The village woke to a peace that felt almost fragile, as if one loud breath could crack it and spill the night back in. We had five days left to stay, five days to make sure the forest had no more teeth hiding behind the leaves. Everyone we passed smiled too quickly, thanked us too much, and pressed more bread into our hands than anyone could eat. Gratitude had a way of being heavy. I carried it anyway.
We'd argued about staying, once. Now that we were committed, routine anchored us. Sunrise to sundown, we moved in a loop that felt simple on paper and stubborn in practice: check the tree line, circle the outer fields, speak to families along the lane, test door locks and salt lines, return for lunch, then train until our arms trembled. If the System had wanted to warm us with praise, it chose silence instead. I could feel it in me, quiet and alert, like a hawk riding a thermal.
On the first morning, the drunkard found us by the well and declared that I'd cut a vampire in half and then in half again for emphasis. I told him that was physically difficult. He told me physics could wait its turn when heroism had the floor. Chloe bit her lip not to laugh. Landon didn't try.
We walked the north path until the mist burned off and the forest opened like a chapel. The pines were tall and stoic, needles whispering high overhead. Every small sound felt magnified in there—one bird taking off, a twig cracking, the huff of a stag shifting weight in the bracken. We marked the perimeter with chalk and twine. Landon left small signs only we would understand: a notch in bark at shoulder height, a loop of string tied beneath a root where a careful eye might miss it. If anything entered from the deep woods, we'd know.
That first afternoon, we set our training ring by a fallen oak on a patch of flat earth the villagers used when they needed a level place to dry dyed cloth. It smelled faintly of lye and river. I could feel the itch for movement in my bones. Killing monsters sharpens the blade; drilling keeps it from rusting.
I willed the armor away before we began, letting it melt from my body in a cool rush that left me lighter. Landon rolled his shoulders, loose and ready. Chloe tied her hair high and tight with a leather thong and cracked her knuckles like she was about to scold the world.
"Hand to hand?" she asked.
"Three-way," Landon said.
"No teams?" I said.
"Only loyalty is to your footwork," he replied, smiling a little. "First fall loses a point. Three points ends the round."
"Your funeral," I told him.
We took positions at three points of a triangle marked in dust. The wind kicked up once, bringing the smell of bread from the village ovens. A bell tolled. I lifted my hands, palms loose, elbows close, feet light. The world narrowed, clean and bright.
I switched the commentary on.
Breath steady. Knees soft. Observe. Wait.
Chloe came first, quick as a spark. Her feints were always neat—tiny motions made to look extraneous, lures wrapped in casual shrug. I didn't bite. She kicked midline; I caught her shin with my forearm, pivoted outward, and rode her momentum past me. She spun, elbowed back, cutting air where my head had been, the heel of her palm following, a near-miss that clipped my jaw and made my teeth ring.
Landon slipped in through that opening like he'd planned it with her. He didn't hit often in practice; he hit exactly. A straight cross snapped toward my ribs. I blocked and felt the weight of him all the way through my shoulder. Then I turned his arm, twisted my hips, and threw him. He hit the ground in a controlled roll that almost took my ankles.
Angle improved. Maintain space. Do not admire your work.
Chloe tried to sweep me, low and fast. I hopped the leg and came down into her shoulder with my knee—not hard, just enough to tell the body where to go. She grinned around a grimace and took the fall, slapped the earth, and sprung to her feet with dirt in her smile.
"One—Ava," Landon said, dusting himself off.
"Very official," Chloe muttered, circling.
We moved with a rhythm I knew from childhood—the give and take, the quiet testing, the little betrayals of balance that say more than any strike. Landon feinted left and went right. I slipped inside his guard, got a hand on his collar, and rotated my hips to try to flip him. He anchored. We became a knot of limbs and leverage. He almost had me, then Chloe crashed into him from the blind side and made me the lever instead. We hit the ground together in a knot that turned into an inelegant tumble.
"Zero points for that art," I said, breathless.
"Minus one for grace," Chloe added, laughing.
