I've never killed anybody before.

The past year, I knew that each venture into the forge increased the risk that I might have to, but each near miss I managed to escape unscathed. The closest I got was a few weeks ago, when that man held me at knifepoint, but I would have never been able to over-power him.

I've never had to kill anybody. Maybe that's why Jax's words make me choke.

Your job is to kill Councillor Tetterman's son.

Killian said Trina wanted insurance, blackmail, to hold against me if I ever dared cross her. I should've expected this is what she'd meant. Despite the fear clawing at my throat, the thought that the only real fighting I've ever done is with Casimir in the forest, the memory of Jax snickering at my dagger—a rush of adrenaline pulses through me.

I've wanted the shifters to suffer ever since they killed my father in front of me. I watched the way they tore him to shreds, jaws nagging at his skin as he screamed in agony. I remember the way the three of them leaped over the bloodied floor once they were done, dragging Samu by the back of his T-shirt. And I did nothing because I didn't know how.

But Casimir has taught me exactly how to deliver a fatal blow with a dagger in more ways than one. I'll never be that useless again.

I realise both Jax and Jessenia watching me. Jax looks smug, but Jessenia looks on edge, as if I'll scream and giveaway our position.

"I didn't know the councillor had a son," I say, surprising them both. "And I thought he lived in the mountains."

"Not all shifters live in the Palace," Jax tells me. "The council members don't. They're always around, watching."

A shiver crawls down my spine.

"And Trina wants me to kill his son. Why?"

"You can't kill the councillor, Trina needs him alive for now," Jessenia says. "But we need to send a message. And we need him to pay for taking Coax." She pauses, glancing down at the dagger at my thigh. "Is that going to be a problem, Freya?"

"No. It won't be a problem."

"Good."

I squeeze my fist to hide the way my fingers quiver under her harsh stare, releasing a breath when she looks away, back to the forge. The thick fog surrounds us, a blanket cutting us off from the Veymaw bubble. I never questioned the fog that hung over the forge, but it never ceased to haunt the dangerous town, even during the day.

Beads of sweat gather at the nape of my neck as we wait in the night, watching shadows dance in the streets of the forge, crawling up the walls and stretching towards the forest. I imagine Killian slipping through the streets, as seamlessly as he moves through the forest. Jax said the deserters haven't been to the forge for months, so who did I encounter that night?

I picture their cloaks, how it felt when the man's arm brushed my skin as he pressed the dagger to my neck. They wore all black, but the material was different. So if they weren't deserters, who had I been chasing those nights? And why didn't they kill me?

A shout snaps me from my thoughts. It's louder than the rest, and angry.

"Now." Jessenia rises to her feet, snapping into motion without a word. I barely have time to react before Jax is dragging me from the ground and across the clearing. My heart hammers as we emerge from the forest, Jessenia and Jax blending with the shadows as they skirt the buildings edge. With their hoods pulled over their heads, I can only see the lines of their mouths, pressed firmly together.

I mould myself to the wall the same way they did, moving only when Jax does ahead of me. When we reach the edge of the building that borders the narrow street, the shouts get louder. A brawl has broken out in front of the Grebis pub. Jessenia leaps across the narrow street, ushering us forward. We're at the back of the pub now.

It's a two-story building, higher than most of the other buildings. In my time in the forge, I never went into the pub, but I assumed the top half was uninhabited as it was always dark, the sole window cracked with a curtain pulled across to conceal its contents.

From the back, there's a balcony—the wooden flooring snapped at the end. Jessenia levers herself to scale the building using the uneven brick work, silently and gracefully reaching towards the unstable balcony. I gulp as Jax moves to follow her, turning to glance at me over his shoulder.

"Try to keep up." The smirk on his face says something else: I hope you can't.

I keep track of each brick he uses as a foothold, less gracefully than Jessenia had, but still a lot more graceful than I'll manage. I take a shaky breath, digging my fingers into the first grove and pulling myself up.

Before Casimir trained me, I had little to no upper body strength. Even now, a year later, my arms wobble trying to support my body in scaling the wall. But falling isn't an option. My chin scrapes against the side of the building as I attempt to hold myself to it, glancing up. I'm so close to the balcony where Jessenia and Jax are perched, watching me.

Jessenia reaches down, offering me a hand. I latch onto her and using only one arm, she hoists me up over the banister. I pant as I clamber over, wiping my hands on the outside of my pants and noting the way they both have their weapons poised.

I reach for my dagger, drawing it from the sheath. Jessenia's eyes follow my movements, expression unreadable. Does she find my choice of weapon pitiful, like Jax?

"Jax and I will go in," she says, her voice no more than a whisper. "Stay here and wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Tetterman knows your face from Veymaw; he can't see you." She glances over her shoulder. "As soon as he's aware of our presence, he'll try to smuggle his son out. Follow him. Jax or Killian will find you, and then..."

