant they hit, I knew how stupid they sounded.
Crim and Kael both halted in mid-action. The air grew heavy. Their glances darted to each other.
And then, like a bolt of thunder, they erupted into laughter—shrieking, raw, booming through the hall like I'd just said I could kill a demon with a kitchen spoon.
I scowled, looking down at the blade in Kael's hands. It was clear by the tone of their laughter that I couldn't take their swords.
"You see my dear Auren the sword will do the talking and it will choose you if YOU are worthy of it," he said while he still laughed but it was evident that he was trying to control his laughter bit by bit, "My sword here is called Shizukazakura and you will name your sword one day as well."
Her mouth opened a little, like she was going to speak—say something, anything—but words never followed. I didn't know what that look was supposed to be, but I wasn't courageous enough to ask. Not when her eyes were shimmering like that.
Rather, I nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly, and headed for the path before me. The silence wrapped around me more tightly than the frigid air did. The sword on my back weighed more heavily with every step, as if it already knew what was to come.
When I arrived at Black Hollow, the sun had almost drowned behind the twisted hills, bleeding orange through the clouds like a dying coal. The forest here was far from the edges of Graft. The trees were spiky and bare, skeletal fingers grasping toward the sky. There was a musty smell lingering in the air, a mix of rotting meat and charred wood. The silence wasn't serene—it was rehearsed, as if the world was holding its breath.
And I saw it.
Just barely past the darkness of two trees, bent and shaking like it didn't exist on this planet. The back of the demon was twisted, its body long and spindly like a broken branch. It chewed at something on the ground—I couldn't say if it was a creature or a human.
My heart pounded.
I wasn't prepared. I didn't know how to prepare.
But I recalled Kael's voice—"I didn't raise a coward."
I got low, tightened the hold on the white-wrapped handle of my sword, and took one silent step forward.