In Cain's sixth month in the underground city, Hank told him it was time to draw blood.
Not the blood from the training ground—in those six months, Cain's palms had been scraped raw countless times. Blisters had risen, burst, risen again, and finally hardened into thick calluses. The scar on his left cheek had healed into a pale pink line, running from his left eyebrow to his cheekbone. His body had changed too—the ten-year-old boy who had been as thin as a bamboo pole now had visible muscle definition in his arms. His shoulders had broadened. His back and waist had grown harder.
But the blood Hank was talking about wasn't his own.
"You've trained for six months. You've chopped through seventeen wooden posts and dulled two practice swords." Hank stood in the center of the training ground, arms crossed over his chest. "But have you ever killed a living thing?"
Cain was silent for a moment.
"No."
"Then it's time." Hank unstrapped a short knife from his belt and tossed it to Cain. Cain caught it. The blade flashed under the silver moss light.
"Tonight's task is simple," Hank said. "Three miles east, there's a wolf den in the woods. The alpha has been attacking our hunters. Killed one man last week. Marcus says it's time for a cleanup."
Cain gripped the knife hilt and looked at Hank.
"You go alone," Hank said. "No Iris. No one else. If you don't kill the alpha, don't come back."
Cain slid the knife into the leather sheath at his belt, turned, and walked toward the tunnel.
After three steps, Hank's voice came from behind him:
"A wolf isn't a Godservant. But it will teach you what it feels like to have blood on your hands."
Cain did not look back.
At dusk, Iris blocked his path in the tunnel.
"I heard you're going alone to kill wolves?" She leaned against the wall, arms crossed, a hint of displeasure in her emerald eyes.
Cain nodded.
"Hank is insane," Iris said. "That wolf killed a hunter. You've only trained for six months—"
"Enough," Cain cut her off.
Iris stared at him for a few seconds, then sighed. She pulled three arrows from the quiver at her waist and held them out to him.
"Take these. If you run into trouble, at least you'll have something to defend yourself with."
Cain looked at the three arrows. He didn't take them.
"I don't know how to shoot."
"Then use them as daggers." Iris shoved the arrows into his hand. "The arrowheads are tempered iron. They'll kill just fine if you stab them into a wolf's eye."
Cain looked down at the arrows in his hand, then up at Iris.
"Why are you helping me?"
Iris blinked. Then she turned her face away and said something in a voice too low for Cain to hear.
"What?"
"I said—because you're my training partner." Iris's voice returned to normal, but the tips of her ears were slightly red. "If you die, I'll have to train alone again."
Cain looked at her. The corner of his mouth twitched—not a smile, just a twitch.
"I won't die."
"Easy for you to say." Iris turned and walked toward the training ground. After a few steps, she stopped. "Hey."
"Yes?"
"When you come back, don't be all banged up. I don't want to bandage your wounds again."
She left.
Cain stood where he was, watching her figure disappear around the corner of the tunnel. Then he tucked the three arrows into his belt.
After nightfall, Cain set out.
He didn't go above ground through the main entrance—the underground city's exit was hidden beneath the roots of an old oak tree. Push aside a wooden plank disguised as a rock, and you could crawl out to the surface. This was the first time in six months that Cain had seen the real sky.
The moon was hidden behind clouds. Stars hung sparsely overhead, like scattered diamonds on black velvet. Night wind blew through the forest, carrying the scent of earth and pine resin. Cain took a deep breath—the air in the underground city was always damp and smelled of rust. But the air outside was cool. Sweet. Alive.
He crouched by the tree roots, took half a minute for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, then hunched low and moved east toward the woods.
Hank said the woods were three miles away. Cain had been running for six months; three miles meant nothing to him now. But he didn't run. He walked slowly, placing each step where the leaves were thinnest, making as little noise as possible. This was what Hank had taught him: the first step of a hunt isn't the strike. It's the approach. If your prey doesn't know you're there, you've already won half the battle.
He reached the woods.
Cain stopped at the tree line, crouched behind a bush, and listened.
He heard the wind moaning through pine needles. He heard an owl calling in the distance. He heard the gurgle of a creek flowing over stones. And he heard something else.
A low, threatening growl.
No more than twenty paces to his left.
Cain turned his head slowly. He saw two green lights.
A wolf's eyes reflect light in the darkness, like two ghost flames. Those green lights floated about half a meter above the ground, motionless, staring at him.
