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Chapter 11 - The Vulnerable Hunter

The chapel was a quiet haven carved from the worn stone of a forgotten mountain. The walls held the weight of centuries, etched with fading prayers and the ghosts of long-past worshippers. Its high, vaulted ceilings arched like the ribs of some ancient beast, draped in shadows that flickered and danced with the pale light of countless candles. A faint chill traced Kaya's skin despite the layers of her cloak and armour. The scent of aged wood, melted wax, and incense hung heavy in the cool air. The steady drip of water echoed softly from a distant corner, like the slow heartbeat of the place itself. Here, in this sanctum, peace should have been a refuge — but for Kaya, it felt alien, distant, a fragile illusion just beyond her grasp. The floors were lined on either side with dark and heavy wooden pews, all facing to a humble altar, made in dedication to Aeyi, Goddess of the Dawn. The gods, she thought, they were just stories told to keep children from wandering too far into the wild, or to give the weak something to cling to when the world was dark. Kaya didn't believe in such things — not any more. If the Light was real, if it even cared about anyone, it had long since turned its gaze away from her, from all of them. There was no saving grace in a cruel, broken world — only the choices you made, and the scars you carried afterward.

She wrapped her hands in the edges of her cloak feeling the rough fabric against her palm. Faith was a luxury she couldn't afford. Hope was a foolish thing for someone like her — a girl... just a girl. She didn't feel like the hunter she'd trained to be nor the warrior that commanded the Lighthand. Right now, she just felt numb.

She began to unfasten and remove her armour plates, and set them down along with her bow on the pew near the front of the chapel after she moved through the grand stone building. She sat next to her gear, staring absently at the altar, her hands folded loosely in her lap, but the stillness did nothing to calm the storm inside her. Her eyes drifted away from the understated altar as they traced the patterns etched into the cold stone floor, worn into alien carvings by years of traffic. The shapes blurred, twisting and shifting beneath her gaze like the questions crowding her mind. Serenading her with haunting voices, not allowing her a moments reprieve. Outside, the world was still raw with the scars of battle — echoes of violence and fear that had settled as a blanket of ash on her chest. The weight of survival pressed down unevenly, heavier than any wound, deeper than any cut.

Her thoughts returned to the brothers — Soren and Salec — their faces etched with exhaustion and pain. Soren, the steadfast protector, carried the invisible scars of duty and sacrifice. He had not dared to leave his ailing brothers side, constantly in the path of the attending medics and healers working to keep Salec alive. Kaya felt a pang of helplessness watching him, his quiet suffering something she couldn't touch or mend, but something she felt all too familiar with. She recalled her own loss, her family, her village. She pondered even now if leaving with the Lighthand that day was the right choice. Given everything that was coming to light, she couldn't let the feeling go, that somehow, some way, she should have stayed. Then there was Salec, fragile and bruised, he bore a deep, jagged cut across his ribs, the handprint of that vile demon. Each of his shallow breaths a painful reminder of how close death had come. The wound throbbed beneath his battered skin, and the steady rise and fall of his chest seemed both a victory and a fragile defiance against the darkness creeping at the edges of their world.

She reflected in the cold stillness of the chapel on the brothers. Soren led his warriors with a soft command, and they respected him not out of fear, but love, never lording his position over them. He was equal to them in all but title and wore it as a badge of honour.

She fondly remembered the first time she trained with the soldiers with a sword. Never one to use a blade, Kaya always preferred her bow, and was uneasy and nervous with a sword. The blade felt heavy in her hand, and was unwieldy for her. Soren was patient and thoughtful though, beginning by teaching her to stand legs firm, shoulder width apart, sword facing the enemy and turned to the side.

"Less 'o ya they can see, less 'o ya they can stab, lass" he laughed as he twisted his hips to demonstrate the stance, which she quickly mimicked, "That's it, lass," his voice still heavy with the same uplifting joy.

