Althéa didn’t move.

  She was on her knees, head pulled back, hair tangled in the girl’s fingers...a thin black dagger pressed against her throat. A bead of blood was already sliding over her skin, just beneath the blade.

  She was looking at Kael.

  Not a word.

  Just that look — don’t try anything.

  The young girl was smiling. A stretched smile, too wide. Not the smile of prey caught in panic, but that of a predator delighted by her own game.

  Her voice fell into the silence, light, almost sing-song.

  "I’ve never dealt with prey this clever…"

  She laughed softly — a sharp, cracked sound that drilled straight into the nerves.

  "It’s a real pleasure to hunt you. Every moment, you still manage to surprise me. You climb, you survive, you sense the trap coming… It’s fascinating."

  Lucanis hadn’t moved. Sword raised, body taut, ready to spring. But his gaze hadn’t changed — cold, steady, calculating. The gaze of a hunter ready to leap the instant his prey lets its guard down.

  The girl slowly turned her head toward him.

  "Stop… looking at me like that."

  Her tone remained gentle, but her voice vibrated, as if something were rumbling beneath it — a string pulled too tight.

  Lucanis didn’t answer. He didn’t even blink.

  She burst out laughing.

  "Oh, you are magnificent," she breathed. "But it’s him… him… who worries me."

  Her gaze settled on Kael. A look that pierced straight through him. She was still smiling, but her pupils quivered, tiny, as if constantly adjusting.

  "You," she said softly. "You are different. You make no sound. You breathe like a shadow. You move without noise, without a trace."

  She tilted her head slightly.

  "Down in the cavern, that bothered me a lot."

  Silence.

  The word cavern fell like a cleaver.

  Althéa didn’t tremble. Kael, however, felt cold sweat slide down the back of his neck.

  "Down there, I was blind," she went on. "I was… something else. A form too limited. Too… primitive."

  Her eyes dropped to her hands. She studied them, fascinated. Then she brushed her own cheek, as if discovering the texture of her skin.

  "But this one…"

  She sighed, almost moved.

  Her smile slowly re-formed, like a mask settling back into place.

  "This one… is a marvel."

  Her fingers tightened in Althéa’s hair. The dagger pressed a little closer to her throat.

  Althéa’s breathing didn’t falter.

  "Never," she said in a low, vibrating voice, "never have I had such a vessel. I can do anything. Feel everything. Taste everything. No limits."

  She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, as if breathing in a fragrance.

  "It’s almost a shame…"

  … "that you’re forcing me to soil it."

  A breath.

  Then Althéa moved.

  Her fingers slid discreetly toward her belt. She was still holding the small, thin blade Lucanis had lent her to gut the bird. Without hesitation, in a sharp, precise motion, she raised the blade to the level of her ear—

  and cut her own hair in a single, clean stroke.

  No more grip.

  The tension on her scalp vanished instantly.

  The Overdrawn lost her balance, startled to have nothing left to hold on to.

  Althéa pivoted on one knee. Her left elbow struck straight into the creature’s solar plexus, hard enough to disorient her. In one fluid motion, she seized the Overdrawn’s armed wrist, stepped sideways to fully break free, and pulled at the same time downward and outward—

  a perfectly executed joint lock.

  The knife hit the ground with a dull thud.

  The creature tried to react, but Althéa struck immediately, the back of her fist snapping out in a perfect hip pivot, straight into the temple.

  A dry impact.

  A professional blow.

  The Overdrawn staggered, snarled, reeled.

  "HOW DARE YOU?!" she roared, her voice cracked with rage.

  But Lucanis was already moving.

  From the very beginning, he hadn’t shifted.

  His body had remained still…

  But his eyes had never stopped hunting.

  A killer’s gaze.

  No anger. No fear.

  Just a cold line of calculation — the patience of a predator who strikes only once, at the right moment.

  When the creature lost her balance, Lucanis moved.

  One single step.

  All his weight in the hips, perfectly aligned.

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  The sword, raised vertically, came down in an arc.

  Silent.

  Sharp.

  Final.

  The neck was severed.

  No mistake.

  No screams.

  Just the end.

  The body fell.

  The head rolled.

  And the world seemed to freeze.

