Damien had fought demons that breathed fire, men who had long since abandoned their humanity, and beasts stitched together from nightmare and bone. He'd survived every battlefield by following one rule: never hesitate.
Hesitation killed.
But as he watched Evelyn cradling Clara like porcelain, whispering vows into her hair as though words could bind her soul, Damien felt the familiar steel of that rule begin to corrode.
Because hesitation wasn't just in his bones now—it was strangling him.
He drew his whetstone slowly across his blade, the rasping sound cutting through the silence of their camp. The steel was already sharp enough to cleave through bone, but his hands wouldn't stop. His fingers needed the motion, the repetition, or else they'd shake.
Evelyn's voice still echoed in his skull: "If you touch her, you'll go through me first."
He'd seen that fire in her eyes before—on the battlefield, when enemies twice her size had tried to cut her down. She was fearless, unstoppable. He admired that about her, had since the day they'd first fought side by side.
But now? That same fire terrified him. Because Evelyn wasn't aiming it at their enemies. She was aiming it at him.
Damien's jaw tightened. He glanced at Clara. Her lips trembled in half-conscious murmurs, her body twitching as though fighting something unseen. He didn't need Zeke's cold calculations to know what that meant. He'd seen corruption before. He knew what it did to people. How fast it spread once it found a foothold.
He remembered the first one he had to kill—his own captain. The man who had trained him, fed him when he was too young to hold his own, who'd called him "son" in a rare unguarded moment. When the shadows crept in, when the man's voice had begun to slip into someone else's, Damien hadn't hesitated. He had put his blade through the man's chest without giving him time to scream.
It had been the right choice. The only choice.
So why couldn't he move now?
Why did the thought of raising his blade against Clara freeze him where he sat?
"Because she's different," Evelyn would say. And gods help him, he wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe that Clara's fragile smile, the way she clung to Evelyn's hand like a lifeline, meant she could resist. That she wouldn't become just another vessel for Yurin Crimson to hollow out.
But deep inside, Damien knew better.
Clara was already half gone.
He clenched his jaw, pressing the whetstone harder than necessary. Sparks flicked off the steel, and he winced at the sound—it felt too much like a scream.
"Damien."
His head snapped up. Zeke was standing near the edge of the firelight, his shadow stretched thin across the dirt. The man's expression was unreadable, but his eyes gleamed like polished glass.
"What."
"You're hesitating," Zeke said flatly.
Damien scowled. "You think I don't know that?"
Zeke tilted his head, unblinking. "Knowing and admitting are different things. Evelyn's defiance has you second-guessing. You're questioning the line between protecting and killing."
Damien's grip tightened on his blade. "You sound like you've already made your choice."
"I have," Zeke said, voice even, chilling. "The moment she crosses the threshold, she dies. Evelyn won't do it. You're hesitating. That leaves me."
The words hit harder than Damien expected. Not because he disagreed, but because of how damn calm Zeke was about it. As if Clara wasn't a person anymore, just a box to be ticked off a list.
Damien wanted to be angry. He wanted to tell Zeke he was wrong, that Clara deserved more than that kind of cold arithmetic. But the truth was, Zeke's words mirrored his own thoughts.
And that was what terrified him most.
He set the whetstone down, sliding the blade back into its sheath with a click. He didn't answer Zeke, because any answer he gave would betray just how badly Evelyn's vow had shaken him.
Instead, he stood and walked toward the fire, his shadow crossing over Evelyn and Clara. Evelyn looked up at him, her eyes burning with a warning that needed no words.
He met her gaze, and for a brief moment, the silence between them was heavier than any battlefield Damien had ever stood on.
He wanted to tell her the truth—that he didn't want to kill Clara, that the thought of it ripped something raw inside him. But he also wanted to tell her the other truth—that if it came down to it, he would.
And that was the blade twisting inside his chest.
So he said nothing.
Instead, he turned away, walking into the dark beyond the firelight, where the shadows were thick and mercifully silent. But no matter how far he walked, Evelyn's eyes haunted him.
Eyes that promised war—against him, against Zeke, against the world itself—if Clara's life was threatened.
And Damien knew, sooner or later, that vow and his hesitation would collide.
And when it happened… hesitation would kill again.