"So we're Novice rank today, right? Don't they give us a bracelet or a badge or something? A medal maybe?"
"That's seriously the question you want to ask, now? Right now, while we're going to meet who Sister Cora called our sister?" I replied to my silly brother.
We walked down the hallway toward our room. My arm was tight around Sipar's shoulders; I was forcing him to keep moving, otherwise he'd stay in the library firing off questions until late into the night.
"I mean, I know Novice is just the base level," he continued, ignoring my tone and holding up his fingers to count. "Then there's Disciple, Guardian, Master, Grand Master, and Primarch... But I was hoping for at least a pin or a—"
Emma placed her palm on his back from behind. At first I thought she wanted to comfort him or gesture something like 'I'll sew you one.' Instead her arm stiffened and pushed with surprising force, almost making him stumble.
I climbed the stairs first, followed by my two siblings.
As soon as I reached the top, I headed for the first door in front of me, the same room I shared with Emma and Sipar. I rounded the corner and immediately saw a fourth bed positioned there. The beds were now arranged with Emma and Sipar on one side of the room, separated by a few steps, and apparently Lirka and me on the other.
"There, I knew it." Sister Cora, who'd gotten ahead of us while I dragged Sipar along, was already bent over the new bed. She was tucking in a sheet that kept slipping away. "She took off all her clothes again. Hey you, clothes are for not getting cold!"
A small hand emerged from under the sheet. Small, pink, with features still chubby and unrefined, typical of a very young child. It gripped the edge of the fabric firmly and pulled it downward, disappearing again into her white cocoon.
"Charming," I said, taking a step closer.
"I don't know what to do anymore, Arek." Cora brought a hand to her cheek, sighing. "She doesn't seem to want my help. At first I thought it was fear, but I'm starting to think I'm just not capable."
"Maybe it takes some time. How about we do introductions, since she seems awake?"
"All right, but don't approach suddenly." She glanced at me and my siblings who'd lined up behind me, curious. "She's much stronger than she looks."
As she said it, she wrapped her own fingers around her wrist, massaging it like it hurt.
How strong could a—
"Emma, Sipar, and Arek Grey. Let me introduce you." Sister Cora lifted the white sheet with both hands. It fluttered in front of my eyes. I glimpsed something soft, faded red or rust-colored.
"Lirka Grey."
The sheet passed beyond my view, for a moment all I could see was white and a faint smell of moss entered my nose. Then my heart jumped in my throat. In front of me was a monster. A real monster.
Heat exploded on my face. Filthy monster.
A little girl got on all fours on the mattress like an angry cat. Her back was arched, the muscles in her arms and shoulder tense, ready to spring. Her bare skin was light pink, but she had a long reddish mane that cascaded like a fountain from her head.
But what turned her into a beast wasn't just that.
I stared at her, clenching my fists so tight pain shot through my arms. Blood pulsed in my temples. Terror. But underneath... something else. A familiar feeling of sorts.
On top of her head sprouted two pointed ears the same color as her hair, ending in small white tufts. And behind, at the height of her sacrum, a long fluffy tail moved nervously, snapping left and right. These two features gave her the appearance of a fox.
Beyond this she was growling, showing her teeth: inhumanly sharp canines, made for tearing flesh. And the eyes. Her eyes were the worst thing. The right one had a yellow iris and a narrow pupil like a nocturnal predator's; the left, instead, was an abyss: completely black, except for the pupil which, for some strange reason, was shaped like a red crescent moon.
She regarded me like I was a prey. Or an enemy.
My knees trembled. I didn't give in.
I knew that type of creature. Bestials. I'd seen what hybrids did, the monsters that were neither human nor animal, but only instruments of death. I hated them with every fiber of my being.
"A Bestial?" I spat, my voice loaded with contempt I couldn't contain.
"That's right, Lirka is..." Cora tried to explain, positioning herself between me and the bed.
"A disgusting Bestial!" The words came out before I could stop them. My throat burned. Like something inside me had screamed them a thousand times.
"Arek, stop immediately!" Cora's shout was like a slap.
I froze. My chest ached, the "itch" had become a fire demanding to blaze. I met Cora's jade eyes. Pure disappointment stared back at me. It hurt. It hurt a lot.
Calm down, I ordered myself. Breathe, Arek. She's small. She's not that boar monster. She's not him.
I forced my fists open even if they didn't want to. It was hard. I had to calm down. Had to.
Lirka was still there, on all fours, motionless like a rust-colored statue. Her tail wasn't moving anymore, taut like a violin string. Fur standing straight like quills.
"I..." The words stuck. Forcing them out burned my throat. "...sorry."
I wanted to show Cora I could do this. I wanted to prove to myself that I was the master of my own control.
