"Same here." I wrapped her up, slower, memorizing the way her spine curved into my palm and the way the tension eased out of her shoulders by degrees. "When I heard about the attack, I was terrified you might've been caught in it."
"Oh no," she said, pulling back enough to tip her face up at me. Her eyes were bright, but I could see the edge of tired at the corners. "By the time Father and I got there, it was already over." She sat, smoothing her skirt, and the movement was so normal it made the world feel tilted for a second. Over, as if battles came with end credits.
"That's good to hear," I managed and sat beside her. The bench creaked under the shift of our weight. I watched her hands, because her hands tell the truth when her voice does the family version.
"Last time we met, you said you were going to get your class," she said. "Did you?"
"Yes." Pride sneaked into my mouth before I could be modest. "I got an exotic class."
Her smile widened into something that looked like a sunrise on purpose. She hugged me again, quick and fierce. "Congratulations, Zagan!"
"Thank you," I said, laughing a little as I hugged back. Her hair smelled like smoke and something sweet. "My family isn't thrilled, but they'll get over it."
She leaned back and studied me with that measuring look she shares with her grandmother. "I wonder how you'll fare against Kitsuna, though."
"Kitsune?" The name sounded like a prank.
"My sister," she said.
"I heard she was here." I glanced toward the house, expecting to see a small shadow dart past a window. "Where is she?"
"She's... sleeping," Amari said, choosing the word like it had pricks on the inside. "If you want to meet her, we'll have to wake Nova first."
"Nova?" I repeated. "Who's that?"
She didn't answer. She just pointed, her arm a straight line carving the air.
I followed it and saw the tree. I've seen the Guru tree before-broad, rooted, and ordinary in its own holy way. This wasn't that. The trunk was snow-white, thick as a keep's wall, and the canopy was luminous, with pale leaves catching the light like scales. It was huge-thirty meters across at least, twenty meters tall-and so still it felt like the world had paused to make room for it. It stood about two hundred meters away, exactly where the old tree had been, as if this one had grown overnight by swallowing its predecessor whole.
"Isn't that your Guru tree?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. "What happened to it?"
"I don't know," Amari said softly. "I wasn't talking about the tree. Look beneath it."
I squinted. The shadows at the base shifted, and then my brain made sense of the shape: a massive ball of fur, red darkened by shade and shot through with black. It looked like someone had dropped a comet made of fox and winter on the lawn.
"How did I miss that?" I muttered. "That fluff ball?"
"Yes," she said. "That's Nova."
"Is she... your sister's pet?" The question felt safer in my mouth than the alternatives.
"You could say that," Amari said, her tone unreadable. She stood. "Let's go wake her."
We started across the grass. The air changed before the ground did. Every step closer shaved a degree off the temperature until the breath leaving my lips smoked like a hearth. I rubbed my hands together and then shoved them under my arms, trying to keep the bones from aching.
"Cold already?" Amari teased. She looked unaffected, her skin flushed with the kind of warmth that comes from the inside.
"How are you not freezing?" My teeth clicked at the end of the sentence. I hated that.
She lifted her hands, and let lava mana ripple over her fingers, small, controlled, and bright as a molten coin. It cast orange light on her knuckles and threw soft shadows up her wrists.
"That's cheating," I grumbled, stepping a little closer to steal some of the heat. It licked at my sleeve like a tame flame.
"We're almost there," she said. "Relax."
"Fine. But wake it up fast so we can get out of here." The cold wasn't just cold; it crawled into joints and nested there like it had a claim. Under it, something else hummed, a low pressure like the air before a storm. My skin knew it was mana before my mind decided not to think about it.
"Why do you keep calling her 'it'?" Amari asked, a note of annoyance sneaking into her voice. Her shoulders squared a little. "She."
"Because it's a monster," I said, and heard the brittleness. "It won't care what I call it."
"Kitsuna will beat you up if she hears that," she said, almost absently, but her mouth pressed flat as if the sentence had teeth.
I tried to laugh it off. "She's the same age as me. I'm level sixty with an exotic class. She doesn't even have a class yet." I rolled my shoulders to loosen them and felt good and strong and a little foolish. "I'd win easily."
The ground hummed. Not loudly, not for long, but enough to make the frozen grass tremble. Then a voice-not air forced through a throat, but sound carried by a body big enough to be its own weather.
