When Lili woke again, the room was dimmer—curtains half-drawn, letting in slanted lines of golden light. Her body still ached, but the fog in her mind had begun to lift. Her breath came shallow but steady. She blinked, scanning the room. Notori wasn’t there. But Colin and Astonia were.
Astonia stood by the far wall, arms folded, gaze unreadable. Colin, on the other hand, was already moving toward her, a syringe glinting faintly in his hand.
Her pulse spiked. “No,” she whispered—then louder, “No—!”
Colin didn’t stop.
Lili threw off the blanket and bolted from the bed, legs trembling beneath her but moving with raw desperation. Her breath turned ragged, and her fingers clenched as instinct roared to life.
“I won’t let you do this again!” she screamed. Her sword materialized before her.
But it wasn’t exactly her sword. It had always been steel-gray. But now… the blade shimmered a deep, obsidian black. Veins of crimson pulsed faintly beneath its surface, like something alive. Corrupted. Changed.
Lili froze, breath catching in her throat. “What—” she murmured, staring at it as if it were a stranger. Her eyes—once a defiant red—flared brighter for a moment, then flickered unstable, red rippling into black at the edges.
Colin had halted, his jaw tightening at the sight of the blackened sword. “You’re not in control,” he said flatly. “Put it down, Lili.”
“Like hell I will,” she snapped. The sword pulsed in response to her voice, echoing her fury.
Astonia’s voice cut through the tension next. “It’s reacting to you… to the infection, to the part of you that’s changing.”
“It’s not just reacting,” Lili whispered. “It is me.”
Colin took a cautious step forward, but the blade twitched in the air—almost threatening.
“I won’t be your experiment,” Lili growled. “I won’t let you cage me just because I don’t fit into your neat little world of Gifted morality.”
“This has nothing to do with morality,” Colin answered coldly. “It has to do with survival.”
“Then maybe it’s time you all stop deciding who deserves to survive,” Lili hissed.
The sword flared with red light. Cracks of power danced along its surface.
For a moment, all three stood frozen in the impasse—Lili on edge, Colin calculating, Astonia watching with something quiet and pained behind her eyes.
Then Astonia spoke, voice was barely louder than a breath. “You’re still our daughter.”
Lili faltered—but only for a moment. The cold fury returned, sharpening her gaze. She laughed, the sound twisted from something deep in her chest as she stared down Colin. He was approaching slowly now, the syringe still in his hand, but it wasn’t the movement that made her laugh. It was his eyes—glowing red, watching her blood pulse through her body as if calculating every inch of her like a map of weakness.
She knew that look. She could see the same red hue in her own reflection when she hunted. When she killed. “Yeah,” she spat, voice trembling with rage. “I can see a real father right here.”
Her expression darkened, shifting as her own eyes burned crimson to mirror his. “Don’t move,” she warned, sword rising in front of her as her voice dropped into something deadly, trembling with the edge of panic. “Because I swear—if you take one more step, I will kill you!”
Colin stopped—but only long enough to smirk. “Let’s see who’s faster,” he challenged coldly.
“Don’t!” Astonia’s voice rang out behind him. “Colin, stop!”
But he moved. And so did Lili. Her sword twitched midair. Colin adjusted, predicting her reaction before she made it—calculating her strike range, adapting. He was fast. But her sword was faster. Astonia’s hand flung out to try and seize control of the blade, but the weapon resisted her. The power inside it surged, alive and wild, and it didn’t listen to Astonia. It didn’t even listen to Lili.
“No!” Astonia screamed.
But it was too late. The sword sliced cleanly across Colin’s chest. He gasped and stumbled backward, crimson already soaking through his shirt as he collapsed to the floor.
Lili stood frozen. Time fractured around her. Her chest rose and fell in broken rhythm, her breath strangled by disbelief. Her eyes widened, still glowing red, but now hollowed by horror. The sword hovered for a second longer before slowly lowering to the floor.
She took a step back.
Then another.
Her gaze dropped to her hands as if they weren’t hers. As if the weapon wasn’t hers. As if any of this could be undone if she just refused to believe it.
Colin wasn’t moving. And in that moment, something inside her cracked—splintered beneath the weight of what she had just done.
Without another word, without waiting to see Astonia’s reaction, Lili turned and sprinted toward the window. Her body moved on instinct, no thought—just escape. Just the wind and the need to run before the truth crushed her entirely.
With a single leap, she threw herself through the glass. It shattered around her as she dropped into the open air, the city lights catching her form as the black sword surged beneath her to catch her fall…
***
Lili wandered the streets for what felt like hours, her steps uneven, aimless—her limbs moved because they had to. The sun had long dipped below the skyline, and the city was now bathed in shadows and neon, the lights casting sharp reflections across the wet pavement as if even the ground itself refused to let her forget the blood she had spilled. Her eyes, rimmed red from exhaustion and something deeper—something breaking—remained unfocused, locked somewhere between memory and madness, her breaths shallow, shoulders hunched, as if trying to disappear inside herself.
