Page 27

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

Smoke still curls from rooftops, but stars shine defiantly over the aching city like they’re blissfully unaware of the ruin beneath. The sky feels too clear considering smoke was just shading everything.

I’m quiet as I slip by the northern gate, passing beyond the dragons’ watch, beyond even Lys’s unnervingly perceptive gaze. My sword at my side hums faintly, a pulse I barely notice anymore. My body aches, but it’s not the pain that drives me forward.

It’s clarity. I’ve seen what my presence costs. The fear in Brynja’s eyes, the whispers behind me, the bodies piled at the gate. I was made to destroy a threat, but I’ve become one myself, though unintentionally. At someone else’s hand.

So I’ll end it. Not because I want to die, but because I refuse to become what they fear.

I reach the edge of Courtsview just as the moon crowns the trees. The sanctuary rises like a broken cathedral—twisted spires and shattered stone cradling ancient magic.

Where the curse began, and where it will end.

I step into the clearing. Stop.

He’s already here, sword sheathed and hands empty. Waiting for me.

Einar. He doesn’t turn when I approach. “I was wondering how long it would take you.”

My heart kicks hard in my chest. My entire body tenses. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“I should’ve died long before this—look how old you are. But fate’s a stubborn beast.” The moonlight casts him in silver and ash. There’s a resignation in his stance, but something else too. Peace.

“You knew,” I whisper. “You always knew it would come to this.”

He nods. “I hoped it wouldn’t. But yes. It’s the way of the hunter line, my daughter.”

Tears sting my eyes. “We can still find a loophole.”

Einar finally turns to face me. “No.”

I stare in disbelief. “What do you mean by that?”

“Look at the destruction caused due to us trying to find a loophole. Do you want this to continue?”

Guilt stings. “Of course not.”

“We must have our death match.”

His words hit hard enough to make me stumble backward. A lump forms in my throat. “You don’t have a weapon.”

That’s when I realize why he really came.

I shake my head. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m doing it for you. But this is where it ends for me.”

Silence pulses between us.

My grip tightens. “You said you’d walk this path with me.”

“I wanted to, and I got more time with you than I should have. Nature dictated we should have fought the moment we met, since you were already coming into your powers.”

“Not nature,” I correct. “A curse . And we don’t have to let it win.”

“There isn’t another way.” His gestures toward where Mirendel stands like a wounded soldier.

“I’m not letting you do this.” I place my sword in its sheath.

“You don’t have a choice.” His voice is gentle, but firm. “This curse was never meant to pass through you. It’s mine to end.”

“End?” I hesitate.

He nods, unmoving.

I draw my sword slowly. “Then let’s end it. Fight me.” Anger flares in my chest, sudden and sharp. “You think that makes it easier? That I’ll live with your blood on my hands and just… move on?”

“You’ll live,” he says. “That’s enough. Just like I did, and every one of our forefathers.”

I step closer, blade low but ready. “Don’t make me fight you.”

His eyes darken. “Then strike.”

We stand in the stillness—father and daughter, hunter and huntress, two edges of the same blade.

The curse hums through my bones, screaming for resolution. I know what’s coming. I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to survive it.

I take a step forward, my focus on the sword he pulled seemingly from nowhere. I’m going to treat this like any of our practice sessions. My goal is to block his strikes until I tire him out. We can still find a loophole. I know it.

The first blow comes fast. I parry without thinking. It’s pure instinct after so many sparring sessions. Our swords clash, the impact rippling through my arms with a pulse of regret. The metallic ring echoes off the sanctuary walls, causing a funeral bell to toll. I shudder at the irony.

Einar is faster than usual. Stronger, too. But there’s an obvious heaviness in his movements, like he’s carrying more than just steel. Because he is.

Neither of us wants this.

We move like two halves of a whole, knowing each other’s rhythm, predicting the arc of each strike.

His blade cuts through the air where my shoulder was a heartbeat before.

I pivot, my sword sweeping toward his ribs, but it’s a phantom strike—all motion, no intent.

I barely scratch his protective vest. I don’t strike to wound.

I’m giving it enough effort that he believes I’m in on this madness, and not a drop more.

My blade sings through the air, but always too high, too low, veering wide at the last instant.

Each near miss burns like acid in my throat.

My body knows how to kill—it’s been part of me even before I knew it.

The wolf in me hungers for it, claws scratching at the inside of my ribs, demanding release.

But my heart won’t let it. I’ve held it off before, and I’ll do it again.

Einar presses harder, forcing me back across the crumbled stones of the sanctuary.

His boots find purchase where mine slip.

His movements are fluid, economical like the dance of someone who’s accepted what must be done.

But his face is grim, jaw set like he’s biting back screams, and his eyes… they’re breaking.

“You have to fight me,” he says through clenched teeth, his blade whistling past my ear close enough to part my hair. “You have to end this, Eira.”

“I won’t,” I breathe, deflecting a strike meant for my heart. The curse pulses between us, ancient and greedy, and I feel it tasting our desperation.

He doesn’t give me time to think. His sword comes down in a vicious overhead strike that would cleave me in two.

I bring my blade up to catch it, and the collision sends shockwaves through both our arms. We’re locked there for a moment, sword to sword, face to face, close enough that I can see the unshed tears he’s holding back.

“Then you’ll die with me,” he growls, pushing harder. “Is that what you want? To let the curse claim us both because you’re too stubborn to choose?”

I twist away, breaking the lock, and his blade crashes into the stone where I stood. Sparks fly like the oblivious stars above.

