The sword was silent after the training. I’d expected it to have something to say about the blood trader conversation, but there wasn’t even a hum. Nothing. As if it was thinking. Or choosing not to.

  Dinner was the smallest we’d had so far. Doyle threw together what he could. Bread, meat, cheese, and a few things he said were close to their end dates and wouldn’t do for the guests arriving soon. It felt more like tidying a pantry than a proper meal.

  He explained the visitors would be arriving sometime in the morning. Rob asked why they were staying here. Brent answered before Doyle could. This cottage, Trond Cottage, had once been an ambassador’s holding. Neutral ground. Owned by outside powers at one point.

  My ears perked at that. Old ownership. Outside influence. I listened hard, hoping for something that might tie back to me. To my family. Nothing came.

  The house was large, old in a way that carried weight. I wondered if it had been bought back in my father’s youth. Jerald had spoken of him only in fragments. A formidable warrior. Stubborn. Strong. That was it. Nothing about my mother. Nothing that felt like a full picture.

  After our meagre dinner, I headed back to my room to “clean,” as Doyle put it. For Rob, that turned into a full ordeal. He dragged Amelia into helping him, which she instantly regretted. My room, on the other hand, barely needed anything. A few training items to return downstairs. A couple of books to shelve. The rest was dust, and Doyle had already waged war on that since the day we arrived.

  It left me alone with the blade.

  I tried to talk to it. But it didn’t respond.

  After a while, Doyle knocked and made his rounds, checking doors and reinforcing the locks with quiet magic. I heard him herd Amelia and Rob to their rooms, and the weight of the fines settled back into my chest. I wanted to use a catalyst and make the problem disappear, but Doyle was right. That kind of paper trail would only make things worse.

  I turned the small ring on my finger. No one had commented on it yet. It looked old. Worn. The rune etched into its surface barely seemed to hold together, as if it might crumble under the wrong kind of pressure.

  If push came to shove, I could go out on another little shopping trip. Doyle’s warning be damned. If we fail the trials, I will steal whatever Noble’s gold I can. No matter how dangerous.

  After a while, my thoughts drifted to the trials. I lay on my bed, skimming through the sections on modern runes, when the sword finally spoke.

  “I wish to remember.”

  I froze. “Remember what?”

  It took its time answering, as if finding the question was as difficult as forming the answer.

  “The soul blades,” it said at last.

  My stomach tightened. “You think you’re one of them?”

  It hummed.

  “Are you sure you want to remember?” I asked. The thought of what that might unlock made my chest feel tight. Some memories were better left buried.

  The sword paused, its hum low and uncertain. “I feel… pieces missing.”

  I glanced at the blade. Its dark surface held a few small chips along the edge, but I knew that wasn’t what it meant.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Are you sure?” I asked again.

  The hum came back, steadier this time.

  “Alright.”

  The house had gone quiet, the kind of stillness that settles in once everyone has given in to sleep. I turned off the light and lay back holding the blade, staring into the dark, wondering where the sword’s memories were about to take me.

  When I closed my eyes, I expected light. Memory. Something.

  What I saw was nothing.

  Darkness. It pressed in, thick and endless. Even as I moved, craning my head, my body felt wrong. Too low to the ground. Small… Blind.

  I dragged my claws across stone. They screeched as sharp edges bit and sparked. Rock crumbled under my grip, flakes breaking loose and falling away. My hands were wrong too. Too sharp. Too hungry.

  Something circled my neck.

  Cold. Heavy. Unforgiving.

  I pulled at it and felt the chain answer, tight and final, running upward into the dark where I could not reach. It yanked me back hard enough to steal the air from my lungs.

  Hunger burned through me. Not a want. Not a thought. A pain that lived in my bones. My belly cramped and twisted until it felt like it might tear itself apart.

  How long I stayed like that, I couldn’t tell. Time had no edges. It stretched and thinned until it meant nothing at all.

  I smelled them before I sensed anything else.

  Meat.

  Creatures moved nearby. I heard their steps. Felt the vibrations through the ground. I lunged the moment they came too close, jaws snapping, claws raking the air.

  The chain snapped tight.

  My neck screamed. My body slammed back into stone.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again!

  Blind. Starving. Trapped.

  I didn’t know what I was. Or where I was. Or why the hunger never stopped.

  The ground rumbled sometimes. Deep sounds rolled through the stone like distant thunder. I smelled the dust as it drifted down. None of that mattered. Nothing mattered but the hunger and the chain.

  Then something changed.

  A light.

  Not something I could see. Something I could feel. A pressure in the air. A wrongness that made my skin crawl and my claws snatch.

  Everything before the light blurred together.

  Footsteps approached.

  A new sound. Not a growl. Not a rumble.

  “What are you?”

  The noises meant nothing to me. But the scent did. Warm. Living. Close enough to taste.

  The hunger surged, sharp and overwhelming.

  I lunged.

  My teeth sank into flesh.

  Blood flooded my mouth. Hot. Metallic. Real.

  The meat did not scream.

  The meat did not pull away.

  It watched.

  The blood burned as it slid down my throat. Not heat. Not fire. Something deeper. My skin crawled as if fire twisted beneath it. I clawed at myself, nails scraping scales that suddenly felt too soft, too wrong.

  A sound tore out of me. Not a growl. Not a cry. A broken croak dragged from somewhere new.

  My body twisted. My face burned.

  Something snapped inside me.

  And for the first time, I blinked.

  Eyes opened where there had been nothing before. Light stabbed in, sharp and cruel, carving shape out of the dark. I gasped and saw the sky above, not endless black but torn open, scarred by a wound of pale light.

  A tall creature stood above me.

  He held his arm where I had bitten him. Blood soaked his side. Yet he did not look afraid. He did not look angry. He only watched, head tilted slightly, curiosity on his pale face.

  White hair fell loose around his shoulders. Skin like bone. Calm clear eyes.

  “Well,” he said softly, “isn’t that interesting.”

  The words struck something buried deep. Not understanding. Not fully. Just the echo of it, like a thought half remembered.

  He stepped closer.

  For the first time, I flinched.

  I didn’t know why.

  “It’s alright,” he said. His voice was low, steady. The sounds felt heavy, soothing, like stone settling into place. “Easy now.”

  He stopped just out of reach and crouched, studying the chain at my neck. His fingers brushed the metal. The chain was darker than the rock, darker than the sky above. It swallowed the light.

  He tapped it once with his wounded hand, as if testing a theory. The wound no longer seemed to matter to him.

  He showed his teeth. I flinched back expecting an attack.

  He only watched.

  Then after a time, he rose and moved away.

  I followed him with my new eyes and saw the truth of my prison. My chain was caught high above on a jagged spur of rock, wedged tight. It hid me from above while holding me fast below.

  The man climbed the stone with easy grace and reached the chain. He braced himself and pulled.

  The rock shifted.

  The chain came loose.

  I stumbled forward, suddenly unanchored. I looked down at my hands and froze.

  Claws ended in fingers. Pale skin stretched where scales should have been. My nails dug into flesh that felt too soft, too fragile.

  The man dropped back into view and smiled again.

  “Shall we get the hell out of here then?”