"Ever heard of Demon Style?"
The question hung between us, weightless and sharp, like a blade suspended mid-fall.
I stared at her for a heartbeat too long. "…You can't be serious."
Selaithe held my gaze with forced solemnity—chin lifted, lips pressed thin—then promptly broke, laughter spilling out of her like she'd been holding it back on purpose.
"Oh gods, Kael," she snorted. "You should've seen your face. Of course I'm joking, stupid."
Heat rushed to my ears. Again. She was doing this on purpose. I swore she could feel when I was off-balance and leaned into it like sport.
"I'm not a 'Demon,'" she went on, waving a hand dismissively, "and definitely not some horned thing out of a bedtime horror story. Think. It's really not that hard."
I scowled. "Then stop playing around and just tell me. What style do you actually use?"
She tilted her head, studying me like she was deciding how much truth I'd earned. Then she shrugged.
"Human. Nothing fancy. Clean slashes, efficient footwork, kill before the other side realizes what went wrong." She paused. "Only downside is you can't use magic while you're in it."
"Human…" I echoed. The word didn't sit right. "Then how do you explain this?" I gestured vaguely. "Sometimes you move so fast it looks like you vanish."
Sel pushed herself to her feet, brushing dirt and pine needles from her clothes. "You imagine things."
"I do not."
She stretched, arms raised, completely unbothered. "I've rested enough. Come on—you said we need to keep moving, right?"
"You didn't answer my question."
She glanced back over her shoulder, pressed a finger to her lips, and smirked. "And?"
I sighed. Pointless. Even if her life depended on it, Selaithe would take her secrets to the grave—and probably laugh while doing it.
Still… seeing her like this again helped. Sharp. Teasing. Alive. The scared, quiet version from earlier—small and shaken—had unsettled me more than I wanted to admit.
…It was kind of cute, though.
"All right," I muttered, packing up the waterskin she'd handed me earlier and slipping it back into her pouch. "Let's go."
"Gods," she groaned as we started walking, "I'd kill for a hot bath right now."
I exhaled slowly, already tired.
Don't even start.
⟡
We moved through the rotten forest for miles. Or at least it felt like miles. The path never truly ended, never curved or opened the way forests were supposed to. It wasn't a place meant to have distance in the normal sense—more like a wound in the world stretched thin and pretending to be land.
The trees were wrong. Their bark sagged and split like old flesh, branches curling inward instead of reaching for light. The air smelled damp and stale, heavy enough to cling to my lungs. No birds. No insects. Not even wind.
It felt less like walking through a forest and more like being swallowed by something that didn't care whether we ever came out again.
Ashriven pulsed faintly against my back, a steady tug in my chest guiding each step. It wasn't a voice. Not quite. Just an insistence—forward. As if the blade knew this place better than the world itself.
"It feels like we're trapped in a loop…" Selaithe whined after a long stretch of silence. "My legs are going to give out soon."
She dragged her feet dramatically, then shot me a look from the corner of her eye—lashes lowered, eyes artificially glossy. I barely had time to register the act before her lips curled into a grin and she straightened.
"Kael!" she chirped. "Carry me!"
Before I could even open my mouth to protest, she leapt.
Her weight slammed into my back, arms hooking around my shoulders with practiced ease. I staggered, barely managing to catch Ashriven as she tossed it forward like it weighed nothing.
"Are you crazy?" I barked. "You're too heavy—"
Oops.
I got smacked.
Once.
Twice.
Sharp hits to the back of my head, right where it hurt the most.
"Excuse you?" she snapped. "I am very fit for my age."
Of course you are.
"…Whatever," I muttered, adjusting my grip on the sword and forcing my legs to move again.
This girl. Honestly.
Then I felt something warm against the nape of my neck.
Selaithe shifted, settling in closer, her cheek brushing my collar, her nose nudging against my skin like she was getting comfortable. Like a cat finding a favorite spot.
"What do you think you're doing?" I asked flatly.
She mumbled something against my back, voice low and lazy.
"Mine."
I stiffened.
Creepy.
Sel was creepy as hell sometimes.
