Radamar's shadow swallowed me before his hand did. His claws hovered inches above my chest, curved and flexing slowly, like he was deciding where pressure would hurt most. The air around him felt thick, almost wet, the kind of heaviness that made breathing a conscious act. Lanterns hung from the beams above, and their flames did not just flicker—they seemed to retreat, shrinking into themselves as though light was something dangerous to offer in a room like this. The smell of sweat, smoke, and sour alcohol pressed against my tongue. It tasted like a place where people had learned to swallow fear and pretend it was normal.
I held myself upright anyway. My ribs ached, my arms felt heavy, and my body was coming down from the kind of adrenaline that makes pain quiet until it decides to scream. But I refused to fold. If he killed me, I would not crawl. I would not beg. I would not give him the satisfaction of watching me shrink.
Around us, the bar had gone unnaturally still. A few villagers were frozen near the tables with their hands half raised, like they had been in the middle of moving and simply forgot what came next. Someone's chair creaked under a slow shift of weight. A cup trembled in a hand. A tail flicked once, nervous and angry. The silence was not peaceful. It was the silence of a crowd that wanted to live.
Then a voice cut through the pressure with a steadiness that did not belong in a room like this.
"I do not think this is the best course of action."
Grizz stepped forward from near the doorway. He moved the way a hunter approaches a wounded animal—not with fear exactly, but with caution that came from knowing what teeth can do. His hands were open, palms visible, shoulders low. He was not challenging Radamar. He was managing him. That difference mattered. Even in my dazed state, I could feel it.
Radamar did not look at him immediately. His eyes stayed on mine, and the stare felt like a weight pressing down on my thoughts. It was not hatred. It was assessment. Like I was something he had already decided how to deal with, and now he was simply choosing the timing.
"He defeated the Centilito today," Grizz said, voice even. "That matters."
A ripple ran through the room. Not loud. Not a reaction anyone wanted to admit to. Just a shift in breathing, a tightening of posture, like the village itself leaned closer to hear what Radamar would do with that truth. Someone near the back set down a cup too quickly, and the clink against the table sounded huge in the hush.
"And?" Radamar asked quietly.
The word was almost gentle. That frightened me more than if he had shouted. Anger could be argued with. Rage had patterns. This calm did not.
"And it was your trial," Grizz continued. "Your rule. You said if he survived, the matter would be settled."
Radamar's head turned slowly. That single motion made a few villagers flinch, as if they had been struck without being touched. His gaze swept past Grizz for a fraction of a second, taking in faces, reading reactions, measuring who looked away first. Then he focused on Grizz again.
"You presume to remind me of my own words?"
"I remind you of what the village heard," Grizz replied.
That was not a plea. It was optics. Grizz was not trying to save me out of kindness. He was protecting order. Protecting the idea that rules meant something, because the moment rules stopped meaning anything, the village would become a panic-stricken animal pen and even Radamar would have to work harder to control it.
"He is not one of us," Radamar said. His gaze drifted over my shoulder to the villagers beyond, as if the room was a map and he could see where fear pooled. "He has no roots here."
"No," Grizz agreed. "But that is precisely why people will be watching. If word spreads that someone who killed the Centilito dies the same hour, the village will not understand the pattern. They will understand fear."
A gazelle woman near the wall pressed her fingers to her mouth. A boarfolk man's grin from earlier was gone entirely, replaced by an expression that looked like he had just remembered what helplessness tastes like.
"You can kill him," Grizz said. "No one here could stop you. But the village will feel it. And it will not feel like strength. It will feel like you are cutting down anyone who breathes wrong."
Radamar's eyes narrowed slightly. The lantern flames above flickered again. I could not tell if it was the draft through the broken boards or something else. In this room, even the air felt like it listened.
"You worry about their feelings," Radamar said, quiet and sharp.
"I worry about their behavior," Grizz corrected. "Panic does not stay contained. It spreads. It makes people stupid. And when people get stupid, they do things that force you to respond."
Grizz did not say it, but the message landed anyway. If Radamar slaughtered me now, he might have to slaughter others later to put fear back where it belonged. More work. More mess. More noise.