I slowly extended my right hand toward the little fox-girl. A gesture of peace, or maybe just the desperate need to touch that reality to understand it wouldn't kill me.
"See? I'm not doing anything to you," I said, my voice trembling.
The moment my fingertips brushed the air near her shoulder, it happened.
It wasn't a human movement. It was a snap of pure instinct. Lirka's fist shot up from below, a trajectory that began at the mattress and struck my wrist from underneath. The force knocked my arm backward, my shoulder rotating violently.
Crack. Sharp, like wood snapping. My shoulder extended backward, muscles stretching until they burned.
"Agh!" I fell backward, my arm numb from the stretch and the sudden involuntary motion.
Lirka didn't wait for me to recover. With a prodigious leap she covered the distance between her bed and Sipar's jumping over our heads, bouncing on the mattress with the lightness of a feather.
A second jump, almost impossible for those small legs, carried her directly to the open window sill. A red flash flying through the room.
"Lirka, no!" Cora screamed, lunging forward.
The Bestial spun one last time. That black eye with the scarlet moon-shaped pupil fixed on me with ancestral ferocity, a silent warning. Then, with a flick of her red tail, she vanished into the void. The open window showed only the leaves of the apple tree in the garden outside.
"She ran away!" Sipar shouted, running to the window. "Cora, she'll kill herself!"
But I knew she wouldn't kill herself. I held my wrist, staring at the empty window. It throbbed, a dull beat that climbed to my elbow, hot and heavy.
She had the strength of three grown men.
Cora brought her hands to her face. "Not again..." she whispered. Then, louder: "Arek, run! If she gets out of the garden we won't be able to catch her anymore!"
I bolted before Cora finished her sentence. Toward the exit and down the stairs. I crossed the kitchen in three or four bounds and threw myself against the door leading to the garden. My shoulder groaned from the impact, but the door opened outward without protest.
The green garden, the flower bed, the well, the warm air and the high sun. But no trace of Lirka.
I glanced around, walking toward the center of the garden. Something red caught my attention. Small, among the medicinal herbs under the apple tree.
I had to catch her. I couldn't let her escape, not after what I'd said.
I pushed aside the leaves. Lirka exploded upward less than an arm's length from me, a vertical leap that began from the ground where she'd crouched.
"Lirka, stop, I didn't mean it!" I exclaimed, raising my hands in surrender.
With superhuman agility, the small one climbed the apple tree. Too fast. Too fluid. Too... familiar? Like I'd already seen her do exactly this. From up there, among the branches heavy with still-unripe fruit, she snarled at me, her red hair whipping her face.
"Lirka, come here. I'm sorry, you are not disgusting," I attempted to reassure her, softening my tone. But the little girl didn't seem inclined to come down. She pulled back between her legs and swayed, a rhythmic and hypnotic movement, just like Glow-Cats do to charge up before jumping, her spine flexed and tail swishing.
She was aiming outside the garden, at the perimeter wall.
"Lirka, no!"
Emma, Sipar, and Cora burst simultaneously from our room's window facing the garden, their faces twisted in masks of panic.
"What the hell does she want to do?" Sipar yelled, leaning dangerously from the sill.
"I don't know, but if she climbs over the wall we won't be able to catch her anymore!" Cora shouted, her voice broken with anxiety. "Arek, you have to catch her! It's your responsibility!"
Just fantastic.
Lirka, motionless on the branch, hesitated an instant. Maybe the high wall really was too far, even for her. She changed angle, targeting the closer mark. She resumed charging, flexing her back and moving that fluffy tail in the air to balance her weight, like a predator ready to ambush.
Then, she sprang.
She leaped from the apple tree. Her silhouette stood out against the sun, arms forward, tail flattened and stretched behind for balance. The arc carried her over my head. She landed on the well's low wall, bare feet on stone.
"Come here!" I snarled, throwing myself in that direction.
My legs flew over the grass, but she was ready to take off again. She was aiming for the top of the high perimeter wall. She glanced at me sideways, a silent and fierce challenge in her heterochromic eyes, while the small muscles in her legs accumulated the force needed for the next leap.
The fluffy tail whipped the air to balance the jump. That rhythmic movement, combined with the weight concentrated on her heels, sent vibrations through the stone.
Then I heard a dull crack.
"No, don't—"
The world slowed suddenly. Lirka's feet pushed on the stone. There was no rebound. Beneath her, the old mortar of the well gave way with a muffled groan. The stone block supporting Lirka's entire weight abruptly detached from the structure, sliding inward.
The little girl's gaze changed. Her pupils widened. The tail, tense an instant before, fell limp. Lirka tried to grab and claw at the air, but the void was already devouring her.
The stone plummeted and she slid after it, small, naked, swallowed by the darkness of the well.
I threw myself at the well.