"It seems you've grown arrogant just because you have a class."
My swords were in my hands before my mind realized I'd called them. Steel felt right against my palms. Amari didn't flinch. The red fluff rose in a slow, uncoiling movement that made small sounds in the ice: crack, whisper, crack. Ears appeared, white-tipped and alert. A muzzle, lined in black. Then the eyes opened-gold, depthless, the kind of eyes that reflect back a version of you that tells the truth.
"It can talk?!" The words burst out of me. I sounded like a child who'd never seen a puppet show.
"Yes, I can talk," the fox said. Her voice was deep and distinctly female, threaded with an old annoyance that didn't seem to be about me, specifically. "Didn't Amari tell you who I am?"
Eight meters at the shoulder. Twenty-five meters from nose to tail tips. Most of her fur was blood-red, richer in shadow, the kind of red that makes you think of embers; black threaded it like smoke, and the tips of her ears and tail were white, as if someone had dipped them in winter. When she shook herself, snow lifted from the grass and spun in the air, chiming softly as it fell.
"We don't tell everyone who and what she is," Amari said, her voice slipping into the calm tone she uses when the situation can either become a problem or a story. "Mother said it was fine to tell you. I... wanted to make it a surprise." She gave me a small, crooked smile that confessed and dared me to be angry in the same breath.
The fox-Nova-tilted her head. Her gaze moved from Amari to me with the lazy precision of a predator that knows you can't outrun it in any direction that matters. "Sigh. What do you want, Amari?" she asked, and when she sighed, the breath rolled out cold enough to sting my cheeks.
"I want you to meet my fiance, Zagan," Amari said. She took one step so she was closer to both of us, the way she does when she is trying to be a bridge instead of a barrier.
Nova turned more fully to me. The world narrowed to the space between her eyes and mine. My stomach dropped and then kept falling; my hands tightened on the hilts without my permission. Instinct whispered in my ear: if you swing, you will not land clean. If you run, you will not run far. If you speak, choose carefully.
I was a fool, I thought. I wouldn't scratch her if I went all out. There wasn't bravado in the thought or fear, just acceptance, the way you accept winter by putting on another layer.
"Nice to meet you, Zagan," she said. "You may call me Nova in this form." The word "form" was etched, a warning that I was only seeing the easy shape.
"Yes-nice to meet you," I said. "Form?" The question came out thin, and I despised that it did, but the curiosity stood up in me like it always does, even when common sense tells it to sit down.
"Now we've met, you may leave," Nova said. She sank to the ground with the heaviness of a living mountain. "I want to sleep."
"Kitsuna, we need to go shopping for you," Amari said. She pitched her voice not to nag, but to remind. "Wake up and change into your human form."
"No," Nova said. She closed her eyes as if the conversation bored her.
"Kitsune? Human form?" I asked because my brain had become a hallway of doors, and every single one felt locked.
"You'll see," Amari said, and then, like she was bargaining with a toddler and a tyrant simultaneously, "We can get food with lots of bones in it."
The silence that followed stretched, not long, but long enough for my breath to frost twice. I watched Amari's face while we waited-the small patient smile, the way her fingers tucked a strand of hair behind her ear to occupy themselves, and the tiny nod she gives to herself when she thinks a plan will work.
"...Fine," Nova said at last.
Ice rose around her in slabs, clean and fast, a cocoon growing itself. The edges sealed with a soft hiss, the way hot iron quenched in water sings.
"Don't come out half-naked again!" Amari shouted just before the ice closed fully.
I stared at the smooth wall where a fox had been. My mouth opened and decided not to help. The air was even colder now, as if the ice were drinking heat out of sound.
"What is going on?" I asked because all of my earlier questions had regrouped and multiplied.
"You'll see," Amari said, and then her eyes narrowed slightly, a warning sharpened by affection. "And you'd better not drool over her body."
"Huh?"
avataravatar
Chapter 35:
After waiting for ten minutes, the ice wall finally cracked and collapsed with a crystalline groan. Shards of frost scattered like glass across the ground, the mist peeling away to reveal a tall, lean figure stepping out from the haze.