The pause stretched. My knees trembled, not from fear alone, but from exhaustion catching up. I tasted blood at the back of my throat. Wayne's breathing was rough behind me, the kind of breathing that comes after crying too hard and too long. Somewhere near the bar counter, a chair shifted again and scraped lightly across the floor, and the sound felt like a mistake.
Then Lenny's voice entered, calm as if we were discussing patrol routes.
"Let me train him."
Lenny leaned against a support post with his arms folded, posture relaxed, eyes alert. He looked too calm for a room that still smelled like recent violence. The other guards glanced between him and Radamar, unsure which presence was more dangerous. Lenny's calm did not feel like courage. It felt like certainty.
Radamar did not fully turn.
"You would train the boy who raised steel at me?"
Lenny pushed off the post and stepped forward half a pace, slow enough to show he was not eager.
"If he is reckless, better he is reckless under supervision," he said. "If he is going to be a problem, better he is a problem that belongs to you."
Radamar's gaze sharpened.
"You think he can be owned?"
"I think he can be contained," Lenny replied. "And there is irony in it too. Let the one who tried to kill you spend his days keeping you alive."
The line carried both meanings. Ownership and humiliation. Control and punishment. It was a collar disguised as opportunity.
Radamar looked back at me. His expression shifted just slightly. Not amusement. Not anger. Interest. Like he enjoyed the shape of the idea, the way it would force a person to live with their own choices.
Radamar did not speak immediately. He simply looked at me—not the way a man looks at an enemy, not even the way a predator looks at prey. It was worse than that. He looked at me the way someone studies a tool they are unsure whether to keep or discard.
The room was silent except for the faint crackle of a dying lantern wick. Somewhere near the back, a villager shifted their weight and then froze, as if even that small sound might influence what happened next. My ribs throbbed steadily beneath my skin. The burns along my arm had begun to sting again now that the adrenaline was thinning out. Sweat crawled down the side of my face and into my collar.
Radamar stepped forward, slow and unhurried. He did not loom now. He did not flare into that monstrous shape again. He was calm. Controlled. Which somehow made him feel more dangerous.
"You raised a blade at me," he said at last. "You did so inside my walls."
My mouth felt dry. I swallowed and held his gaze, though it took effort.
"You killed the Centilito," he continued. "That was not expected."
The words did not carry praise. They carried inconvenience.
"You are impulsive," he said quietly. "And you are inexperienced. But you survived."
The room seemed to lean forward at that.
"I could end you now," he said, stopping in front of me. "And the village would accept it."
A few heads lowered instinctively, confirming the truth of it.
"You are not from here," he continued. "You do not understand what you are stepping into. That makes you dangerous."
Another pause.
"But it may also make you useful."
He leaned closer.
"If I spare you, it will not be mercy. It will be because I have decided you are worth more alive than dead."
He straightened.
"You live."
The verdict fell without flourish.
"You live because you survived the trial. You live because killing you now would be wasteful. Do not mistake this for victory."
The tension in the room loosened, but only because he allowed it to. My legs felt weak with the release of it.
"From this moment," he said evenly, "you belong to this village. And if you raise your hand against me again, I will not hesitate a second time."
Then he turned away, as if the decision had already lost its importance.
And just like that, my life continued.
There was no anger in his voice. That made it worse. Anger burns out. This sounded like gravity. Like weather. Like a rule that did not care if I hated it.
My mouth felt dry. My mind buzzed. And beneath the exhaustion, beneath the anger, a dangerous whisper surfaced.
I had beaten the monster warriors avoided.
Was Radamar really any different?
The tension did not vanish. It loosened, but only because Radamar allowed it. The room exhaled carefully, not in relief, but in survival.
Then the door creaked open.
Every head turned toward the sound.
A wooden cane tapped softly against the floorboards.
An elderly woman stepped inside, moving with the slow steadiness of someone who had lived long enough to see violence and not be shocked by it. Her silver hair was tied back loosely, strands escaping around her temples. A dark green shawl hung around her shoulders, frayed at the edges but clean. A faint herbal scent drifted in with her, cutting through the stink of sweat and ale. It smelled like crushed mint and smoke, like something meant to steady the body.
