“The blade slides clean—why do you still breathe?” Gideon’s voice cuts through the clearing.
“I asked you the same thing last winter,” the woman answers, voice thin and high, not begging. “You promised mercy then.”
Gideon walks between bodies without looking down. He carries no show of mercy now. Blood spatters his boots. The blade in his hand is bright and steady.
“You lied,” he says. “I fix lies.”
“You fix them by killing women in blood?” she spits. “You fix them by pretending there’s no war at home?”
He pauses two feet away. Up close, his face is a map of scars and cold decisions. He smiles without softness.
“You were useful,” he says. “Now you’re a problem.”
“You always enjoyed this,” she murmurs. “The way you put an order on the world when the rest of us were messy.”
“Messy gets cleaned,” Gideon says. “Clean comes with a price.”
“I won’t give you more stories,” she says. “No more titles. Kill me.”
Gideon lifts the blade. He does not hesitate.
I come in like a fist to the stomach.
“I’m not her,” I think. I say nothing out loud because the woman’s lips already move. But my mind is not the woman’s mind. My voice does not match her throat. It feels like someone else is trying to sing through my ribs.
The blade slides in. The woman makes a small sound that could be a laugh. Her hand twists
