Part Sixty — Three Down

A note before this part: what follows isn't something I witnessed myself. This is Eris's account, told to me in pieces over the weeks it took her to be able to speak of it at all, and I'm setting it down here as close to whole as she's ever given it to me — because she deserves to have it told properly, not folded into a single paragraph and rushed past.

　The street between the shop and the inn was narrower than she remembered it being that morning, and quieter — the specific quiet that doesn't belong to an ordinary evening, the kind that makes the hair on your arms rise before your mind catches up to why.

　She noticed the first man near the mouth of an alley, positioned too deliberately to be simply passing through. The second, further along, doing an unconvincing job of examining a shuttered stall front. The third she almost missed entirely, tucked into a doorway's shadow, still enough that only the faint gleam of his eyes gave him away.

Three. At least three. Positioned like they're expecting me specifically, not just anyone who happens down this street.

　She thought, briefly, about turning back.

　About running the other way, finding a crowd, finding Kai.

　She didn't.

Running feels like admitting I'm still the girl who has to run. I'm not her anymore. I refuse to be her anymore.

　They came for her together, the moment she passed between the first two — coordinated, silent, clearly having planned exactly where the ambush would close.

　She didn't hesitate. Months of Elaine's precision drills and her own hard-won discipline moved through her before conscious thought caught up, her blade already free, aura flaring bright and controlled at the edges in a way that would have made Kai genuinely proud, had he been there to see it.

　The first man underestimated her — a fatal mistake, given how fast her strike opened his throat before his own weapon had cleared its sheath. The second came at her from the side, more cautious, and she met him with a controlled burst of anti-mana that ended things before he'd finished closing the distance.

Two. Two down, and I'm still standing.

　The third proved harder — genuine skill behind his blade, forcing her to actually work for the opening she eventually found, aura burning hot with effort by the time she finally put him down.

Three.

　She stood in the street, breathing hard, blood on her blade that wasn't her own, and allowed herself, for one full second, to feel something like triumph.

　Then the fourth man stepped out of the shadows.

　And the feeling didn't survive contact with what she saw.

　He was older than the others, unhurried in the specific way that meant real confidence rather than recklessness, his aura burning a complete, unbroken gold that she recognized immediately, with a sinking certainty, as far beyond her own.

Mid-grade. Fully realized. I've been training for months. He's had years, decades, maybe. This isn't a fair fight.

　"Impressive," he said, almost genuinely admiring, studying the three bodies behind her. "You've clearly had good teachers. Won't matter, in the end, but I'll admit I'm mildly impressed."

　She didn't waste breath answering him.

　She attacked instead, throwing everything her months of training had given her into a single, desperate opening strike.

　He caught it without visible effort, redirected it, and countered with a burst of controlled force that sent her crashing back against the alley wall hard enough to steal the air from her lungs entirely.

No. No, not like this. Not after everything—

　She tried to rise.

　He was already there, a hand closing around her throat with enough force to make the world go gray at the edges.

　"There's a particular kind of fight where skill genuinely doesn't matter," he said, almost kind about it, almost gentle, which somehow made it worse. "This is one of those. Rest now. You've earned that much, at least."

　The last thing she remembered, before the darkness took her fully, was a single, fierce, unbroken thought, held onto with everything she had left.

Kai will come.

He'll come.

I know he will.