She did not rush forward. She did not gasp.
She looked.
Her eyes moved across the wrecked bar, across the splintered wood, across Radamar, and finally settled on Levi's body.
A villager near the back whispered under his breath.
"Old Lady Sadie..."
The name carried through the room in a low murmur. Not loud. Not dramatic. But heavy with recognition.
Her breath caught once.
"What happened here?" she asked softly.
Wayne answered before anyone else could.
"Levi is gone."
The words settled like ash. A stagfolk man bowed his head. A child near the back began to cry before being hushed quickly. Even the guards stiffened, not because they mourned Levi, but because death in a room like this always carried consequence.
Sadie closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, grief had folded into discipline. It was still there, but contained, the way someone contains a flame in their hands so it does not burn down the house.
"Radamar," she said calmly, "the village is already stirring."
Not accusation. Pressure. A reminder.
"Nothing happened here," Radamar replied evenly. His gaze flicked toward me. "The boy lives. The matter is settled."
Settled.
Like Levi's body was incidental. Like everything in this room existed only to reinforce his authority.
Sadie studied him for a moment, then gave a small nod.
"Then we will tend to what must be tended."
Wayne bent carefully and lifted Levi into his arms. He held him with a gentleness that made my throat tighten. Levi's head shifted slightly with the movement, and Wayne adjusted his grip immediately, careful and precise, as though even in death Levi deserved steadiness.
He did not look at me as he passed.
That hurt more than Radamar's claws ever could. It felt like accusation without words. Like grief had quietly decided I was part of the reason Levi was gone.
Grizz moved first, clearing space near the door without announcing it. The villagers parted instinctively. Lenny lingered a moment longer, eyes scanning faces as if memorizing who had flinched, who had whispered, who had looked away. The other guards stepped aside in silence, making room as though Levi's body was both sacred and dangerous.
As I moved past Sadie, her hand caught my wrist.
Her fingers were warm. Steady. They smelled faintly of herbs and ash.
"You look like death yourself," she murmured quietly, close enough that only I heard it.
Only then did I realize how much my ribs ached and how badly my legs trembled now that the adrenaline was draining. My body had been held together by anger and survival. Now that the immediate threat had loosened its grip, it remembered every bruise.
Radamar had already turned away.
Finished.
Conversation over.
As though the entire confrontation had been nothing more than an interruption in his day.
And somehow that indifference felt heavier than his claws ever did.
The bar door closed behind us with a dull wooden thud that sounded heavier than it should have. The noise did not echo. It simply settled, like something final had been decided inside those walls.
Sunlight filtered through the canopy in fractured beams, warming the platforms and rope lines that connected the homes above the earth. A few villagers lingered at a distance, whispering in clusters, their eyes flicking toward Wayne and then toward me.
The tone had shifted.
Earlier, when I returned from the forest, the stares had been cautious. Curious.
Now they were measuring.
Wayne walked ahead, carrying Levi with both arms, careful and deliberate, as if one wrong movement would shatter what remained. His shoulders were rigid. His jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jump from where I stood.
Grizz walked a half-step ahead of him, clearing space without looking like he was doing it. Sadie moved just behind Wayne, her cane tapping softly against the wooden planks in a rhythm that felt steady and practiced.
No one congratulated me now.
No one thanked me for killing the Centilito.
That victory had already been swallowed by something larger.
The shift toward the other side of the village was subtle at first, then impossible to ignore.
The boards beneath my feet grew smoother, less warped by weather and time. The support beams were reinforced with iron brackets instead of rope lashings. The platforms aligned with intention rather than necessity. Even the air felt different here—less smoke, fewer patched cloths fluttering between posts, fewer signs of improvisation.
Nothing about it was loud.
That was the point.
The beastfolk homes were functional. Lived in. Repaired over and over with whatever materials were available. This side looked maintained. Planned. Preserved.
No one said the divide out loud.
But I felt it.
