The fourth day of training dawned with a heaviness that had nothing to do with the gray sky.
I woke early, the thin bunk creaking under me as I sat up. The outpost was quiet, but not peaceful. The kind of quiet that comes before something breaks.
Across the room, Nyx was already awake, sitting on the edge of her bunk with her knees drawn to her chest. Her wings were folded tight, but trembling slightly. She stared at her hands like they belonged to someone else.
"Morning," I whispered.
She looked up, black-rose eyes dimmer than usual. "Is it?"
I didn't know how to answer that.
Kael was gone from his bunk. His blanket neatly folded, pack closed. But the bottle,the empty serum bottle,wasn't in the trash where he'd hidden it before. It was gone.
Like he'd taken it with him.
Or destroyed the evidence.
Training started with weapons specialization,deeper now. No more basics.
Lira worked with Amie on advanced blade techniques,feints within feints, disarms, strikes from blind spots. Lira's face was stone, but sweat poured down her temples, and every correction Amie gave, she absorbed like a sponge.
"You're getting it," Amie said after Lira executed a perfect disarm that sent Kai's practice sword clattering across the floor. "Deception isn't lying. It's truth delayed."
Lira nodded, breathing hard. But her eyes flicked to Kael more than once.
He was training one-handed again.
Even though he didn't need to.
His healed hand stayed tucked against his chest, movements stiff and deliberate. Like the injury still lingered.
But I'd seen him flex it in the night. Seen the fingers move freely.
He was hiding it.
From all of us.
Kai noticed too. His grin was gone when he sparred with Kael, movements careful.
"You're holding back," Kai said quietly after blocking a weak strike. "Why?"
"Pain," Kael muttered.
But his eyes said something else.
Guilt.
My training with Kai was different today.
"Evasion isn't just running," he said, circling me with the practice sword. "It's choosing when to be seen and when not to be. It's making them chase shadows."
He attacked,faster this time.
I moved.
Ducked, twisted, slipped past. The dagger in my hand found openings I hadn't seen yesterday. Tapped his side. His arm. His back.
"Good," he said, breathing harder. "You're thinking now. Not just reacting."
Warmth spread through me again. Pride. Real pride.
But then he stopped, lowering the sword.
"Yona... have you felt anything? Different? Since the mark?"
I froze.
The whispers. The dreams. The way sometimes my hands tingled, like something under my skin wanted out.
"A little," I admitted.
He nodded slowly. "When it happens... tell someone. Me. Amie. Xeno. Don't carry it alone."
I wanted to ask why he looked so serious. Why his eyes held something like fear.
But I just nodded.
Nyx's training was... wrong.
She moved like always,fast, chaotic, wings flaring for impossible angles. But something was off.
She hesitated.
Missed cues.
Forgot sequences Amie had taught her yesterday.
"Nyx—left flank!" Amie called during a drill.
Nyx turned right.
A practice strike from Kai clipped her wing. She stumbled, crashing to the floor.
"Ow," she muttered, sitting up slowly. "That... hurt."
Amie crouched beside her. "You okay?"
Nyx frowned. "I think so. But... why did I turn right? You said left."
Silence.
Another memory gone.
Small, but gone.
She touched her temple, fingers trembling. "It's getting faster."
No one knew what to say.
Because there was nothing to say.
She was losing herself.
And we couldn't stop it.
Xeno trained alone most of the day.
Teamwork drills with him were... dangerous.
His strength was too much. His precision too perfect.
When paired with Lira, his shovel swing came too close,wind ruffling her hair, force enough to crack bone.
When with Nyx, a block sent her tumbling, wings flaring to catch herself.
When with me...
He stopped.
Just stopped mid-swing, shovel inches from my face.
I hadn't even seen him move.
"Too close," he said quietly.
Then walked away.
Didn't train with us again that day.
Kai watched him go, frown deep.
"He's holding back more than strength," Kai said later. "He's afraid of hurting us."
"Of course he is," Amie replied. "Look at him. He's a weapon. And he knows it."
Kael's secret broke that night.
We were eating rations,quiet, exhausted,when Amie noticed.
"Kael... your hand."
He froze.
The healed one,the one he'd kept hidden,was resting on his knee. Fingers flexing normally. No swelling. No purple skin.
Perfect.
Silence fell heavy.
"You took it," Amie said quietly. "The serum."
Kael didn't deny it.
"I had to," he said, voice rough. "The pain... I couldn't think. Couldn't fight. We need every advantage."
Lira's face went cold. "From a Xenophore? You trust that?"
"I trust surviving," Kael snapped.
Nyx looked up, rose eyes dim. "It worked, didn't it? No side effects. Yet."
The "yet" hung in the air.
Kai's voice was gentle. "What if there are? What if it changes you?"
Kael met his eyes. "Then I'll deal with it. Like we deal with everything else."
But his hand trembled slightly.
Just once.
Before he hid it again.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The whispers were louder.
Not words. Just... presence.
Something watching from inside me.
I slipped from my bunk, bare feet cold on concrete, and went to the training room.
Moonlight,gray and weak,filtered through cracks, enough to see shapes.
Xeno was there.
Sitting against the wall, shovel across his lap.
He didn't look up when I approached.
"Can't sleep?" he asked.
"No."
I sat beside him. Not too close.
"The whispers," I said quietly.
He nodded.
"They're getting louder."
Another nod.
"What if..." I swallowed. "What if it's not me anymore? What if something else is—"
"It's still you," he said. Voice flat. Certain.
"How do you know?"
"Because you're fighting it."
Silence.
I looked at his blindfold. At the cross chain peeking from under his collar,the one he'd touched sometimes when he thought no one saw.
"Do you ever feel like something else?" I asked.
He was quiet for a long time.
"Every day," he said finally.
I didn't ask more.
Didn't need to.
We sat in silence until the gray light shifted, morning coming slow and cold.
Twenty-six days left.
And the cracks were spreading.
Not just in us.
But between us.