Every movement echoed the weight of the sword she no longer trusted, every heartbeat dragged the moment with Colin back into focus—the shock, the crimson, the way she didn’t even feel it until it was done. Then, the sound of tires against slick asphalt cut through the numb fog around her.
A sleek, black car slowed beside her, its engine purring with a quiet threat, the window tinted just enough to conceal but not entirely hide the man inside. She didn’t need to see his face to know. Her instincts screamed it before logic could catch up.
Fosin. Her handler. Her shadow. Her next executioner—if it came to that.
Lili’s entire body tensed, frozen mid-step, her eyes dragging toward the car with the weight of inevitability clinging to her every move. Her fingers curled slightly.
She inhaled, slow and steady, forcing her spine straight.
This was it. This was the moment she had been stumbling toward for days without realizing it. No more hiding. No more drifting. She could run—could disappear into the underworld where even ghosts got hunted by men like Torin. But if she ran, it would mark her. A traitor. A defector. And the price of betrayal in their world wasn’t death. It was ruin—systematic and cruel. So instead, she made her choice.
Her eyes lifted slowly, the tremble in her chest buried beneath layers of something colder, something older. The expression that settled over her face wasn’t fear. It wasn’t regret. It was something carved from survival—cold, sharp-edged, and familiar.
The Princess of Death had returned. Not because she trusted them. Not because she believed in redemption, or mercy, or the cold illusion of loyalty they’d built their empire on. No—she returned because running would mean becoming hunted, and she was never made to be hunted. If she was going to bleed, she’d do it walking straight into the lion’s den with her head high and her teeth bared. Without hesitation, she stepped toward the car.
The door opened with a muted click, the interior dim and sterile, the scent of expensive leather doing nothing to soften the weight that settled in her chest as she slid into the back seat beside him.
Fosin turned his head slowly toward her, his sharp eyes narrowing just slightly as he took her in—as if trying to measure what pieces of her had changed in the time she’d vanished.
No longer was there the mottled discoloration from the infection stretching across her face. No fever in her gaze, no tremble in her movements. She looked composed. Whole. Almost untouched. But something about her was off—stronger, yes, but quieter too.
His eyes flicked to hers, holding, searching. A part of him had expected her to speak first—to offer some sort of excuse or explanation. After all, she’d been gone for more than a week. And yet here she was, sliding into his car like she’d only stepped out for air.
He tilted his head, still watching her carefully, like a man unsure whether the creature beside him was the same one he had once sent into the dark without question.
“Where were you?” It was Fosin who finally spoke first.
He didn’t look at her when he said it, but the weight behind the words made it clear the question had been burning inside him for days—perhaps longer.
“Hunting Goran,” she said, letting the lie slide from her lips smoothly. “That shapeshifting bastard tried to kill me in my own home. Thought he could end me while I slept.” Her jaw tightened just slightly, just enough for Fosin to catch it. “I gave him a taste of his own game. Tracked him down. Cornered him.” She paused, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly, her breath hitching with an emotion too well-contained to name. “He ran,” she said with a cruel curl of her mouth. “Ran like a little girl when he realized I wasn’t dying fast enough.”
Only then did she faced Fosin with perfectly honed expression. “I figured if I came back without a body, I’d better come back with a story,” she said, voice dropping to a murmur. “One that keeps me alive.”
The hum of the engine filled the space between them as Fosin searched her face for cracks—any sign of a break in the mask she wore so well. But there was nothing. Only silence.
He didn’t say whether he believed her. And Lili didn’t ask. Because in their world, belief wasn’t necessary. Control was.
Fosin leaned back in his seat, arms folded, his gaze steady on her as the car continued its smooth glide through the city streets. Lights danced across his face, flashing gold, then red, then shadow again—each flicker casting his expression into something unreadable. But there was a tension in his jaw, a subtle tightening in his posture, like a man running through calculations behind his silence.
“You left blood behind,” he finally said, voice low. “A mess that didn’t look like a clean fight.”
Lili didn’t blink. Her eyes held his.
“Yeah. I was injured. Took longer to push back than I’d like to admit.” She leaned her elbow against the door, resting her temple against her knuckles, her voice detached. “I stopped the bleeding, patched up, chased him anyway. Didn’t plan on surviving it, to be honest. But here I am.”
Fosin’s lips twitched slightly. It wasn’t a smile. “And you didn’t think to call?” he asked, almost mildly.
“I was busy staying alive,” she replied without hesitation. “And I knew the moment I did, I’d be dragged back to a desk, interrogated, stripped down until you all were sure I hadn’t broken.” She turned her eyes back to the window, watching the skyline peel by. “I needed to come back on my terms.”
“Torin wants to see you.”
Lili didn’t flinch, but her eyes darkened just slightly. “Of course he does,” she murmured.
“He’s been asking questions,” Fosin continued. “Uncomfortable ones. He doesn’t like loose ends. Especially not when it comes to Gifted.”
“I’m not a loose end,” Lili said. Her voice wasn’t loud—but it didn’t need to be. “I’m your sword. And you don’t throw away a blade that still cuts.”
Fosin nodded once, slowly, but the glance he cast her was sharper now…
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