He slashes low. I leap back, stumbling on broken ground. Pain blooms in my leg, shallow but sharp. First blood is drawn, and the curse hums at the taste of it. The wound throbs in time with my heartbeat, each pulse sending heat racing up my spine.

“You think this is mercy?” he shouts, advancing with renewed fury. His strikes come faster now, a blur of steel and desperation. “Letting the curse continue, letting it choose for you?”

I parry desperately, my blade ringing against his in a staccato rhythm of denial. “You’re my only remaining parent,” I cry, backing toward the altar steps. “You think I’ll survive this? You think I want to?”

The words tear from my throat like claws, raw and bleeding. Because it’s true. What would victory be without him? What would freedom taste like with his blood on my hands?

He falters, just a breath, his next strike coming a fraction slower. But I don’t take the opening. My sword wavers in the air, pointed at his chest, and I can’t make it move forward. The wolf in me howls in frustration.

I can’t .

We circle again, slower now. The sanctuary feels smaller with each step, the walls pressing in like a closing fist. Every strike is duller, every breath heavier.

My limbs feel weighted with lead, and I can see the same exhaustion creeping into Einar’s movements.

But it’s not physical fatigue—it’s the weight of what we’re trying to do to each other. Or trying not to do.

Neither of us wants this. We would both rather sacrifice ourselves than the other. This is going to be a long night. We might have to start again tomorrow if nothing comes of this. No matter how this plays out, it’s going to be unprecedented.

The air itself seems to thicken around us, magic crackling along the broken stones.

The sanctuary sings with power, its ancient magic echoing with strength neither of us can command.

The curse writhes between us like a living thing, feeding on our conflict, growing stronger with each clash of steel.

It wants blood. Doesn’t care whose it takes.

Einar’s next attack is different—not aimed at me, but at the pillar beside my head. Stone chips explode outward, one catching my cheek and drawing a thin line of blood. He’s trying to corner me, force me into a position where I’ll have to fight back properly.

“Stop holding back!” he roars, bringing his sword around in a wide arc that I barely duck under. “Honor me enough to give me a real fight!”

“I can’t!” The words rip from my chest like a sob. “Don’t you understand? I can’t!”

But even as I say it, I feel the change beginning. The wolf stirs deeper in my bones, not just hungry now but furious. How dare my father try to die? How dare he try to leave me?

The curse feeds on that rage, amplifies it, twists it into something sharp and deadly.

My sword pulls toward him—not by my will, but seemingly by its own will. This very weapon was used by other hunters before me. It knows what must be done.

The blade seems to develop its own gravity, dragging my arm forward with inexorable force. My wolf side snarls with hunger, the hunter curse roars for blood. Suddenly I’m not just fighting Einar. I’m fighting myself.

The curse has found its opening.

I fight it with everything I have. My muscles strain against the compulsion, tendons standing out like cables under my skin. But it’s like trying to hold back the tide with bare hands.

My arms move anyway.

The sword comes up in a perfect thrust, aimed straight for his heart. My body moves with deadly precision while my mind screams in horror.

“No!” I gasp, wrenching the blade back with all my strength.

But Einar steps into it.

Straight into the arc I couldn’t stop.

I stare in horror, hardly able to believe my eyes.

My father moves like he’s been waiting for this moment, like he’s been planning it from the first strike. His hand guides my blade between his ribs, under his guard, straight to his heart. I feel the resistance of leather, then mail, then the soft give of flesh.

The blade drives through him with a sound like tearing silk.

Time fractures.

My mouth falls open. Merely a croak escapes. The world becomes a series of crystalline moments.

The widening of his eyes, not in surprise but in relief.

His free hand rising to cup my face, fingers trembling but sure.

The warm splash of his blood on my hands, my arms, my face.

He gasps once, a sound like air escaping from a punctured lung, but his eyes never leave mine. “I knew you wouldn’t do it,” he whispers, voice thin but proud, blood flecking his lips. “That’s why it had to be me.”

I catch him as he falls, my sword clattering forgotten to the stones. His weight is sudden and terrible, heavier than it should be, as if death has gravity all its own.

“No, no! Please don’t…” My hands flutter over the wound, trying uselessly to stem the flow. The blood is warm and sticky, and so very red against the pale stone.

His fingers curl into mine, slick with his own blood but holding tight.

“Remember what I told you,” he murmurs.

I have to lean close to hear him over the sound of my own sobs.

“You’re the one meant to change everything. My death… is my choice. The rest… is up to you. You’ll do more than… I ever could.”

Each word costs him. I can see the effort it takes, the way his chest rises and falls in increasingly shallow breaths.

“Don’t leave me,” I beg, pressing my forehead to his. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

But his eyes are already growing distant, looking at something beyond the sanctuary walls, beyond this moment. His lids close.

The curse shatters.

It doesn’t merely break. It explodes, like a dam bursting after holding back a flood for too long.

A soundless explosion of silver and orange light bursts outward from where we kneel, rushing over the ruins like fire and wind.

The very air splits apart, reality tearing like fabric.

Through the gaps, I see glimpses of what might have been—other lives, other choices, other endings where we both lived.

The light burns through me, rewriting something fundamental in my bones. My wolf inside goes quiet—not dead, but at peace. Free. The hunger that has driven me for so long simply… stops.

I’m left holding the body of the only father who ever truly understood me. One I barely had any time with, and now will never get more.

As his blood soaks into the ancient stones beneath us, I wonder if this is how all curses end. Not with victory, but with loss so profound it transforms the very nature of what it means to win.