The cliff rose before us like something that had grown there by accident, jagged and grey against the pale sky. The wind dragged long fingers through the grass at its base, bending it in slow, uneasy waves, and beneath that sound I could feel the faint tremor of the Light stirring in my chest. It always woke before violence. It always knew first.

  Jori had not spoken much since Anxio’s words had settled between us like ash. He had only pointed toward the outcropping where the hunter waited, his jaw tight, eyes darker than usual. We split without further instruction. He circled left. I moved right, keeping low, letting the rock hide my approach.

  From a distance, the hunter did not look like what I had imagined. He was not monstrous. Not feral. He sat against the stone with one knee raised, slowly sharpening a blade with deliberate strokes, metal whispering against stone. His beard was thick, his hair long, his clothing worn but not ragged. If I had passed him on a road weeks ago, I might have mistaken him for a tired traveler.

  That unsettled me more than if he had looked cruel.

  I stepped into the open.

  The blade paused mid-stroke. He lifted his gaze and found mine instantly.

  Not surprised.

  Waiting.

  “So,” he said, voice steady, almost curious. “You finally came.”

  Jori erupted from behind him with a cry that tore the quiet apart. The Light burst from his hands in a violent wave, not a thin beam or a cautious strike, but a full surge meant to overwhelm. The grass flattened beneath its force as it tore toward the hunter’s back.

  The hunter did not roll aside.

  He did not throw himself down.

  He turned, raised one arm — and the Light bent.

  It did not shatter against him, nor did it simply vanish. It curved, splitting around his body in a warped arc, scattering into the air behind him in a spray of white brilliance that left the rock face smoking.

  I froze for half a heartbeat.

  He had not blocked it.

  He had redirected it.

  Jori lunged forward, closing the distance before the hunter could reset his stance. I lifted my hands and let the Light answer my fear, feeling it pour from my palms in a concentrated burst aimed directly at his chest. The beam struck him full on. For a moment I felt resistance — solid, real — and then something shifted.

  His body glowed.

  Not with my Light, not exactly, but with a distorted echo of it, as though he were pulling threads from what I had given and weaving them into himself. He staggered back two steps, boots grinding into stone, but he did not fall.

  Instead, he smiled.

  “You were not told enough,” he said.

  He thrust both hands forward, and the Light that burst from him was unlike anything I had seen. It was not pure white like mine, nor golden like Jori’s often became. It shimmered with faint veins of something darker threaded through it, something unstable. The blast hit the ground between us and exploded outward, throwing both Jori and me off our feet.

  I hit hard, air leaving my lungs in a painful rush. The sky tilted. For a second I could not see anything but brightness and dust.

  Jori recovered first. He rolled, pushed himself up, and charged again, this time not throwing Light but drawing it close, letting it sheath his body in a thin radiance that made him faster. He moved like a blade himself, darting in low, striking with a burst of concentrated power aimed at the hunter’s ribs.

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  The impact landed. I heard the crack of something giving.

  The hunter grunted and drove his knee upward, catching Jori in the side and sending him staggering back.

  I forced myself upright and changed my approach. Instead of attacking directly, I reached outward, feeling for the Light around him, trying to wrap it, constrict it, bind it. It resisted me immediately, slipping through my grip like something alive. When I pushed harder, the resistance pushed back.

  My head rang as though I had struck stone.

  He was not merely using the Light.

  He was tangled in it.

  The hunter advanced now, no longer seated, no longer passive. His blade flashed in one hand while the other pulsed faintly with power. He swung at Jori first, the metal catching Light mid-strike and flaring white-hot for an instant. Jori barely managed to twist aside, but the edge grazed his shoulder, burning through fabric and skin with equal ease.

  Jori hissed but did not retreat. He slammed his palm against the hunter’s chest, unleashing a concentrated burst at point-blank range. This time the Light did not bend cleanly. It struck and held, forcing the hunter backward several steps.

  I seized the moment.

  Instead of attacking him, I attacked the ground beneath him. I drove the Light downward, fracturing stone and earth in a jagged surge that destabilized his footing. The rock split, and he stumbled, balance breaking for the first time.

  Jori moved instantly.

  He tackled the hunter to the ground.

  They rolled together in a violent tangle of limbs and flashes of Light. I rushed forward, trying to assist without striking Jori, but every time I reached in, the hunter twisted, pulling Light toward himself, siphoning small fragments from each attack. It was not enough to strengthen him fully, but it was enough to prevent collapse.

  “You don’t understand!” the hunter spat as Jori pinned one arm. “You are not chosen. You are infected!”

  Jori drove his elbow into the man’s jaw, silencing him.

  I knelt and finally found an opening. Instead of striking outward, I pushed inward, aiming not at his body but at the place where his Light seemed to root itself. I felt it then — a knot, dense and twisted. Not natural. Not flowing. Forced.

  He screamed.

  The sound was not purely physical. It vibrated through the Light itself, making my vision blur.

  Jori’s grip shifted.

  He caught the hunter by the throat.

  Not in rage.

  In focus.

  The Light around Jori changed.

  It condensed, tightening around his fingers, and I understood with a cold certainty what he was doing. He was not simply restraining him. He was reaching through him, drawing the Light out.

  The hunter thrashed, hands clawing at Jori’s wrists, but the glow around his body began to flicker unevenly. His power surged once more in a desperate flare, blasting outward and knocking me backward several paces. I struck the ground hard again, but this time I did not lose sight of them.

  Jori’s eyes began to glow.

  Not with reflected Light.

  With internal fire.

  The hunter gasped as if drowning. The veins of distorted brilliance that had wrapped his body began to unwind, threads pulling away from his chest, from his throat, from his spine, and flowing into Jori’s hands.

  “You are abominations,” the hunter rasped, voice breaking. “All of you. If you think carrying it to Anxio will save you… you are wrong.”

  Jori did not answer.

  The glow intensified.

  The hunter’s body slackened.

  The Light left him.

  Completely.

  For a heartbeat, the world seemed silent.

  Then Jori released him.

  The hunter collapsed onto the stone, pale, trembling, eyes wide with something that was not fear but conviction.

  Jori stood above him, breathing hard, his own Light now brighter than before, pulsing beneath his skin. When he looked down, there was something altered in his gaze — something steadier, but colder.

  The hunter coughed weakly. “You think he will forgive you?” he whispered. “He will consume you.”

  Jori raised his hand.

  The Light formed along his palm, sharp as a blade.

  Before I could speak, he swept it across the hunter’s throat.

  The cut was clean. Blood spilled dark against stone.

  I stared at him.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” I said, my voice thinner than I intended.

  Jori turned toward me slowly. “He was a traitor to his own kind,” he replied. “And he would have hunted us again.”

  “He had no Light left.”

  “He had knowledge.”

  The wind moved again across the cliff face, carrying the metallic scent of blood.

  “We have what we came for,” Jori continued. “We bring it to Anxio. That is what matters.”

  I looked down at the hunter’s still form and felt something heavy settle inside me. The battle had been long, brutal, uncertain — and in the end, we had not won by strength alone but by taking something from him.

  I met Jori’s glowing eyes.

  And for the first time since I had agreed to follow him, I wondered whether stepping onto that path had been the beginning of something I did not fully understand.

  The Light pulsed between us.