They descended through a world that no longer obeyed anything except violence.
A vampire materialized directly in front of them, mouth already open, but a thread snapped tight around his ankle.
He vanished downward so quickly that his fingers carved grooves through bark before letting go.
A wet scream followed from below.
Kyren jumped to another branch.
Aiko followed.
Fire forced them left.
Webbing forced them right.
A severed arm hung from one strand at face height.
Kyren ducked beneath it.
They reached the ground.
Bodies everywhere.
Elf.
Vampire.
Jorogumo.
Something horned he did not recognise.
A sword lay beside a dead vampire whose skull had been crushed inward.
Kyren picked it up.
An elf lay nearby with a knife embedded through the throat.
Kyren hesitated for one heartbeat.
“Sorry.” He pulled the knife free.
Sword in his right hand.
Knife in his left.
Aiko stood shaking.
“Take a weapon.” “I can’t.” “Take one.” “I can’t think.” “Then don’t think.” He shoved a fallen bow toward her.
She caught it automatically.
Beside it lay a curved war-scythe.
Aiko looked at the weapon as though it had personally offended her.
“I don’t know how to use this.” “Neither does the first fighter you hit with it.” Somewhere behind them a Jorogumo shrieked.
They moved.
Kyren’s speed kept them alive.
He slipped through spaces fighters had not yet closed.
Duck beneath a sword.
Turn before the web tightened.
Leap over a corpse.
Follow the direction vampires looked away from.
Aiko slowly stopped sobbing.
The terror remained, but instinct began replacing paralysis.
She fitted an arrow.
Missed her first shot.
The second entered a vampire’s wing.
Her expression changed.
“I hit him.” “Celebrate later.” Smoke shifted ahead.
A broad figure emerged carrying an axe.
One empty eye socket.
Red X burned where the eye should have been.
Kyren stopped.
Tyron saw him.
For a heartbeat the war disappeared from his face.
Every wound, every year of exile, every humiliation seemed to condense into one expression.
“You.” Kyren tightened his grip on both weapons.
“You look worse.” Tyron charged.
The axe came down hard enough to split the earth.
Kyren was already beside him.
Knife into the ribs.
Out.
Sword across the forearm.
Tyron swung backward.
Kyren ducked.
Another cut across the thigh.
He could not match Tyron’s strength.
So he refused to give strength a target.
Move.
Cut.
Retreat half a step.
Move inside the arc of the axe.
Knife.
Sword.
Knife again.
Tyron roared.
“STOP MOVING!” “Excellent strategy.” The axe passed over Kyren’s hair.
He stabbed Tyron’s shoulder.
Tyron kicked him hard enough to send him across the soil.
Kyren rolled and rose.
Blood entered his mouth.
Blue fluid ran from a cut above his brow.
Tyron stared at it.
“Still not even blood.” “Still talking with one eye.” Tyron attacked again.
Kyren parried once.
The impact numbed his entire arm.
He immediately stopped trying to block.
Speed.
That was all.
Tyron’s wounds multiplied.
None deep enough.
Kyren’s knife opened his side.
Sword cut the thigh.
Another line across the chest.
Tyron stumbled.
Kyren saw the opening.
Too late.
Tyron let the axe fall deliberately.
Both hands were suddenly free.
One closed around Kyren’s throat.
His feet left the ground.
The sword slipped from his fingers.
Tyron held him one-handed.
Kyren drove the knife into his forearm.
Again.
Tyron squeezed harder.
“You destroyed my life.” Kyren could barely force out sound.
“I was…
three.” “You called those insects.” “You…
tried…” Darkness crowded his vision.
“…to rape my mother.” Tyron’s face twisted.
“She was Zeyen.” As though that explained anything.
As though a word could make a body belong to someone else.
Something orange flashed behind Tyron.
He stiffened.
A small clawed hand protruded from his chest.
Tyron looked down.
The hand withdrew.
Blood poured from the wound.
His grip opened.
Kyren hit the ground and dragged air into his lungs.
Tyron turned once, slowly.
A fox-like creature stood behind him.
Female in shape, though fur covered much of her body; pointed elven ears rose above copper-red hair, and a single tail moved behind her.
A Kitsune.
Tyron reached for her.
She disappeared in fire.
Reappeared at his side.
Claws entered his throat.
Tyron fell.
He tried to speak.
Blood filled his mouth.
The Kitsune watched until he stopped moving.
Then she looked at Kyren.
“Eat.” Kyren coughed.
“What?” She pointed at a dead vampire.
“Eat it.” “I’m not eating—” She teleported beside him in a flicker of orange flame and seized his jaw.
“Do you want to live?” Kyren stared into her eyes.
“Yes.” “Then stop behaving like something that expects mercy.” She released him.
“You have the scent.” “What scent?” “The scent of something that grows by consuming.” Kyren looked at the vampire corpse.
Somewhere inside him, something remembered before his conscious mind did.
Flesh in a forest.
Green eyes.
Growth.
A memory without pictures.
“How do you know?” “Because the spiders know.” That was enough.
Kyren knelt.
He hated the first bite.
The vampire’s flesh was cold and metallic.
His stomach contracted.
He forced himself to swallow.
Pain travelled through his body.
Every muscle locked.
His changing eyes flashed red.
Then black.
His heart struck once with enough force to shake his chest.
The world sharpened.
He heard Aiko breathing several metres away.
Heard the Kitsune’s claws scraping soil.
Heard something crawling beneath a root.
He looked at the vampire’s body.
“Again,” the Kitsune said.
Kyren ate.
The second corpse made his body stronger.
Not twice stronger.
Different.
His muscles tightened without swelling.
Reflexes changed.
The third gave him a sudden awareness of blood moving inside every living creature nearby.
The fourth sharpened night vision.
The fifth carried dark magic.
It entered Kyren as instinct rather than knowledge.
He lifted one hand.
Black energy formed between his fingers.
“Kyren?” Aiko whispered.
“I’m fine.” He was not.
He ate another.
And then the strange thing happened.
The sixth possessed the same blood-sense he had already taken.
Kyren expected nothing.
Instead the ability folded into itself.
The radius expanded.
Detail increased.
He could distinguish individual heartbeats.
The seventh carried speed.
He already had speed.
It stacked.
His body adapted again.
The eighth carried the same dark magic.
The black sphere above his palm doubled in density.
Kyren understood.
Not because someone explained it.
His body explained itself.
It did not collect abilities like objects.
It assimilated the biological and magical principles behind them.
When the same principle entered twice, it reinforced what already existed.
Sometimes linearly.
Sometimes far beyond that if the two versions complemented one another.
A weak vampire and another weak vampire did not become meaningless duplicates.
They became layers.
A hundred similar vampires could turn a common racial gift into something none of those vampires individually possessed.
“Again,” the Kitsune said.