The bodies were dragged outside. Kael didn't speak while he moved them he never did in moments like this. His face was all sharp lines, his movements practiced, too practiced.
Selena couldn't look. She sat curled against the cave wall, arms wrapped tight around her knees, the dagger lying useless at her side.
Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. Even now, even though it was over. The fight replayed again and again in her head the mask, the eyes she couldn't see, the weight of that blade pressing down on hers, the way her own scream had torn out of her throat. And then
The blood.
It was on her still, smudged across her skin, under her fingernails. No matter how much she wiped at it, it stayed.
Her chest ached so bad she could barely breathe.
She whispered, hoarse, to no one. "I killed him."
Kael's shadow stretched long as he came back into the cave. He crouched across from her, arms resting loosely on his knees. He didn't flinch at the words. He didn't deny them either.