"Kill him," I say.

She regards me for a few seconds. I can't tell if she's surprised by me, or confused, but she turns around and exchanges an expression with Jax before climbing through the window. Jax follows. I duck beneath the jutted-out windowpane, peering inside.

They descend into a dark room; it takes several seconds for my eyes to adjust. As I suspected, it looks abandoned. The wooden floor has broken boards and old shards of glass scatter the ground. Jessenia surveys the room and I follow her gaze, both of us pausing at the hunched figure curled into the corner.

"Coax?" Jessenia whispers.

The figure raises their head—a girl, no older than me. Her face is bruised and bloodied, eyes swollen. My stomach lurches as I look at her bound hands, dirtied clothes.

"Jessi," she cries, voice hoarse.

She raises a finger to her lips as Jax creeps over to him, reaching for his bound hands. "Where's Tetterman?"

Coax's eyes draw over to the only other door in the room. It's shut, but beneath it, a warm glow of a lantern emanates. Jessenia slowly moves towards it, cocking her gun to her side. I see her chest rise and fall as she takes a deep breath. She knocks twice.

A beat of silence passes. Footsteps pick up. The doorknob twists. I find myself holding my breath as the door opens. A figure fills the doorframe, the light behind them turning them into a dark silhouette. But I recognise the ridge of his nose when he turns his head sideways—Tetterman.

Jessenia raises the gun to his face, Jax poised behind her. If Tetterman is afraid, he doesn't show it, stepping forward so the light no longer streams from behind him. Somebody else lingers in the room behind him. His son.

I can't get a good look at him. He lingers in the shadows, not fully revealing himself.

"Deserters," Tetterman says, voice filled with venom. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Stand by the wall," Jessenia orders, "hands above your head."

Tetterman eyes her, gaze resting on her gun. I watch him closely, my heart pounding. The only times I've ever seen him he's been cold, his face a mask of disinterest. But I can see the way his minds ticks as he sizes her up—he may not look it, but he's running through escape plans in his head. And he doesn't look afraid. Jessenia said Trina couldn't kill him yet—does Tetterman know that they won't kill him?

"Of course," Tetterman says eventually. "But please, let me farewell my guest."

"I wasn't aware you were entertaining guests," Jax muses.

"A trader from the forge. I know it may surprise you, but I do mingle among humans from time to time."

He doesn't blink, his lie smooth. If I didn't know exactly who was in that room behind him, I'd have believed him.

Jessenia cocks the gun. "Very well. Your guest may leave."

Tetterman's shoulder drop a fraction, but his expression remains stoic. The shadow in the room behind him skits across the wall, dancing across the light long enough that I catch glimpse of the red stripe on the trim of their cloak. Footsteps pound down the stairs, to the front of the Greybis pub, and my heartrate picks up.

I have to go. If I lose him, I lose any chance of joining the deserters.

Instead of climbing down, I go up, levering myself onto the two-story roof. Sneaking around the forge this past year has proved to be useful—I know the maze-like streets like the back of my hand, and I know how to reach them from the rooftops. I creep to the edge of the pub roof; the tiles unsteady beneath my feet. The crowd below has thickened, the brawl over. I try to spot Killian amongst the masses as the crowd slithers through the streets, but he's not there. I look for the red trim, instead, somebody moving against the grain.

It takes less than a minute. It isn't his erratic movements that draws my gaze toward him, it's the way he seamlessly darts in between the traders and crooks, hardly disrupting the flow of the crowd. I track his path, watching as he takes a sharp turn down a side street.

I crawl along the rooftop, leaping from one to the other, grazing my knees on the fall. My breath is ragged as I leap from rooftop to rooftop, trying to reach the side street before he reaches his target—the forest. He's significantly faster than me, which I should have expected from a shifter, but I hadn't anticipated how easy it would be him to move through the crowd.

I reach the edge of the roof as he takes a sharp turn down the alley, heading to the forest. I don't have long. Pausing at the edge of the roof, I place one foot in the guttering, glancing over the edge. It's about a 3-metre drop; I could probably make it, but I don't want to risk injuring myself. On the bordering building, an awning stretches from the roof to the ground. I leap over the alley, landing crookedly as the unstable shingles of the roof skid beneath my feet. I manage to right myself before skidding onto the awning on my back, rolling till it drops me to the ground on my right shoulder.

It aches from the small drop, but I press it to the back of my mind and force myself to my feet, pressing my back to the building, looking out at the forest. The shifter, Tetterman's son, will run past any second—on his way to the forest edge. I try to regulate my breathing, pulling my dagger from its sheath, repeating movements Casimir taught me.

Surprise gives you an edge.

In the back of my mind, the fear threatens to overtake my brain, a frenzy making my body shudder. When I blink, I see the shifters on the backs of my eyelids—their glowing eyes, razor-sharp teeth, long-snouts dripping in my father's blood. This shifter was in human form in the building, but I must be prepared for him to shift as soon as he hits the forest.