We got meaner after that, because kindness is a bad teacher in training. My hands found their way to every soft spot I knew: the "brachial stun" behind the jawline, the tendon on the inside of the elbow, the small nerves braided under the collarbone that make the arm forget its job. Landon absorbed, redirected, punished mistakes with simple, clean answers. Chloe flowed around us, using angles and speed to turn our mass against itself.
Micro-tension in shoulders. Release. Exhale on contact. Counter incoming.
I realized my left foot was landing hard and flat, telegraphing in a way I wouldn't forgive in a student. I softened the ankle and felt speed return. Chloe looped her arm around my neck and tried to choke. I tucked my chin, scraped my knuckles along her forearm, and cut through the space with a shoulder drop that made her stumble. Landon was already there when I stood—one, two, three—light taps to the cheekbone, the jaw, the solar plexus that turned into what would have been a knockout if he'd thrown hips behind them.
I earned my second fall the way most people do: with a glance. A kid shouted at the treeline and I looked. Landon took the point before my focus snapped back.
"Two—Landon," he said, almost apologetic.
Chloe's smile said she'd have done the same. She feinted high and came in low, trying to sit me on my spine. I answered with knees and elbows—short, ugly things that proved their honesty by how little they traveled. We clinched. The world turned into breath and heat and the small, private violence of close quarters. When we broke, none of us had a clean shirt left.
The round ended with me and Landon crashing hard and Chloe bouncing in place, hands loose, eyes bright, the burn in her lungs feeding whatever quiet joy lived inside her when she was honest enough to show it.
"Two—Ava," he said, nodding, then pointed with his chin at Chloe. "One."
"Final?" she asked.
"One more," I said.
The last exchange unfolded like a memory we hadn't made yet. I stepped when he stepped. She cut when I opened. Hands found faces, ribs, wrists. Feet found thighs. I felt the commentary thread my bones.
Timing right. Now. Turn. Cut angle. Again.
I faked a stumble. Landon came to finish with a tidy clinch and throw. I twisted a fraction early and took him with me. Chloe launched to capitalize, misread the weight shift, and I gave her my forearm like a gift. She took it, fell, rolled, popped back up, and came for me like a storm anyway. I caught her—barely—and we locked, breath loud, foreheads almost touching.
"Truce?" I said.
She smirked. "Not a chance."
She tried to knee me. I turned hip and we both went down smiling. Landon counted to three for formality, then to ten for the breath that came after, when the heart slows and the world returns.
We lay in the grass with our chests heaving, listening to the wind work the trees. The kids clapped like we'd bled for them. In its quiet way, the System purred against my skin and then retreated as I flicked the commentary off. Silence came back like a lake, smooth and untroubled.
On the second day, we brought steel into the ring.
We didn't wear the armor for practice. I wanted the arms to remember weight and speed without the comfort of plates or mesh. I called the armory up with a thought and chose my falchion. The blade formed with a clean hiss, curved and hungry, edge bright enough to make the sunlight blink. Chloe took the longer of her twin daggers and left the other sleeping in the vault. Landon reached for his greatsword and then surprised me by drawing the straight, broad blade he used when space was tight.
"Live edges?" Chloe asked, eyes on me.
"Live," I said. "Respect keeps us whole."
We marked a rectangle with twine and stakes. Landon inspected the perimeter like a man measuring a grave and nodded. "We stop when anyone loses control. No heroes. We've drained enough elixirs for one season."
"Never my elixirs," Chloe said. "Always yours."
"Fair," he admitted.
We saluted without ceremony and stepped in.
Sparring with blades isn't like fighting monsters. Monsters lunge for throats. Swords ask you to answer questions correctly at speed. My first answer was a probing cut to Landon's wrist. He parried a hair outside my timing, which meant he'd seen it before I chose it. That irritated me, which made me sloppy, which made him smile.
Chloe attacked my left flank, the dagger describing a tight line toward my ribs. I shifted and caught it on the spine of the falchion, used the curve to carry it away, then rolled my wrist and threatened her throat. She leaned back, spine bending like a reed, brought her blade under mine, and turned the threat into a trap I ducked out of by inches.
We moved. The metal spoke in quick syllables—tick, rasp, hiss. Landon pressed me with a series of short cuts aimed at tendons. I answered with parries and small counters that let my blade kiss his and drift away like we were waltzing and trying to break each other's ankles at the same time. He was economical; I was mean.
