A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with blood loss.
It went on.
"I will bind my existence to yours. My presence will strengthen you. Guide you. Preserve you when lesser men would fall." Its pale eyes narrowed slightly. "But you will bear me always. My voice. My will. My hunger for the same end you crave."
The black around us seemed to lean closer.
"You will not return to who you were."
I thought of myself before.
Before the broken house.
Before the three-headed lion.
Before Nate's blood in the street.
That person already felt distant.
A stupid boy hoping the world would one day stop looking down on him.
A boy who thought life could continue after a bad morning.
A boy who still had parents to come home to.
He was already dead.
"What's the price?" I asked.
The figure seemed almost pleased that I understood there had to be one.
"You carry me," it said. "Beside your soul. Inside your thoughts. You will always feel me." A pause. "And in return, I will feel you."
I frowned.
The meaning of that took a second to settle.
"You'll be in my head."
"Yes."
"You'll see everything?"
"In time," it said. "As you will see more of me."
I should have recoiled.
Maybe some part of me did.
But stronger than that was the image of claws through flesh. Of helplessness. Of lying in my own blood while the monster walked away because I was too small to matter.
Never again.
The words rose in me so hard they nearly hurt.
The figure seemed to sense it.
"It will cost you peace," it said softly. "It may cost you sleep. It may cost you innocence. It may cost you the shape of your humanity before the end."
Then it took one final step forward, until it stood directly before me.
"But it will give you a path to kill them."
The void went silent.
Even the whispers between the stars seemed to stop.
I looked into its pale, inhuman eyes.
"Who are you?" I asked.
For the first time, it hesitated.
Not long. Barely enough to notice.
Then it said, "The name I wore once matters less than the purpose I carry now."
"That isn't an answer."
"No," it agreed. "But it is the one you receive."
My jaw tightened.
Part of me wanted to demand more. To know what it was. Where it came from. Why it hated the monsters. Why it needed a human body to act.
But all of that was beneath the one truth that mattered.
It could save me.
It could make me strong.
It could help me kill them.
I thought of Nate again.
Not the way he died.
The way he looked at me in the alley and said, Because I know you.
I thought of him telling me not to do anything crazy.
A bitter, broken laugh almost rose in my throat.
Too late for that.
Then my parents.
My mother's hand brushing my hair years ago at the dinner table.
My father smiling over his coffee.
Their bodies on the floor.
Ripped open.
Abandoned.
I felt something in me harden beyond grief.
Not because the grief was gone.
Because it had finally found the shape it wanted to become.
The figure held out its hand.
The fingers looked human enough from a distance, but not up close. Too long. Too still. Their edges blurred into strands of shadow.
"Choose," it said.
I looked at the hand.
Then at the pale lights of its eyes.
Then into the endless dark around us full of false stars and impossible silence.
If I took its hand, there would be no going back.
If I refused, I would die.
And even if I lived somehow, I would remain weak.
Helpless.
Unable to do anything but grieve.
No.
I was done with helplessness.
"I accept," I said.
The words came out rough but steady.
The figure did not move.
"Speak clearly," it said. "Do not give me desperation. Give me intent."
My anger flared.
Fine.
I lifted my chin.
"I accept your pact," I said. "Live beside my soul. Give me power. And help me kill every monster in this world."
The pale lights in its face brightened.
For the first time, the figure smiled.
It was not a human smile.
"Done," it said.
The instant the word left its mouth, the void cracked.
Not around us.
Inside me.
Agony exploded through every part of me at once. Not pain like wounds. Not pain like claws or fire. This was deeper, something forcing itself through the center of what I was, entering places no other thing should have been able to touch.
I screamed.
The figure's hand struck my chest.
Or maybe passed into it.
I couldn't tell.
The cold flooded in first, so sharp it burned white.
Then heat after it, molten and violent.
The stars around us began to spin. Faster and faster until they became streaks of impossible light circling the black. The whispers returned, no longer distant but roaring now, thousands of voices pouring through me in languages I did not know and somehow almost understood.
Something moved into my soul.
There was no better way to describe it.
A presence. Vast and razor-edged. Ancient beyond sense.
It slid beside the center of me and settled there like a blade being sheathed in living flesh.
I convulsed.
My body arched in the void. Blood flew from me in bright red ribbons that turned silver in the dark. My wounds burned. Bones screamed. My heart hammered once, twice, then seemed to stop entirely before slamming back into motion with crushing force.
Images flooded me.
A forest of silver trees under a black sky.
A throne of white stone suspended above an endless abyss.
Monsters the size of mountains.
A battlefield littered with bodies that were not human and not beast but something between.
A pair of eyes, cold, furious, regal… staring through a storm of golden fire.
Then my parents again.
Nate.
The house.
The lion.
Back and forth and back and forth until I couldn't tell which memories were mine and which were not.
The voice was everywhere now.
Not much longer.
I screamed again, though I was no longer sure I had a throat to do it with.
The presence pressed harder beside my soul.
I felt it locking into place.
Not consuming me.
Not replacing me.
Joining me.
That was somehow worse.
I would still be myself.
Just not alone.
Never alone again.
Something seared across the center of my chest, a brand I could not see but felt with brutal clarity, lines of heat carving themselves beneath skin and bone alike.
Then, all at once, the pain changed.
The tearing in my side began to close.
Not gently. Not cleanly. I felt flesh drag itself together. Muscle knit. Blood reversed its flow in hot, nauseating pulls. My ribs shifted with wet little cracks. The claw wounds across my chest burned as if packed with salt and fire before sealing enough to stop my death.
I gasped.
Air rushed back into me.
Real air.
Smoke-filled, ash-thick, ruined-city air.
The void shattered.
I came back to the world with a violent jerk, sucking in a breath so sharp it scraped my lungs raw. I was on the floor of the ruined house again, half-curled in blood and rubble, coughing hard enough to shake my whole body.
Fire crackled nearby.
Ash drifted through the broken wall.
Pain still filled me, but differently now, distant enough to survive, close enough to never ignore.
I lay there panting, one hand pressed to my side.
My torn shirt was soaked with blood, but the wound beneath was no longer open enough to kill me. Deep. Ragged. Horribly tender.
But closed.
Alive.
I stared at my hand.
Then at the broken floor beneath me.
Then through the gap in the wall to the street outside.
Nate.
His body still lay there.
Motionless.
The sight hit me like a hammer, but this time I did not sink under it.
The grief was still there.
So was the rage.
And now something else stood beside them.
Purpose.
A voice spoke inside my head.
Not through my ears.
Inside.
Clearer than I expected, it said.
I froze.
My breathing stopped for half a second.
The voice continued, calm as ever.
The bond has taken well.
I swallowed hard.
"You're in me."
Yes.
I shut my eyes.
For one wild second I wanted to claw the thing back out, tear open my own chest, force it free.
Then I remembered the alternative.
Death.
Failure.
Powerlessness.
My jaw tightened.
"What now?"
There was the faintest trace of amusement in the presence beside my soul.
Now?
I pushed myself up on shaking arms. Pain flashed through my ribs and side, but I forced my legs under me anyway. The room tilted. I nearly fell.
Somehow, I stayed standing.
Inside my head, the voice answered.
Now you get up.
I looked through the broken wall again, past the blood-smeared stones, past Nate's still body, into the burning city beyond.
My hands slowly curled into fists.
The presence beside my soul settled more firmly, cold and watchful.
And together, we stared into the ruins.