*Day 11 - Road South of the Sylvan Realm*
Ky'arahh smelled her before she saw her.
Corruption and pine sap. Death and growth. Wrong and right fucking in the air and making something new.
"Stop," Ky'arahh told her refugees. Seventeen had become thirty-one. Found them on the road, all walking south because south was away from crystallized nothing.
They stopped. They always stopped when Ky'arahh said stop. Not because they trusted her—they didn't know her well enough to trust. But because she never stopped moving, so when she did, it meant something.
Ora emerged from the forest like a wound walking.
Not stepped out. Emerged. Trees bent away from her then toward her, confused. Her footsteps left flowers that bloomed and rotted in the same breath. Her hair was vines. Her eyes were three colors that shouldn't exist in the same space.
Ky'arahh's knife was already out. Never stopped to think about pulling it. Motion was thought.
"You're her. The sister."
Ora tilted her head. Movement too smooth. Too wrong. "Lyra's sister."
"Yeah." Ky'arahh circled left. Always circling, always moving, shark in human skin. "Saw you try to save her. Saw you fail."
Something flickered in those triple-colored eyes. Pain maybe. Or hunger. Hard to tell the difference anymore.
"You saw."
"I saw everything. Saw her turn to light. Saw you reach. Saw you miss." Ky'arahh kept circling. The refugees pressed back, terrified. Good. Fear kept you alive. "Also saw who escaped while everyone died."
Ora went still. Completely still. The kind of still that made Ky'arahh's teeth itch.
"Who?"
"Information has a price."
"Name it."
"Promise you'll kill him slow."
"I promise nothing. Who?"
Ky'arahh should have negotiated. Should have leveraged. Should have done anything except what she did.
Which was tell the truth.
Because Lyra was light then nothing, and someone needed to pay.
"Netharion. Councilor fucking Netharion. Shadow-wrapped, walking through walls, taking payment in coins that scream."
Ora's stillness broke. She laughed. Not human laughter. Forest laughing. Ocean laughing. Void laughing.
"Netharion."
"He met with others. Called themselves Distillatori. Said you were planned. Said you were exactly what they wanted."
"Where?"
"South. Toward the Desolation. Direction they disappeared."
Ora started walking. Not toward Ky'arahh. Past her. South.
"Wait—"
"No."
"I'm coming with you."
"No."
Ky'arahh grabbed Ora's arm.
Mistake.
The corruption hit like ice-burn. Like soul-burn. Like the sensation of becoming nothing. Ky'arahh's hand went numb. Gray. Started to spread—
Ora pulled back. The corruption stopped. Reversed. Flowed back into Ora like water finding its level.
"Don't touch me."
"Don't tell me what to do." Ky'arahh's hand tingled, coming back to life. "Lyra was mine."
"Lyra was mine first."
"Family doesn't mean shit. I chose her. She chose me. Every night in the abandoned tower, she chose me over perfect lessons and perfect expectations and perfect—" Ky'arahh's voice cracked. Motion stopped.
Never stop. Never still. But grief was gravity and even sharks had to breathe.
"She talked about you," Ora said. Quietly. Like wind through dead trees. "Said you made her laugh. Said you were the only person in Crysillia who didn't bore her."
"She said that?"
"She said you moved like you were angry at stillness itself."
Ky'arahh barked a laugh. Started moving again. Had to. Stillness meant remembering.
"I'm hunting Netharion. Come or don't. But don't slow me down."
"I don't slow. I consume."
They walked south together. Not together-together. Parallel. Ora in her straight line of corruption and growth. Ky'arahh in her constant motion, checking refugees, scouting ahead, doubling back, never still, never straight, never stopping.
The refugees followed because following was easier than deciding.
Thom'duhr would join them two days later with his books and terror.
The dwarven brothers would find them by accident, Spun Duh literally running into them because he never looked where he was going.
But right now, it was just two girls who'd loved the same girl, walking toward the same revenge.
Ora leaked corruption like a broken vessel.
Ky'arahh leaked motion like a wound that wouldn't close.
Both heading south to make someone pay for the light that had been Lyra, then wasn't.
Fair trade.
The vendor's daughter tugged Ky'arahh's sleeve. Same girl from the first day. Still alive. Still following.
"She scares me."
"Good. Fear keeps you moving."
"What if she kills us?"
"Then we die moving."
The girl considered this with the practical philosophy children developed when the world ended.
"Okay."
They kept walking. Ora straight and inevitable. Ky'arahh in constant motion around her. Two different kinds of weapon, aimed at the same target.
Netharion.
The name tasted like copper and crystallized blood.
Someone would answer for Lyra's light.
Even if answering meant everyone dying.
Fair trade.
Maybe.
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*End Chapter 11.5*
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