I shook my head, trying to dislodge her. She wobbled, tightened her grip, then laughed softly like it was all a game. I took another step—
—and froze.
The trees thinned ahead.
Not gradually. Not naturally. One moment there was rot and shadow and claustrophobic stillness—and the next, open space.
A clearing.
I stopped mid-step, heart stuttering.
"Sel," I said quietly. "Look."
She lifted her head, fingers digging into my shoulders as she craned forward, nearly bouncing on my back like an excited child.
"A clearing!" she breathed. "Finally…"
Her voice carried too much relief. Too much eagerness.
And that scared me more than the forest ever had.
Ashriven's pull sharpened, almost humming now, urging me onward. It hadn't led us here without reason. It never did.
Selaithe jumped down without warning, nearly sending me face-first into the dirt. I caught myself at the last second, driving Ashriven's tip into the ground to steady my balance.
She landed lightly ahead of me, already staring into the open space like the forest behind us no longer existed.
Whatever waited beyond those crooked trees…
Ashriven wanted us to meet it.
And I had a bad feeling it wasn't going to let us leave the same way we came.
⟡
The clearing opened wider than I'd expected—far too wide for something carved out of such a rotten forest. The grass lay thick and dark beneath our boots, soaked with morning mist despite the sun hanging well past noon. Cold clung to the air, beading along every blade like the world had forgotten what hour it was.
Massive stones jutted from the earth at uneven angles, half-buried and cracked with age. Old runes crawled along their sides—weathered, fractured, some so eroded they were little more than scars in the stone. Whatever language they had once spoken, time had stolen its voice.
And at the center of it all—
The statue.
It towered over the clearing, easily twelve feet tall, carved from pale stone darkened by moss and rain. Its shape was vaguely humanoid, though the features had been softened by centuries of neglect. The left arm was gone, lying several paces away in the grass, broken clean at the shoulder. Moss coated it thickly, as if the earth had already begun reclaiming what had fallen.
A rope hung from the crooked branch of a nearby tree.
It swayed faintly in the still air.
No wind stirred the leaves. No birds cried out. And yet the rope moved, slow and gentle, as though it still remembered the weight it had once held.
"Gross," Selaithe muttered.
"Sel…" I exhaled, shaking my head. "Let's scan the area first. Maybe we'll find something useful."
She didn't move. Instead, her hand snapped out and closed around my forearm, fingers tight, grip firm enough to stop me cold. I turned to her, surprised by the sudden force.
"Wait," she said sharply. "Why are we even here?"
Her mauve eyes narrowed, sharp and calculating. "You never told me who sent us. You just… said it out of nowhere. Right after you started talking to your sword."
I sighed. There was no point dodging it now.
"Take a guess."
Come on, Sel. You're smarter than you pretend to be.
Her stare lingered on my face, searching. Then—
"You can talk with Ashriven?"
Check.
I gave a small nod. "Yeah. Don't know why. Don't know how. But I think it's connected to it being soulbound."
"And it told you to come here?"
Another check. You're one answer away from a full set.
"…Yeah."
Her grip tightened.
"And you just followed it?"
Bingo.
At what cost, though?
"I mean," I said, rubbing the back of my neck, "we were already running from the Church. We wandered into some cursed forest that didn't feel real, and then my sword started talking to me. What exactly was I supposed to do—ignore it?"
"Talk to me," she snapped. "That would've been a good start."
"Sel," I said, a bit sharper than I meant to, "stop acting like I can't take care of myself."
She didn't argue. Didn't tease. Didn't smirk.
She just looked away.
That hurt more than I expected.
Disappointing her made something twist low in my chest, tight and uncomfortable. I should've told her earlier. I knew that. But every time I thought about saying the words out loud, something inside me locked up—like the Waeve itself was pressing a finger to my lips.
Not yet.
After a moment, she exhaled and stepped back, releasing my arm.
"Fine," she said quietly. "We're already here."
She glanced toward the statue, eyes unreadable. "Look around. Ten minutes."
Then she met my gaze again.
"Meet me under the statue when you're done, Kael."