  Althéa straightened, breathless but upright.

  Kael stood motionless, staring at the head stopped at his feet.

  Lucanis wasn’t shaking. He was barely breathing.

  A few words drifted through the air, unspoken by any of them:

  It wasn’t a girl.

  Kael didn’t move right away.

  His gaze slid slowly from the head on the ground to the lifeless body.

  Then to Althéa.

  She was straightening up. Slowly.

  Breath still short.

  Her white hair had been cut short, just below the ears. Her bangs still fell across her forehead, and two long strands on either side had kept their original length.

  Like white claws framing her face.

  She looked down at the dagger.

  Without a word, she slid it back into her belt, mechanically.

  Then she raised her head.

  And met his eyes.

  Her gaze had turned cold.

  Empty.

  Sharp as twin blades.

  A shiver crawled up Kael’s spine.

  He thought he knew Althéa.

  An arrogant noble. A little proud. A little distant.

  But this…

  This wasn’t a sheltered girl who had survived.

  It was a cold-blooded beast.

  A survivor.

  Even with a blade at her throat.

  He stepped back once.

  Not out of fear.

  Out of frustration.

  His jaw clenched.

  Lucanis, meanwhile, hadn’t wasted a second.

  With a sharp flick, he wiped the blood from his sword. Then he knelt beside the Overdrawn’s body, his expression still neutral.

  He hadn’t acted on panic.

  He had waited.

  Measured.

  And struck.

  A predator.

  Pure and simple.

  Kael looked from one companion to the other.

  Althéa, blade still in hand, her gaze frozen.

  Lucanis, bent over the corpse, already analyzing.

  And him…

  He had hesitated.

  Observed.

  Thought.

  Too long.

  Inside his head, a sentence snapped like an order:

  I need to reach their level.

  Kael joined them near the body.

  The fire still crackled in the distance, but their focus was here now — on this body that wasn’t really a body anymore.

  Lucanis, crouched, turned his head toward them. His sword rested on his knee, his gaze still cold, still focused.

  "When did you realize it was an Overdrawn?" he asked, without raising his voice.

  Althéa answered immediately.

  "When she described how she entered the survival course."

  Lucanis raised an eyebrow.

  "She said they just told her ‘you have to go there,’ right?"

  Althéa nodded.

  "That’s not what happened. Not to me. Not to you. She didn’t have the information. She improvised. And she got it wrong."

  Then she added:

  "And you?"

  Lucanis didn’t answer right away.

  He looked at the corpse, then said simply:

  "Her nails. Too long. Far too long. Not believable after three days out here."

  His fingers tightened slightly on the hilt of his sword.

  "But even before that… my instinct was screaming that something was off. It wasn’t rational. It was visceral."

  He finally turned toward Kael.

  Silence settled in.

  Kael briefly lowered his eyes to the head, then to the white strands of Althéa’s hair at his feet.

  He inhaled.

  "I don’t know exactly when…" he murmured.

  "But nothing fit from the start."

  He lifted his head. His voice had sharpened — controlled, coldly logical.

  "She looked too fragile to have lasted three days out here. She was shaking, crying. It was too perfect. Too calibrated."

  "Her nails were too long, and… she smelled bad, exactly like our cloaks. Like the lycaon in the cavern."

  He straightened slightly, eyes fixed on nothing, as if reconstructing the scene.

  "That’s what tipped me off. And I remembered what the three of us said — about how they might try to reach us."

  A tense silence followed.

  Lucanis and Althéa listened without interrupting him.

  "They learn fast. They adapt to our weaknesses.

  They know we see poorly in the dark.

  That the smell of blood repulses us.

  That fear can push us to turn on each other.

  And above all… that a human corpse paralyzes us."

  He locked eyes first with Althéa, then with Lucanis.

  "So that thing… it took the shape of a human.

  A decoy. A copy.

  It slipped in among us — a familiar appearance, something we’d trust."

  He stepped aside.

  "It saw us climbing the cliff.

  It understood we were trapped between two rock outcrops.

  That we couldn’t flee quickly."

  He clenched his teeth, then went on.

  "At first, it was in tears. A poor lost girl.

  But the moment it thought we’d let our guard down, it started talking.