She stood around 1.9 meters, her presence sharp and commanding without her saying a word. Long red hair, streaked faintly with black, spilled past her shoulders, but the tips of her hair, her fox ears, and her swaying tail were pure white, almost glowing against the darker colors. Her clothing made her stand out as much as her features-loose black cargo pants tucked into worn boots, paired with a heavy, baggy coat that reached down to mid-thigh. A red-and-black scarf wrapped snugly around her neck, its fabric shifting slightly as if to guard the jagged lightning-bolt scar that climbed from her collarbone up to just beneath her right eye.
Even beneath all those layers, I could tell she was strong. The broadness of her shoulders, the way her posture seemed balanced for a fight at any moment-it all screamed warrior. Her coat wasn't fully closed, and in the gap I caught a glimpse of bandages wound tightly around her chest. She wore no shirt beneath, just that rough wrapping. For a moment, I froze, my gaze lingering longer than I meant to. Amari had warned me not to drool over her, and now I understood why. She was beautiful-sharp, dangerous, and breathtaking in equal measure.
If it weren't for the fact that I wasn't into women with six-packs-and that my heart was already taken-I might have fallen right then and there. Her face carried the same dominant, piercing look the fox had earlier, eyes like molten gold locking onto me with a weight that made me straighten instinctively.
Then she smirked.
"It seems you're as short as ever, Yua-chan," the fox girl teased, her voice smooth but threaded with mischief.
My head snapped up. "I'm still growing!" I barked louder than I should have, heat rushing to my face.
She winced, one ear flicking down as she lifted her hands to cover them. "No need to shout, geez..."
I blinked, thrown off by how casually she brushed me aside. "Sorry. Wait-what did you just call me?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she closed the distance in two long strides and lifted her right hand. It hovered there, expectant. Without thinking, I raised my own. Our fists met with a solid bump, and then-almost on instinct-our hands slid into a pattern, a shake and twist I hadn't performed in years. My chest tightened. That was a handshake I knew. A handshake I'd always recognize.
I stared at her, realization hitting me like a brick. "So the murderer has become Amari's sister... and a monster," I said, anger sharpening my voice.
(Kitsuna POV)
"So the murderer has become Amari's sister and a monster," Zagan spat, his words soaked in fury.
I sighed, my breath clouding faintly in the cool air. My eyes flicked over him. He had brown hair and brown eyes, wearing casual clothing that didn't match the blades he was holding. His stance was tense, rage twisting his expression, but I could see it-he was hesitating.
Before I could even speak, he lunged.
I dropped, his boot slicing the air above me. Rolling sideways across the dirt, I sprang back to my feet with a confused frown.
"What the fuck are you doing, Zagan?" Amari's voice cut in sharply from the side, her tone trembling between outrage and disbelief.
"I'm killing someone who should not be alive," he snapped, his eyes never leaving me as he sprinted forward.
My lips curled into a grin, sharp and amused. "You? Killing me?" A laugh burst from my throat. Cold magic flared around my hand, forming into an ice-forged sword within an instant. I raised it just in time, catching the cross of his dual blades with a ringing clash. Sparks and shards of ice flew.
He blinked at the sudden weapon but didn't falter. Strike after strike came down-left, right, overhead. Fast, relentless. But not fast enough.
Each blow I redirected, my arm moving with effortless precision. My other hand stayed tucked behind my back, casual, as if his assault was nothing more than a sparring warm-up.
'Speed below six hundred. Strength is maybe just above six. He's strong for his age, I thought coolly, sidestepping another slash.
The more I denied him, the more unhinged his face became. His teeth bared, frustration crackling off him like static.
"How? How are you defending my attacks!?" His voice cracked with rage.
"Zagan, stop!" Amari shouted again, desperation rising.
"Amari, stay out of this," I told her firmly, my eyes still locked on his. I met his next swing and shoved it away, my blade slicing through the air in counterbalance. "Look at you-trying to kill me for something that happened in a past life."
"I don't care!" he roared, both swords slamming downward in a furious arc. "I won't let you influence Amari!"
I twisted aside, his blades digging into the dirt, and planted a swift kick against his rear. He stumbled forward, nearly falling face-first. While he scrambled to regain balance, I spoke, my tone like steel. "How do you know my influence would be bad? Maybe I'm exactly what she needs to survive in this world. You might be her fiance, Zagan..." I smirked and jabbed my sword forward, halting inches from his chest. "But I'm her family now."