Sadie led us toward a larger structure set partly into a raised stone base. The wood above it was dark and polished. Windows framed in actual glass caught the light instead of stretched hide. A metal crest, subtle but deliberate, hung near the doorway.
Grizz slowed slightly.
This place mattered.
"Wait here," Sadie said quietly.
Wayne shifted Levi in his arms. Sadie touched his elbow gently.
"Take him to the healer's quarters behind the lower platform. They will prepare him," she said.
Wayne nodded once.
Still no eye contact.
He walked away carefully, as if carrying something fragile instead of something final. I watched him go until he disappeared behind the curve of the walkway.
Levi had become a task.
A preparation.
Sadie turned and pushed open the door without knocking.
Cool air drifted out to meet me. It smelled faintly of oil and polished wood instead of smoke and cooked roots. I remained just outside, but the door did not close fully. It stayed open enough for voices to travel.
"Levi is dead," Sadie said plainly.
Silence answered first.
Then a low voice answered, thick and grounded, the kind of voice that sounded built from stone and patience.
"We heard the disturbance."
Another voice followed, smoother and measured, edged with age but not weakness.
"And the Centilito?"
"Gone," Sadie replied.
There was a pause.
Not shock.
Calculation.
"That changes nothing," the first voice said.
"Nerak," the smoother voice replied evenly, not sharp but not gentle either. "It changes more than you want to admit."
So that was Nerak.
The heavier voice.
"It changes everything," Sadie answered.
Footsteps shifted inside. I leaned slightly, careful not to make it obvious.
Through the narrow opening I caught a glimpse of them.
Nerak stood near a window, shorter but broad, built like the foundation of something that refused to crack. His golden hair was braided back, streaked with gray, and his beard was tied with small metal rings that caught the light when he moved. He looked immovable. Deliberate.
The woman stood near a long table. Tall. Straight-backed. Her hair fell in a silver-white cascade that caught the light from the windows. Not faded. Not weak. Intentional. Her hands were folded neatly in front of her, posture composed in a way that made the room feel arranged around her.
"Lunara," Sadie said quietly, and the woman's gaze shifted toward her without haste, "the trial was survived. Levi is dead. Radamar nearly executed the boy publicly. And you believe the structure remains unchanged?"
Lunara did not react to the weight in Sadie's words. She adjusted her stance slightly, precise and controlled.
"We are not mistreated," Lunara said calmly.
"Not yet," Sadie replied.
Nerak's jaw tightened.
"Radamar maintains order. The Centilito was part of that order."
The word order lingered in the air.
It had a purpose.
Radamar's words echoed in my head.
"The Centilito killed our people," Sadie said.
"It kept worse from entering," Nerak answered.
Worse.
That word sat heavier than it should have.
Lunara's gaze drifted toward the doorway briefly. I straightened instinctively. I did not know if she could see me clearly, but something in her expression sharpened slightly, like she was aware of variables outside the room.
"You ask us to gamble stability," she said.
"I ask you to observe the pattern," Sadie replied, her voice no longer gentle.
"Your people challenge him," Nerak said. "Challenge invites correction."
Sadie's cane tapped once against the polished floor.
"And when correction no longer distinguishes between challenge and convenience?"
Silence.
Heavy.
Measured.
Lunara adjusted her stance slightly, as if shifting weight in a debate she had rehearsed before.
"We will not move against Radamar," she said at last.
Sadie did not argue. She did not plead.
"You may not have to," she answered quietly. "He will move first."
Not threat.
Forecast.
Nerak exhaled slowly, the sound tired rather than angry.
"We choose caution," he said.
"And I choose preparation," Sadie replied.
She turned toward the door.
I straightened fully this time.
Then the door closed.
Sadie stepped back outside and studied me in silence.
"You heard enough," she said.
I did not deny it.
"They will not stand with us," she continued. "Not until standing still becomes more dangerous."
"With us?" I asked before I could stop myself.
Her eyes flicked upward toward the canopy, toward the unseen lines that held the village together.
"With survival," she said.
There was more in the word than she allowed to surface.
She held my gaze a moment longer, not as a child, not as an outsider, but as something that had shifted the air around the village simply by surviving.
