"And you chose."
"I chose to burn every bridge. Absorb everything she'd taught me in three days and turn it against her." Victoria's smile was savage. "The look on her face when I attacked. When she realized I'd been learning specifically to kill her. That was worth everything."
"Did you hurt her? Really hurt her?"
"Yes. First blood from that rank of entity in a century." Victoria's smile faded. "But it cost me. Look."
She pulled her collar aside. A scar ran from her collarbone to her shoulder, it was back and not like a normal wound. Like corruption given physical form.
"That's League magic. It's eating at me slowly and I have maybe five years before it consumes me entirely."
I stared. "Five years?"
"At most. Could be three, could even be one." She covered it again. "The price of absorbing League techniques and the price of fighting at above my rank when my body was not meant for that. The price of betrayal."
"Victoria....."
