The silence after the fight was worse than the clicking of the creatures. No one spoke as they dragged the bodies into a heap, leaving them for the forest's scavengers.
Kaelen wiped his blade clean, but his eyes never left Lior. "Instinct, huh?" His tone was flat, the kind of flat that meant danger.
Lior kept his gaze on the trees. "You'd rather I'd stood there and done nothing?"
"I'd rather know what you just did," Kaelen shot back. "That throw wasn't skill—it was like you saw it before it happened."
Ayla stepped between them, staff planted in the soil. "Enough. We can't afford this."
But her voice carried no warmth toward Lior either. She'd seen it too—the way his eyes had gone distant, the unnatural precision in his movements.
The forest seemed to press closer around them, the corruption's whisper curling through the leaves.
"It's the fragment, isn't it?" Kaelen finally said. "You've been holding something back since we started. And now, it decides to help you?"
Lior's jaw tightened. "It's not like I asked for it. It's not like I even understand it."
"That's the problem," Kaelen said, taking a step closer. "We've all heard stories about what happens when people try to use that kind of power. It changes you. It eats you."
For a heartbeat, Lior considered telling them the truth—that the fragment didn't just help him, it wanted him to rely on it. That every time he fought, it felt a little easier to let it take control.
But the moment passed.
"Then maybe," Lior said, voice low, "you should worry less about what I'm holding—and more about what's coming for us next."
From somewhere deeper in the corrupted forest, something let out a sound too deep to be an animal and too cold to be human.