Chloe forced me into uglier choices, closing distance with that dancer's feet and refusing to let me set my stance. She didn't give initiative; she stole it and spent it like coin. Twice I found the line for a thrust that would have ended a real fight. Twice she shaped her body around it, letting the metal graze without conceding anything but air.
Wrist too tight. Loosen. Use the curve. Breathe between beats.
I loosened. The blade moved like a thought and taught me all over again how much I'd been strangling it with pride. I went low when Landon expected high, brought the falchion up under his guard, and stopped with the edge kissing the inside of his forearm where a quick slice would teach the hand humility for a month. He tapped the flat with two fingers, eyes steady, thanks and acknowledgment sharing a single look.
Then he chose to remind me what weight can do when it's honest. He stepped in, torso quiet, shoulder calm, and cut straight down with a blow I barely checked. The shock through my arms woke a nerve near my elbow that hummed for ten heartbeats. My answer was mean and direct: a diagonal cut that promised to open his temple if he let it. He didn't. Chloe rushed my blind side again. I pivoted with her and gave her the flat across the ribs hard enough to bruise. She swore, grinned, and rewarded me with a nick on the sleeve that would have been a bicep if we were enemies.
We broke. Reset. Landon pressed Chloe, making her parry into the heavy line again and again until she had to choose between giving ground or risking steel against shin. She chose to vault over his blade, caught my attention with a flash of hair, and nearly took my ear off because arrogance insists on being punished promptly.
I shifted the commentary a fraction higher. It wasn't words so much as flashes of clarity that made space appear where there hadn't been any. Turn now. Two inches right. Cut short. Half-beat pause. I obeyed. The room inside the fight widened.
The eight hundred words of steel work we put down that afternoon could have filled a chapter by themselves—the rush and hush, the soft curse when a line closed too fast, the hard laugh when someone solved a problem with that ugly, beautiful answer called "it works." Even the wrapped hilts went slick with sweat. Hands learned workarounds. The falchion grew heavier, then honest again when I stopped fighting the weight and let the curve pull rather than drag. Landon found the moment where my left foot got lazy and built three exchanges out of punishing it in different ways. Chloe—bless her wicked soul—used the bounce of the earth itself to accelerate through a feint and made me feel slow for four heartbeats in a row.
We ended when all three of us had a line of red somewhere we respected: my forearm, Landon's cheek, Chloe's thigh. Nothing deep. Enough to teach. We cleaned blades, saluted, and remembered how to breathe without counting.
By the third day, the village had grown used to us—our loops around their fields, the way we stood still and listened, the way we looked into the dark places like we expected them to answer. Farmers nodded. Children offered us their wooden swords to inspect, solemn as priests. A baker pressed hot loaves into our hands so insistently that I began to suspect she thought Slayers ran on crust alone.
That afternoon, under the elm by the square, a small crowd gathered and decided to hold us hostage with curiosity. They asked with faces open and hands folded, and it would have been rude not to answer.
A woman with a red kerchief asked first. "Are you truly… not like us?"
"I am like you," I said. "I'm human. I bleed, I sleep, I eat too much when people keep handing me bread."
Laughter flickered across the circle. The woman wasn't deterred. "Then the System—how do you have it, and we don't?"
"We were born with it," I said. "Some families pass it down, some don't. It isn't a reward. It's a capacity. Like a voice. Most people sing; some are given more range than others."
"So you're singers?" a cobbler asked, frowning as if he didn't care for music.
"More like instruments," I said. "The System plays through us. We make the sound together."
A boy with ears a little too big for his head shoved his way to the front. "What does the System look like?"
I laughed out loud because there are questions that are better for their audacity. "It doesn't," I said. "Not the way you mean. It's not a person. It's not a spirit that whispers in one voice. It's a network of laws and language, and the body is a door it knows how to use. When I call, it answers with light sometimes, with feelings other times. It's patterns, not a face. Think of it like… the way wind moves the grass. You can't see wind. You see what it does."
The boy nodded very seriously as if he would tell that to the grass later. A different voice, older and harder, cut across the murmurs.
