The walk back to the ramshackle hut feels longer than the harvest path. Mud cakes Asül's boots, heavier than usual. The phantom ache in his shattered wrist throbs with every step, a dull counterpoint to the unnatural silence inside him. He pushes the woven reed door open.
His mentor, Elara, sits hunched by the cold hearth. Her face, etched with years and swamp damp, is unreadable in the dim light. Her eyes, sharp as flint even in her age, track him as he enters. She doesn't ask about Theron. The silence hangs thick, heavier than the swamp air.
Asül sinks onto the rough-hewn stool opposite her. The weight of the dagger at his hip feels different. Cold. Clammy. Like the black water it was pulled from. He stares at the cold ashes.
"Long day," Elara finally rasps, her voice like dry reeds rubbing together.
He grunts. Looks away. Towards the single, grimy window. He doesn't want to talk about the demon. About the impossible thing he did. About the silence where his father's voice used to scream.
"Quieter than usual," she adds, probing gently.
He shifts on the stool. Opens his mouth, closes it. *They saw.*
The shadows in the far corner, near the stacked baskets of dried Croaker skins, *move*. Not with the flicker of the single oil lamp. A shape detaches itself, resolving into the lean, scarred form of the demon hunter leader. He steps into the weak light, his oiled leathers absorbing it, the silver eye insignia catching a dull gleam. Asül stiffens. Elara merely sighs, a weary sound, and leans back in her chair.
The leader stops before Asül. His flintlock eyes scan him, lingering on the awkward angle of his wrist, the mud-spattered clothes, the unnatural stillness around him. "The Silent Step," the hunter states, his voice low and gravelly. No greeting. "They saw it. The harvesters. You touched a fraction of it."
Asül's head snaps up. He didn't name it. He barely understands it. "What do you mean?" he retorts, the words scraping his throat raw.
The hunter's gaze doesn't waver. "Boy," he says, the word devoid of warmth but not quite insult. "That power isn't luck. It isn't rage. **It is a gift. From the Deities.**" He taps the silver eye insignia on his chest. "We know they saved you. Pulled you from the jaws of a Prince. That power… it's theirs. Planted within you for this war."
He takes a half-step closer. The air feels charged. "This world bleeds demons. Power like yours… untrained, unshielded… it makes you a weapon waiting to be turned. **You are corruptible standing alone.**"
Asül feels a flicker of the old defiance. "But—"
The hunter's hand lands on his uninjured shoulder. Not heavy. Not violent. But undeniable. "Think about it," the hunter murmurs, intense. "How many villages like this one? How many Therons… how many *mothers*… will live because *you* choose to wield the Deities' gift? Because you stand *with* the shield?"
He holds Asül's gaze. "Join us. Become what they intended."
Before Asül can speak—
**CRASH!**
The hut's rear wall explodes inward. Framed in the jagged hole is the massive form of the mallet-wielding hunter. He stumbles inside, groaning. Deep, bloody furrows rake his chest plate. He crashes to one knee.
Outside, a shriek: "**THEY'RE HERE!**"
A heartbeat later, the **CRACK** of a flintlock pistol.
The hunter woman tumbles *backwards* through the doorway, landing hard, a dark stain spreading across her ribs.
The scarred leader *snaps* his fingers. White-blue flame erupts around his fists. He doesn't look at Asül. His burning eyes fix on the chaos beyond the shattered wall.
"Think about it, boy!" he snarls. Then he lunges through the hole into the screaming night.
Silence rushes back into the hut, broken only by groans and distant shouts. The cold weight of the dagger presses against Asül's hip. Elara rises slowly, her eyes wide on the destruction.
Asül stares at where the leader vanished. The words hang in the smoky air: *"A gift. From the Deities."*
The silence inside him feels vast. And cold.
The screams outside aren't human anymore. They're raw animal terror, punctuated by wet impacts and the guttural roars of something *big*. Asül stands just inside the shattered wall of the hut, the cold, clammy weight of the tainted dagger a familiar anchor at his hip. Elara grips the back of his stool, knuckles white.
Through the jagged hole, the village square is chaos painted in firelight and shadow. Houses burn. Villagers scramble like frightened Dusk Croakers. And in the center, illuminated by the flames consuming Old Man Hemlock's storehouse, stands **Balzar**.