Cain's right hand moved slowly, slowly to the knife at his belt.
He didn't draw. The sound of the blade leaving the sheath would alert the wolf. He just gripped the hilt, feeling the texture of the leather cord, letting his breathing grow slow and soft.
The green lights moved.
The wolf stepped out from behind the bushes. Moonlight leaked through a gap in the clouds, illuminating its silhouette. It was a gray-white she-wolf, smaller than Cain had imagined, but its muscles were taut beneath its fur, every line carved like a knife blade.
Behind it, more green lights appeared.
One, two, three, four, five.
Six wolves.
Cain's heartbeat quickened slightly, but his face showed nothing. Hank had said: Beasts can smell fear. Fear has a scent. It seeps out of your pores and turns the hunted into the hunter.
Cain didn't know if he smelled of fear. But he knew one thing—he wouldn't run.
Running meant losing.
The alpha male stepped out of the darkness.
It was a full size larger than the female, its shoulder height nearly reaching Cain's waist. Its fur was dark gray. Its left ear was missing a chunk. A white old scar ran across its nose. Its eyes weren't green.
They were amber.
The same color as Cain's eyes.
The wolf stared at Cain, a low growl rumbling in its throat. Its lips peeled back, revealing two rows of white teeth. Behind it, the other five wolves fanned out in a semicircle, cutting off all of Cain's escape routes.
They weren't here to scare him. They were here to eat him.
Cain drew his knife.
The sound of the blade leaving the sheath rang sharp in the night air, like a snapped guitar string. He gripped the hilt, point down, lowered his center of gravity, bent his knees—the fighting stance Hank had taught him. Low center. Ready to spring.
The alpha lunged.
It moved like a gray lightning bolt, closing forty paces in less than two seconds. Cain saw its open mouth. Saw its teeth gleaming in the moonlight. Saw its own face reflected in the wolf's eyes.
He sidestepped left.
The knife came up in a rising slash, cutting across the wolf's right ribs.
The blade parted fur and muscle. Warm blood sprayed across Cain's face.
The alpha hit the ground and let out a sharp, piercing yelp. Its right ribs were laid open. Blood poured down its fur. But it didn't fall. It turned. Its amber eyes no longer held a threat.
They held fury.
Cain didn't give it a second chance to lunge.
He charged.
The knife drove into the alpha's throat, from the lower jaw all the way to the skull. The wolf's body stiffened in midair for a heartbeat—then hit the ground like a wet sandbag. It twitched twice. Then it was still.
Blood gushed from its throat and soaked through the soles of Cain's boots.
The remaining five wolves stood in the darkness, their green eyes flickering. But none of them charged.
Cain crouched beside the alpha's body, his right hand still gripping the knife buried in the wolf's throat. Blood dripped from the hilt onto his hand—warm, thick, with the rusty smell of iron. His face was covered in blood. Some had splashed from the wolf. Some flowed from his own forehead—the alpha's claw had raked across his brow during his sidestep, leaving three shallow scratches.
He raised his head and looked at the five pairs of green lights.
"Come on," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried far in the night air.
The five green lights flickered. Then they began to retreat.
One, two, three—they turned and vanished into the darkness.
A wolf pack does not fight without its alpha.
Cain knelt beside the wolf's body, gasping for breath. His hands were shaking—not from fear, but from the adrenaline crash. His body was paying its debts.
He looked down at the dead wolf.
Its amber eyes were still open, but the light inside them had gone out.
Cain reached out and closed the wolf's eyelids.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
He didn't know who he was apologizing to. The wolf? Himself? His father? The hunter the wolf had killed?
He just felt that he should say sorry.
Then he pulled the knife from the wolf's throat, wiped the blade clean on the wolf's fur, stood up, and walked back toward the underground city.
After a dozen steps, his legs went weak. He grabbed a tree trunk, bent over, and dry-heaved a few times—nothing came up. His stomach was empty. Only bile rose in his throat.
He wiped his mouth and kept walking.
This was his first kill.
Not his last.
When Cain returned to the underground city, Hank was waiting for him at the entrance.
Hank looked at Cain's blood-soaked body—wolf blood mixed with his own, staining his gray clothes dark red—then looked at the knife in his hand.
"Did you kill it?"
"Killed the alpha," Cain said. "The others ran."
Hank nodded. He didn't ask about the process. Didn't ask for details. He just unstrapped a waterskin from his belt and tossed it to Cain.
