The fire had burned low.
Embers glowed softly beneath a sky stretched wide with stars, the kind that made silence feel intentional rather than empty. Christine sat with her back straight, gun resting across her lap—not dismantled, not cleaned, just there.
For once, she wasn't touching it.
Azelar watched from across the fire, tea steaming faintly in his cup. Nyk leaned against a stone behind them, arms folded, cigarette unlit between his fingers. Even he felt it—the tension that hadn't snapped yet, the lesson still forming its shape.
Christine broke the quiet.
"You said my weapon listens to my heart," she said. "That wasn't a metaphor."
Azelar didn't answer immediately.
He set his cup down, the sound of ceramic against stone soft but deliberate.
"No," he said at last. "It wasn't."
Christine exhaled slowly and picked the gun up again. The metal felt familiar, but also… different. Lighter. Heavier. Like it was waiting.
"I've used this thing since I awakened," she continued. "It manifests when I need it. It fires when I want it to. It's never failed me."
Azelar nodded. "That's the problem."
She frowned.
"You believe it obeys you," he said. "But obedience is not the same as alignment."
Nyk snorted quietly. "Old man, you gotta explain that in human terms."
Azelar shot him a look that shut him up instantly.
"Christine," Azelar said, standing, "stand up."
She did.
"Raise the gun," he instructed.
She did.
"Point it at me."
Her eyes widened. "I'm not—"
"Do it."
There was no command in his voice. No threat. Just certainty.
Christine hesitated, then raised the weapon, barrel steady, aimed directly at Azelar's chest.
The air shifted.
Not pressure—attention.
The gun hummed faintly.
Christine's breath caught.
"Do you feel that?" Azelar asked.
"Yes," she said quietly. "It's… reacting."
"Because you're conflicted," he replied. "Part of you knows you won't fire. Part of you is prepared to anyway."
Nyk leaned forward slightly.
Azelar tapped the side of the barrel with two fingers.
"Your weapon is not a gun," he said.
Christine blinked.
"It's a verdict."
The word landed harder than any blow.
"Your power," Azelar continued, "does not come from pulling the trigger. It comes from the decision that something deserves to be ended."
Christine's grip tightened.
"You don't shoot targets," he went on. "You pass judgment. That's why your shots never miss. That's why your weapon manifests differently depending on your state of mind."
He stepped back, still in her sights.
"Fire," Azelar said.
Christine's finger hovered.
Her heart raced—not with fear, but with awareness.
She realized something then.
Every time she had fired before, there had been certainty. Rage. Resolve. Survival.
This time… there was none.
Her finger wouldn't move.
The gun didn't hum louder.
It went still.
Azelar smiled faintly.
"There it is," he said.
Christine lowered the weapon, breath shaky.
"So what does that mean?" she asked. "That I can't shoot unless I believe it?"
"No," Azelar said gently. "It means your weapon will never betray your true intent."
He turned away, walking toward the cliff's edge where the wind rolled endlessly upward.
"For the next phase of your training," he said, "you will stop thinking of your gun as a weapon."
Christine frowned. "Then what is it?"
Azelar looked back at her, eyes sharp and knowing.
"It is an extension of your authority," he said.
"And authority only functions when the one who wields it understands why they have the right to act."
The next morning, Christine woke before dawn.
Her gun did not manifest.
She reached for it instinctively.
Nothing.
Panic flickered—brief, controlled, but present.
She stood quickly, scanning the area.
"Azelar?" she called.
His voice answered from behind her.
"I sealed it."
She spun.
"What?"
"For now," he said calmly. "Your weapon will not answer you."
Nyk, sitting nearby sharpening nothing in particular, raised a brow. "That seems dangerous."
Christine clenched her fists. "How am I supposed to train without it?"
Azelar stepped closer.
"You're going to learn what your authority feels like without a medium."
He placed two fingers against her sternum.
"Your gun isn't your power," he said. "It's your focus."
The air around Christine rippled.
Not violently.
Precisely.
She felt it then—something inside her, steady and cold and clear. Not anger. Not fear.
Conviction.
Azelar stepped back.
"Point," he said.
She raised her hand, palm open, toward a distant boulder.
"Decide," he added.
Christine closed her eyes.
She didn't imagine destruction.
She didn't imagine force.
She imagined a conclusion.
The boulder cracked cleanly down the middle.
No sound.
No blast.
Just an ending.
Her eyes snapped open.
Nyk's mouth was slightly open. "Okay, Not gonna lie… that was hard."
Christine stared at her hand, trembling.
Azelar nodded once.
"Now you understand," he said. "The gun was never the source. It was the symbol."
That evening, Christine sat alone near the fire.
The gun manifested silently beside her, resting against the stone.
She didn't pick it up.
Azelar approached and sat across from her.
"I always thought strength meant being ready to pull the trigger," she said quietly.
Azelar stirred the fire.
"Strength," he replied, "is knowing when pulling it would be wrong—and accepting the consequences."
She looked up at him.
"What if I hesitate when I shouldn't?"
Azelar met her gaze.
"Then you learn," he said simply. "And you live with it."
She nodded slowly.
Somewhere far away, in a darkness deeper than stars, something shifted—subtle, approving.
Christine reached for the gun.
This time, it felt lighter.
Not because it had less power—
But because she finally understood what it was asking of her.
And for the first time since she awakened, she slept without dreaming of pulling the trigger.