  And talking.

  About everything. About nothing. Flat, meaningless subjects."

  He paused. His gaze hardened further.

  "That’s when I understood."

  He continued, voice steady.

  "It was improvising.

  It doesn’t have all the human codes. It copies them — but it doesn’t always understand them."

  He glanced at the corpse, then resumed.

  "And while it was talking… its nails shrank.

  Just like that.

  One second they were long. The next, short."

  His eyes drifted to the fur cloak still lying near the fire.

  "If it can adapt its physical appearance to us…

  then it must have adjusted itself to become visually acceptable.

  Pretty enough. Fragile enough… to make us lower our guard."

  He finished more quietly.

  "And I confirmed it when I smelled her."

  He met Lucanis’s gaze.

  "She had changed. She reeked of carrion when she arrived — and then, just like with her nails, she adjusted. She noticed ours were short, so she made hers short too. And her smell — she altered it, made it pleasant for us. Once again, just to manipulate us."

  A heavy silence settled in.

  Althéa and Lucanis were staring at him, eyes slightly widened.

  No exaggerated surprise.

  Just a shift.

  A silent reassessment.

  They looked at the corpse.

  Then at Kael.

  Then back at the corpse.

  They were replaying everything in their minds.

  Every detail.

  Every word the creature had spoken.

  Every gesture, every poorly stitched lie, every mistake too human to be real.

  And it all aligned.

  Kael was right.

  Kael started walking again.

  One step. Then another.

  Around the corpse.

  A hand under his chin, brows furrowed, lips pressed into a grimace of disgust and thought.

  He stopped for a moment, shook his head, then let out:

  "From now on, this is going to get really complicated…"

  He resumed pacing, barely looking at the other two.

  "The Overdrawn has already adapted.

  Disarming techniques? Useless.

  Stealth decapitations? Forget them."

  His tone was sarcastic. Cold.

  He was forcing detachment to keep himself from cracking.

  "It’s starting to integrate our movements.

  Our reactions.

  And the worst part? It’s doing it without even thinking."

  He stopped, leaned slightly over the body, then straightened slowly, his gaze empty.

  "This isn’t a capacity in the classic sense.

  It’s instinctive.

  A biological reflex."

  "It doesn’t adapt its form consciously — it does it by reflex."

  He pointed at the severed head with a finger, as if indicating a diagram.

  "That’s what makes it… terrifyingly powerful, but also deeply vulnerable."

  He resumed pacing, slower now.

  "It didn’t understand the rules of conversation.

  It could imitate a human voice, string sentences together in our language…

  But the content? The tone? The structure?"

  "Nothing.

  It was empty once it had managed to placate us on the surface."

  He looked up at them, calmer now, but just as sharp.

  "If I’m right, then there are two phases to their adaptation.

  Form adaptation: appearance, smell, posture, voice.

  And core adaptation: reasoning, emotions, human behavior."

  Lucanis raised a hand.

  "Uh… Kael, wait a second. You’re going too fast."

  He looked slightly lost — which was unlike him.

  But Kael didn’t stop.

  Althéa cut in, her voice firm.

  "Go on. Keep going."

  Kael didn’t let the silence settle.

  He continued, his voice lower now, heavier.

  "It has just acquired a core adaptation to humans.

  To language.

  To combat techniques.

  To deception."

  He paused, sweeping his gaze over the camp, the fire, their weapons, the corpse.

  "And above all… it adapted to our own adaptations."

  He stopped. Stared at an invisible point ahead.

  "The next time it tries to attack us…

  we probably won’t even see it coming."

  His voice was glacial.

  "It’ll be one step ahead.

  It knows us.

  It’s already dissected us."

  "The way we speak. The way we react. The way we doubt."

  "And it managed to take Althéa by surprise."

  He shot her a brief glance — not accusatory, but heavy with meaning.

  "It analyzed us in depth.

  And at this point… it already knows almost all of our respective abilities."

  Kael stopped.

  Then, without another word, he sat down on the ground.

  Not abruptly. Slowly.

  As if everything had hit him at once.

  He stared at the fire for a few seconds, then let out a bitter breath, twisting his mouth into a grim smile.

  "We’re really fucked."