Then she turned and moved toward the stairwell.
I followed.
The interior of the hall felt cooler than the outside air, the polished wood muffling our steps as we descended. The space echoed faintly, not loudly, but enough to remind me this building had been designed to hold voices without raising them.
We stepped down the final few stairs and pushed through the lower door. Sunlight met us again, warmer, less controlled. The smells returned too—smoke, cooked roots, damp wood, village life in motion.
Grizz was standing a short distance from the entrance, arms folded, watching the walkway as people moved past. He straightened slightly when he saw us emerge.
Sadie paused at the base of the steps and looked at me again.
"You are exhausted," she said. "And hungry. And covered in dried blood."
I had almost forgotten.
The weight of the day had blurred into something larger than my body, but now that she said it, I felt it all at once—the sting along my arm, the pull in my ribs, the heaviness in my legs.
"Grizz," she called.
He stepped forward immediately.
"Take him," she said. "Food. Water. Let him clean himself. Then leave him at Levi's house. He should not be alone tonight, but he will need to be."
Grizz nodded once.
Sadie's hand brushed my shoulder briefly.
"We gather at night," she said. "Until then, do not let anger choose for you."
She walked away, cane tapping in steady rhythm, disappearing back toward the center of the village.
I stood there staring at the closed elders' hall door.
It had a purpose. The words circled in my head like something I almost understood.
Grizz nudged my shoulder lightly.
"Come on," he said. "Before you fall over."
And for the first time since the bar, I realized how badly my body wanted to.
Grizz did not speak for the first stretch of the walk. He moved at a steady pace, not too fast, not too slow, making sure I followed without having to order me to. The shift back toward the beastfolk quarter was immediate and unmistakable. The reinforced beams gave way to rope lashings. The polished railings thinned into worn wood smoothed by years of hands. Smoke hung heavier in the air here, and the scent of roasted roots and charred meat drifted between platforms. The symmetry I had just left behind dissolved into improvisation.
This side of the village looked like it survived.
Not like it was maintained.
My legs felt heavier with each step. Now that Radamar's presence was no longer pressing against my spine, my body began remembering what it had endured. My ribs throbbed steadily. The acid burns along my arm from the Centilito stung sharper, as though the skin had waited patiently for quiet before demanding attention. My shoulder ached where I had been thrown across the bar. Even my jaw felt sore from clenching it too long.
"You're swaying," Grizz said without looking at me.
"I'm fine," I muttered.
He made a low sound that clearly meant he did not believe me.
We stopped behind the healer's quarters where a small wash platform stood, half shielded by woven cloth screens. A wide basin had been filled already, steam rising faintly from the surface. Someone had anticipated this.
"Strip the worst of it," Grizz said. "You look like you crawled out of a grave."
"I feel like I did."
He did not smile.
I peeled off what remained of my torn shirt. The fabric clung in places where dried blood had fused cloth to skin. When I pulled it loose, it stung sharply, and I had to brace my palm against a wooden post to steady myself.
Grizz stepped closer, examining the damage without touching.
"You're lucky," he said. "Centilito acid eats deeper."
"Lucky," I repeated quietly.
He handed me a rough cloth and nodded toward the basin.
"Wash."
The water hit my skin and I inhaled sharply. It was warm, not hot, but against bruises and shallow burns it felt like thousands of small awakenings. Dirt streaked downward immediately. Blood loosened and spiraled into the basin in faint red ribbons before dissolving into cloudy pink.
I scrubbed harder than necessary.
As if I could remove more than mud.
Grizz stayed nearby, arms folded. He did not offer comfort. He did not offer praise. He simply ensured I did not collapse face-first into the basin.
"You think that was smart?" he asked after a moment.
"Which part?"
"Raising a blade at Radamar."
I paused, cloth clenched in my fist.
"He killed Levi."
"And you were going to fix that how?" Grizz asked evenly. "By dying too?"
I resumed scrubbing. "I wasn't thinking," I said.
"That much was obvious."
There was no cruelty in his tone. Only fact.