He'll be faster than me then, even more so than usual. I can't lose him.

I don't hear him coming, but within a millisecond, he's rushing past me, hood still concealing his head. I don't waste a second, swinging my leg around to knock his feet from beneath him. He isn't expecting it, flying across the clearing, and thudding against the ground, managing to land on his feet.

I don't wait for him to rise, striking forward with my dagger. I catch him by surprise, managing to manoeuvre my body so that I can hook him around the neck and hold him to me, my dagger at his throat.

He stills.

"Don't move," I hiss, "don't shift. Don't make a sound."

My heart hammers in my chest. He doesn't resist my hold. His shoulders are broad, but we're the same height. I can feel the muscles in his back against my chest, and when they tense, I press the knife into his throat, warm liquid spurting over my hands. But I don't cut deep.

He moves faster than I can blink.

Within seconds, I'm shoved against the tree, the force knocking the air from my chest. The shifter's nails dig into my upper arms, drawing blood. I kick out, aiming between his legs. He dodges my advance, but it causes him to loosen his grip enough for me to slip from beneath him, rolling across the ground.

I hit the trunk of a tree, forcing myself to my feet and scanning the forest in front of me. I can't see him. He launches towards me, hands grasping my throat.

I can't breathe.

My vision blurs.

I can't see.

Suddenly, the shifter is thrown away from me, hitting the tree with a thump. I slump to the ground, clutching my neck, gasping for air. Dark eyes blur into vision, hands shaking my shoulders.

"Freya." It's Killian, voice desperate. "Can you hear me?"

Over his shoulder, the shifter pushes to his feet, glancing between us and the forest, as if wondering whether he should run or fight. But I can't let him get away. Before he can make the choice, I shove Killian aside and launch myself at the shifter's retreating figure. He doesn't expect it, letting out a cry as I wrap my hands around his neck. He immediately throws us on the ground.

We roll around, his fist aiming for my head. I narrowly miss it, and as he hovers over, body pressing into mine, making it difficult to breathe, I bury my dagger into his stomach. A non-fatal blow, but he hisses out air. I use it as leverage to roll us over.

He struggles beneath me, but with my dagger lodged in his stomach, one wrong move and he'd die. If he were human, I could pull the dagger out and he'd bleed out on his own, but shifters heal quicker. If I want him dead, I know the exact angle to puncture his heart. I tighten my grip on the dagger, eyes on his hand above his head. I can taste blood in my mouth, and my throat aches, but I don't relent.

One of his hands grips my wrists, nails puncturing the skin like claws. An image flickers across my mind—my father's dead body, blood-tainted white fur, glowing, narrowed eyes. My blood burns as I prepare to twist the dagger, delivering the final blow.

He whimpers. My eyes dart from his hand to his face. His hood has fallen off, revealing his soft features. His mouth isn't tainted with blood, his eyes don't glow, they aren't narrowed nor threatening—they're wide and brown and afraid.

Do it, Freya. Do it. For Samu.

He looks just as human as I do.

He looks no older than I do.

He looks more afraid than I do.

My hands start to shake, grip on the knife slipping. The boy stills beneath me, his bottom lip quivering. I wish he looked like the ravenous shifters in my dreams, the shifters that dragged Samu away last year, the ones who tore my ankle apart during that storm. I wish he looked like the monster that I know lurks beneath his skin.

But he looks just like me.

His blood coats my fingers, a crimson blanket tainting my skin. Bile rises in my throat. My body moves before I can process what I'm doing. I yank my dagger out, shoving myself away from him, back against the tree. He jerks on the ground, hand going to the wound in his stomach as blood gurgles out, spilling onto the earth around him. But his wide brown eyes peer at me.

"Go." My voice shakes more than my hands. "Get out of here." He scrambles backwards, eyes never leaving me as his nostrils flare, as if afraid I'll leap at him as soon as he turns his back. "Go!"

He stumbles to his feet, swaying slightly, before hobbling off. I stand frozen, watching him go. I could run after him; it wouldn't take me long to catch up. Though he will heal, it will take time. But I feel stuck in the forest as I watch the thick fog swallow his figure.

I can't do it. And I hate myself for it.

I stare down at my hands, covered in blood.

"Hey!"

The sudden shout snaps me from my trance. I twist my neck. Killian stands behind me, in between the trees. Behind him, Jax and Jessenia have caught up, both puffing. Coax has his arm slung over Jessenia's shoulder. They all stare at me, taking in the blood on the ground, on my hands, in my hair.

"Where is he?" Jax demands, stepping forward. He knocks Killian's shoulder. "What happened?"

My blood runs cold. As I lay over the shifter, I'd forgotten who threw him off me. Killian. My eyes snap to his, and though his expression is blank, there's a look in his eye. I'm certain of one thing.

He saw.

~

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