"Wash up. Your sister will cry if she sees you like this."
Cain caught the waterskin and poured water over his face to wash off the blood. The cold water stung the wound on his forehead like needle pricks. He didn't flinch.
"How did it feel?" Hank asked. "Killing for the first time."
Cain was silent for a few seconds.
"My hands shook."
"Normal."
"My stomach felt bad."
"Normal."
"I felt like I should be sad. But I wasn't."
Hank looked at him. Something flickered in his gray-blue eyes—something Cain couldn't read.
"That's also normal," Hank said, his voice lower than usual. "But remember this—it's okay not to be sad. Just don't start enjoying it. The moment killing becomes pleasure, you're not far from becoming a monster."
Cain tossed the waterskin back to Hank and wiped his face with his sleeve.
"I understand."
"Go to the medical bay and get that wound wrapped," Hank said. "Then go eat. Your sister has been waiting for you."
Cain turned and walked toward the tunnel. After a few steps, he stopped.
"Instructor."
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
Hank didn't answer. Cain didn't look back.
He just heard a very soft, almost inaudible sigh behind him.
In the medical bay, Iris was organizing bandages.
When she saw Cain walk in, the bandages slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor.
"You—"
"My forehead got scratched by a claw," Cain said. "It's nothing."
"I'm talking about all the blood on your body!" Iris's voice rose. "What did you kill? A bear?"
"A wolf."
"One wolf sprayed that much blood on you?"
"The alpha," Cain said. "I stabbed it in the throat."
Iris stared at him for a few seconds, then took a deep breath, bent down to pick up the bandages, and dusted them off.
"Sit."
Cain sat on the wooden bed in the medical bay. Iris stood in front of him, dipped a clean cloth in water, and began wiping the blood from his face. Her movements were rougher than usual—not careless. She was angry.
"What are you angry about?" Cain asked.
"I'm not angry."
"You're hurting me."
"Good."
Iris wiped the last crust of blood from his eyebrow, then took the bandages and began wrapping the wound on his forehead. She kept her head down, her eyelashes casting a small shadow beneath her eyes, her lips pressed into a thin line.
"You promised you wouldn't get hurt," she said quietly.
"I never promised that."
"You promised in your heart."
Cain looked at her. He said nothing.
Iris tied off the bandage, stepped back, and looked him over.
"Done. It's ugly, but it won't get infected."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Thank yourself for not dying."
She gathered up the medical supplies and turned to leave. At the door, she stopped.
"Cain."
"Yes."
"When you have blood on your hands... you look different."
Cain looked down at his hands. The blood was washed off, but he still felt like there was red left beneath his fingernails.
"Different how?"
"You seem... farther away," Iris said. "Like you've gone somewhere far, and no matter how loud I call, you can't hear me."
She left.
Cain sat alone in the medical bay, looking at his hands.
He spread his fingers. Closed them. Spread them. Closed them.
The blood on his hands could be washed off.
But the blood in his heart?
He didn't know.
He stood up, walked out of the medical bay, and headed to the mess hall.
Lyra was still waiting for him.
That night, Cain sat across from Lyra, eating in silence.
Lyra didn't ask where he had been. Didn't ask why his forehead was bandaged. Didn't ask how the blood got on his clothes. She just picked up a piece of meat from her own bowl and put it in Cain's bowl. Then she lowered her head and continued eating.
Cain looked at the piece of meat in his bowl. He looked at it for a long time.
Then he ate it.
"Cain," Lyra said suddenly.
"Yes."
"No matter what you become... you're still my brother."
Cain stopped chewing.
He raised his head and looked at Lyra. Lyra wasn't looking at him. She was focused on her soup, lifting the spoon to her mouth one sip at a time. Her movements were slow. Deliberate.
"I know," Cain said.
He lowered his head and continued eating.
People came and went in the mess hall. The silver moss light fell on everyone's faces, dyeing all their expressions the same color.
Cain finished his meal, stood up, picked up his sword from the table, and walked toward the training ground.
Lyra didn't look up at him.
But she heard his footsteps—heavier than yesterday, steadier than yesterday, more like a warrior's than yesterday.
She lowered her head and continued drinking her soup.
The soup was cold, but she drank it slowly. Deliberately.
As if, as long as she drank slowly enough, time would stop. Her brother wouldn't grow up anymore. Wouldn't get hurt anymore. Wouldn't turn into someone she didn't recognize.
But soup always runs out.
And time never stops.