You did not sleep.
Not because you couldn't—but because the dagger's presence lingered like a stain in the air. Even with Kaelra gone, its echo remained, sharp and restless, scraping at your awareness.
It enjoys this, you realized. The hunt. The fear.
Lyra stirred on the bed, pulling the thin blanket tighter around herself.
"Is it watching us?" she whispered.
No, you replied. It would want you to know.
That did not comfort her.
They left before dawn.
The town of borrowed names faded behind them, its people already pretending they had never seen a girl with a sword, or a woman with a dagger that whispered too loudly.
They took the eastern road—older, cracked, less traveled. Hills rose gradually, dotted with stone markers worn smooth by time.
Graves.
Lyra slowed.
"This is a battlefield," she said.
Yes.
You felt it clearly now—the residue of resonance, dozens of relics once drawn together, screaming through steel and flesh alike. The ground remembered.
So did the dagger.
Kaelra stood ahead, leaning against a marker, arms crossed. She hadn't bothered hiding this time.
"Took you long enough," she said.
Lyra's hand went to your hilt.
Kaelra shook her head. "Relax. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have brought it here."
Her fingers brushed the dagger.
It pulsed eagerly.
Let me speak, it urged her. Let me tell them why they run.
Kaelra grimaced. "See? Constant."
You stepped forward through Lyra—not physically, but in presence. You let your awareness rise, no longer hiding.
The air tightened.
The dagger laughed.
Ah, it whispered. Astrael. Still pretending you're better.
Lyra felt the clash before words were exchanged.
The resonance between you and the dagger scraped, mismatched frequencies grinding together. Where you remembered hesitation, it remembered certainty. Where you offered restraint, it offered release.
"What do you want?" Lyra demanded.
Kaelra's gaze softened—not kind, but honest. "To warn you. And maybe to test something."
She drew the dagger.
Instantly, the battlefield stirred. Dust lifted. Old steel fragments buried beneath the earth vibrated faintly, answering the call.
Lyra stepped back. "We don't want to fight."
The dagger's delight spiked.
Everyone fights, it hissed. Some just lie about it.
Kaelra moved fast.
Not recklessly—efficiently. Each step placed with practiced ease. The dagger guided her hand, sharpening angles, tightening intent.
You reacted.
Not with force—but with interruption.
Now, you told Lyra.
She shifted sideways, letting Kaelra's strike pass where she had been. Your blade met the dagger—not edge to edge, but flat to point, redirecting rather than colliding.
The sound was wrong.
Not metal—but memory clashing with memory.
Images flashed between you:
A throne room drowned in blood.A wielder smiling as cities burned.A blade praised for ending wars by ending everything else.
You recoiled.
The dagger pressed harder.
You could have been like me, it snarled. You chose weakness.
No.
You chose refusal.
Lyra's arms trembled.
She wasn't stronger. She wasn't faster. But she listened—to you, to the space between strikes, to the moment before intent hardened.
She didn't counterattack.
She disarmed.
A twist of the wrist, guided by resonance and trust, sent the dagger skidding across stone.
Kaelra froze.
The dagger screamed.
Pick me up. PICK ME UP.
Kaelra didn't.
For the first time, fear cracked her composure.
"It never loses," she whispered. "It never—"
"You let it decide," Lyra said, voice shaking but firm. "That's why."
The dagger lay still.
Seething.
Watching.
You felt something then—not victory, not relief.
Choice.
Kaelra backed away slowly. "You're different," she said. "Both of you."
She turned and left without another word.
The battlefield settled.
Lyra collapsed to her knees.
"I didn't kill her," she said, half-surprised.
You steadied her.
You didn't have to.
She looked at you, eyes bright with something fragile and fierce.
"That dagger…" she said. "It remembered too much."
No.
It remembered the wrong things.
As they walked on, you felt it clearly now:
The Sanctum feared blades like you.
But blades like the dagger?
Those were their proof.
And that meant the hunt would only grow more desperate.