"Why do vampires exist?"
I turned toward the man who'd asked. He had a scar on his jaw and knuckles that told hard stories. "Because demons wanted agents in the world," I said. "They don't love to risk themselves when they can make others bleed first. So they make vampires out of human dead—fresh bodies, new graves. They take what's left and twist hunger into obedience. Vampires drink because that's what they are now. They serve because they were made to."
"Are demons the same?" the man asked.
"No," I said. "Worse and not the same. Demons are born. They look like us because they come through women like us. A demon father. A human mother. The child is a bridge. Part human, part devil. All demon where it matters."
Someone hissed between their teeth. Someone else crossed themselves. The man didn't blink. "So they're not the monsters in the old pictures. Not horns and fire."
"They don't need horns," I said softly. "They need smiles and hands and the ability to pass unnoticed until they don't. They can sit in your market and tell you jokes and buy your bread. Then they'll burn your house because you loved the wrong thing on the wrong day."
A girl lifted her hand like I was the schoolteacher she wanted to impress. "Where did they come from?"
"From devils," I said. "From the old days when devils walked like kings and broke the land into pieces for sport. The gods threw them out. You've heard those stories." Heads nodded. "What the stories don't always say is that devils left echoes behind. Not ghosts. Seeds. They planted pieces of themselves wherever they could. Demons are the harvest. The gods gave us the System to answer that harvest. We carry it so that when the old darkness pulls at the edges of the world, something pulls back."
No one spoke for a breath. Then the cobbler, practical and tired, said, "Doesn't it feel heavy?"
"Yes," I said. "And I'd rather carry it than let you."
They let me go after that. Curiosity ran out of fuel or compassion remembered I had lungs. Children followed us a while longer, practicing their lunges with sticks, yelling that they were Landon, then immediately changing their minds and yelling that they were Chloe because Chloe let them hold the real dagger for a perfectly supervised half-breath. Landon gave the drunkard a hug after he tried to kiss his hand. I pretended not to see Chloe's expression.
On the fourth day, nothing happened. Nothing in the way we wanted: no tracks across the chalk, no blood where there should have been grass. Nothing is a victory that never looks like one on a banner. It looks like an old woman sleeping without waking to count locks three times. It looks like the baker laughing with both hands free. It looks like dawn arriving on time.
We trained anyway beneath a bruised sky that suggested rain and never delivered. Our bodies remembered better and complained less. The commentary stayed off until I wanted it on, and when I asked, it answered in those small pulses that made my feet smarter rather than my head louder. We switched pairings, then switched again, so no bad habit could find a friend and settle in.
At night, the inn hummed with a quiet that didn't quite know how to believe in itself yet. The innkeeper tried to feed us twice as much as any three humans needed and then stood over us like a general to make sure we did our duty. I washed blood out of my scarf and thought about the last vampire we'd tagged and burned into ash, and about the way its eyes had cleared at the end, almost as if something inside had remembered it had been a person. I wrote two lines in a journal I kept in the bottom of my pack: Remember the eyes. Respect the dead. Kill quickly.
On the fifth day, the wind shifted. It carried rain and a scent I couldn't place at first, like cold iron washed clean. The villagers called it good weather and I chose not to argue. We did the loop one last time. No sign. No stir. The chalk lay undisturbed, a white whisper among roots. The forest watched without blinking.
I turned the commentary on for the quiet walk back and felt only a low hum like a cat in a sunbeam. It didn't tell me to move. It told me to breathe. Sometimes that's the hardest skill in the book.
Back in the square, the boy with the big ears brought me a crooked wreath made of weeds and pride. "For your door," he said.
"I don't have a door," I told him.
"Then for your pack," he said, unbothered.
"Perfect," I said, and tied it there so it dangled and made me ridiculous and made him proud.
We spent the last hours of our last day not killing anything at all. Chloe let the seamstress alter one of her tunics and pretended it was a sacrifice of state. Landon carried flour sacks for an old man and accepted advice about marriage from three different strangers with the patience of a saint. I sat by the well and sharpened my blade slowly while the drunkard told me for the thirtieth time how he planned to change his life. I told him I believed him and chose to mean it.