"You survived the Centilito because you thought," he continued. "You lured it. You adapted. You used the desert instead of strength."
I froze slightly.
He had been paying attention.
"Radamar is not something you lure into sand," Grizz said quietly. "If you fight him like that again, you will not walk away."
Part of me wanted to argue. The part still burning with the memory of how the Centilito had screamed when the worm took it. The part that believed patterns could be broken if studied long enough.
But my body, aching and raw, was evidence of how quickly anger turns into weakness.
"I know," I muttered.
Grizz watched me a second longer before stepping back.
"Good," he said. "Because if you are going to live here, you need to think more than you swing."
He handed me a clean shirt and simple linen trousers once I had rinsed off the worst of the blood. The fabric felt rough but dry. Mine had become little more than evidence.
"Food," he said.
We moved toward the communal cookfires. A bowl had already been set aside. Thick stew, heavy with roots and slow-cooked meat. A piece of flatbread rested beside it, still warm.
The smell made my stomach tighten and growl at the same time.
Grizz sat across from me.
"Eat."
"I'm not—"
"Eat."
His tone left no room for debate.
I lifted the bowl. My hands trembled slightly, though I pretended not to notice. The first spoonful felt strange in my mouth. Warm. Solid. Normal. Too normal for a day that had split open like this.
I swallowed anyway.
I finished the stew slowly. By the time the bowl was empty, warmth had spread faintly through my limbs, dulling the hollow edge of hunger. It did not fix anything. But it steadied me.
"Levi's house," Grizz said as he stood. "You'll stay there."
The words tightened something in my chest.
"That doesn't feel right."
"It's empty," he replied. "And you are not sleeping under trees."
There was practicality in his tone, but also acknowledgment. Levi's absence had left a space. Space in a village like this does not remain unused.
We walked the rest of the way in silence.
Levi's house sat low at the base of the oak, its door slightly ajar from earlier. Nothing about it suggested that the man who had lived there would never step inside again.
Grizz stopped at the doorway.
"They're preparing him," he said. "Tonight."
I nodded.
"If you need anything, you call," he said before leaving.
I stood in the doorway for a moment before stepping inside.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
Light filtered through the small windows, stretching across the low table. The stool Wayne had used earlier was still angled as if he had stood up too fast. A cup sat near the edge of the table, unwashed.
Levi had been here this morning.
Pacing.
Arguing.
Alive.
I sat slowly in his chair. It creaked under my weight. The sound felt wrong. Like I had taken something that did not belong to me.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.
Repetitive.
The word returned.
How many times had Radamar stood in that bar and said similar things? How many challengers had believed they were different? Was Levi one of them? Had he tried before in ways I did not understand?
It had a purpose.
The Centilito had killed people. It had terrorized the forest. What kind of purpose justified that?
Unless—
Unless fear itself was the structure. The thought made my stomach churn.
If I had not waited to watch the Centilito fall. Would Levi still be alive?
The question clawed at me. Then another image rose, sharper.
My mother.
Her kitchen. The scrape of utensils against ceramic plates. The way she would brush crumbs from the table with the side of her hand. The way she would pretend not to notice when I was upset about something I did not want to explain.
She did not know where I was.
She did not know if I was alive.
To her, I had simply vanished.
My chest tightened until breathing became work.
A sound slipped out of me before I could stop it. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a crack in my breathing that would not seal back up.
I lowered my head and let it happen.
I had survived.
Levi had not.
That was the truth.
And somewhere beneath the grief, beneath the anger, beneath the guilt, there was something else.
A stubborn, dangerous thought.
I had not beaten the Centilito with strength.
I had beaten it with thought.
Radamar was stronger. Older. More controlled.
But he was not untouchable.
The thought frightened me.
Because it did not feel like despair.
It felt like possibility.
I leaned back slowly in Levi's chair and stared at the ceiling beams.
"I can't die here," I whispered.
Not for pride.
Not for revenge.
Because if I died here, Levi's death would be just another repetition.
And I refused to be another repetition.
The house remained silent.
But something inside me steadied.
Not hope.
Not confidence.
Resolve.