The demon is a grotesque monument. Two heads sit atop a thick, corded neck – one snarling, spittle flying, eyes burning with manic rage; the other weeping thick, black tears, its mouth slack with despair. Its massive arms end in claws like butcher's hooks, already slick with something dark. Villagers scatter before it, their cries a terrified chorus: "The Bipolar Demon! It's him!" "Knew it! Mania and Misery!" "Run! It'll rip you apart laughing or crying!"
The scarred demon hunter leader moves like water through the chaos. He doesn't have the Silent Step's impossible absence. He has something else: brutal, honed efficiency. He flows *around* Balzar's wild, sweeping blows. A claw aimed to disembowel is met not with a dodge, but a forearm block reinforced with a crackle of white-blue flame, the impact sending sparks flying but barely rocking the hunter. A backhand meant to crush skulls is sidestepped by a hair's breadth, the displaced air ruffling the hunter's leathers.
He's fast. Faster than any normal man has a right to be. But Asül *sees* it. Sees the strain in the hunter's jaw, the slight tremor in his blocking arm, the way he uses the demon's own momentum against it. He's matching Balzar's savage strength and unpredictable speed through sheer skill and will, amplified by the Deities' flame, not transcending it.
Then Balzar lunges, both heads shrieking – one in fury, one in sorrow. It's a killing pounce, claws outstretched, maws gaping.
For Asül, the world doesn't freeze like it does with the Silent Step. It just… *slows*. His senses sharpen, honed by years of trauma and survival. He sees the trajectory of the claws, the opening below the demon's raised arms, the slight imbalance in its charge.
The hunter leader *moves*.
It's a blur, yes. Faster than the panicked villagers can track. But Asül tracks it. He sees the hunter drop low, pivoting on one knee, flames wreathing his fist not for a block, but a strike. He drives upwards, not at the chest, but the unprotected space just below the sternum – the solar plexus. His fist, wreathed in that fierce white-blue fire, punches clean *through* Balzar's thick hide, scales, and muscle like a hot poker through lard.
Balzar freezes. Both heads snap down, eyes wide – rage choked into shock, despair crystallized into disbelief. A strangled gurgle escapes the weeping mouth. The raging head tries to roar, but only blood bubbles forth.
The hunter doesn't withdraw his fist. He twists it violently *upwards* inside the demon's torso.
White-blue fire erupts *outwards* from within Balzar. Not an explosion, but a consuming wave. It races up the demon's neck, engulfing both heads – the snarling maw silenced mid-roar, the weeping eyes vaporized mid-tear. For a split second, the Bipolar Demon is a writhing pillar of cleansing fire. Then it collapses inwards, not into gore, but into a cascade of fine, grey ash that rains down onto the churned mud of the square.
The roar of the flames, the screams, the demon's death rattle – they all cease abruptly. Only the crackle of burning buildings remains.
Asül blinks. The slowing of his perception ends.
The hunter leader stands amidst the settling ash, the flames around his fist snuffing out into smoke. He turns. His eyes, sharp as flint even in the firelight, lock directly onto Asül standing framed in the shattered wall. A slow, satisfied smile spreads across the scarred face. He strides towards the hut, kicking aside a lump of cooling ash that was once a demonic claw.
He stops a few paces from Asül, the smell of ozone and burnt flesh clinging to him. He looks down at the seventeen-year-old, the smile still playing on his lips. "Impressive, huh?" he asks, his voice rough but carrying an edge of pride. "That's what focus. Training. And the Deities' gift can *do*."
Asül stares back. He sees the ash clinging to the hunter's boots. Hears the distant sob of a villager. Feels the unnatural cold of the dagger at his side, a counterpoint to the heat radiating from the man before him. The display of power, the speed, the fire... it means nothing against the vast, cold silence inside him. Against the lie about the Silent Step being a "gift."
He meets the hunter's expectant gaze. His voice is flat, devoid of awe, fear, or interest. A simple statement of fact.
"I'll think about it."
He turns. Not dramatically. Just turns. He steps away from the shattered wall, away from the ash, the fire, the expectant hunter, and walks back into the dim, smoky interior of the hut towards Elara. As if the immolation of a demon prince's bastard kin was merely a mildly inconvenient interruption to a quiet evening. Utterly uninteresting. Utterly normal.
The hunter's smile slowly fades, replaced by a look of profound, irritated confusion. He watches the boy's retreating back, the untouched plate of cold frog-meat stew on the table, the old woman's worried eyes. The ash settles silently outside.