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She does not answer.

Words aren’t even enough to explain.

She doesn’t lie, not with some cruel, cutting remark that would make this easier to fucking hate her for.

She just looks at me.

Her silence is the best answer, and I cannot breathe past it.

She leaves again, not because I believe this is right.

But because I cannot make her choose me.

She has already decided to accept what she’s becoming.

I am not part of it.

She does not look back.

Not even when she reaches the edge of the ruins, when the shadows seem to close around her, when I feel the last string between us snap.

There’s no Naira. Never an us.

46

NAIRA

Ifeel the first blade before I see it.

The surrounding shifts. A whisper of steel slicing through the dark.

Instinct pulls me sideways. Too slow.

The tip grazes my ribs, a thin line of fire opening across my skin.

I never stop moving.

I don’t stop killing.

Because the battlefield does not wait for hesitation.

And I am no longer the kind of woman who hesitates.

The smell of blood is thick, clinging to my skin, seeping into my lungs.

Bodies hit the ground, their last gasps lost beneath the clash of swords, the roar of beasts, the crackle of magic being torn apart.

I should feel something.

Guilt.

Regret.

Shame.

I don’t because I chose this.

I am exactly what they wanted me to be.