Kaya swung the sword for the first real time and had dropped it, the weight of the weapon carrying straight out of her hand. She was embarrassed and felt her face flushed deep red. Soren just laughed more heartily than before, "I've no doubt you'll get the 'ang 'o it, Lass. Bet ya couldn't fire a bow the way ya do first time ya picked one up, eh?" he picked up her sword and smiled as he reaffirmed her grip on the disobedient steel. Guiding her hand slowly, he showed her the slash again, he said slowly and quietly, "Make it a part of ya, lass, like ya leathers, like ya bow, an' it'll come in time." he released his grip and patted her back, as she swung the sword again slowly, and with renewed confidence.

And Salec, ever playful and mischievous, yet carrying a dark note in everything he did. He'd always be smiling and laughing as he told stories of his late wife, Moira, scolding him for something or another, constantly reminding himself that she was lost in a conflict with the Dark Eyes. His drinking "enthusiasm" as he puts it. His unnatural speed and cunning, it was so bizarre to see him so broken, so slow. Her thoughts wandered back to the night they had spent in the Warriors Rest tavern. Salec had drunk himself into stupor within a couple of hours of arrival. His mood noticeably lighter than his brothers at the time, but dripping with an unspoken melancholy. Salec would have you believe he has always enjoyed the pleasures of a good drink but it just isn't so. Soren had revealed to Kaya his drinking started in earnest after he lost Moira. Kayas own heart felt heavy the day Soren told her this, and she never did look at Salecs drunken smiling face the same way again, as she knew what the smile was hiding, and what the drink was keeping at bay. She could almost smell the Knapperberry wine again as she thought of his own relation to his troops. Much like his brother, he wore command well and carried himself with the same easy going attitude and was just as respected as Soren. They both seemed indestructible and unflinching in everything they did. So certain of themselves and focused.

As her minds eye snapped her ferociously back to the quiet present, she thought about how she would give anything to hear them laughing again, but right now there was nothing that would lessen the burden of his brothers injuries. She wanted to comfort them, to make them believe it would all be alright, but she didn't know it would. She couldn't know, and the uncertainty seemed to slice through her with more fervour than any blade ever could.

As she watched them from her vigil on the chapels pew, through the visable doorway of the chapels medical wing, she saw them as they were. Not as leaders, nor warriors, but as brothers. Brothers both clinging to hope that this will just be another scar, another story, another time they can laugh and drink about that one fight they had that nearly claimed them. Salec still laid, near still as the dead, save for his breathing, and Sorens tears would flood the world if it meant his brothers safe passage through this turmoil. She had heard, before leaving the room for her own contemplations, Soren praying to Onyja, God of Peace to grant him some respite. It seems the heavens truly are empty as no peace has come to him yet.

She wanted to scream, to rage at the cruel world that demanded so much yet gave so little in return. But instead, she sat there, wrapped in silence, feeling the loneliness of bearing burdens no one else could see. She thought back to years past, when other hunters had left for commencement, while others still refused the hunters path. Those that did not wish to hunt became caregivers, farmers, bakers and all manner of other roles within the Mal'Katai community. All were valued, but nothing was more honoured than becoming a great hunter. From a young age, Kaya wanted to be a hunter and trained hard to become the best she could. In the cold stone of the chapel though, after the events of last nights conflict, she couldn't help but feel like her skills were all for nothing. Her mind reignited, ablaze with the memory of faces she would never see again. Her chest tightened with an ache she couldn't name — a mixture of guilt, fear, and something darker. A shadow of doubt gnawed at the edges of her resolve, relentless and hungry. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, her pale skin marked and tarnished with ash and blood. Her breath caught as she felt them welling within her.

The elder priest approached, kneeling beside her with a calm that felt distant from her own turmoil. His voice was gentle but firm. "Child," he said softly, kneeling beside her bench. His voice was low and steady, reminiscent of the murmur of wind through dried leaves. "You bear the weight of much, yet you carry it well."

Kaya blinked her tears away and took a deep breath, unsure if he spoke of the night's battle or something deeper. "I do not know what I carry," she replied, her voice barely more than a whisper, rough and uneven as if her words were dry branches scraping together. "Surviving hurts more than dying would."

The priest nodded slowly, his gaze distant as if peering into the shadows of the future beyond the chapel's walls. "Survival is the first step. But within you, there is a light, faint but unwavering. It calls not to be wielded, but to be understood. You need not grasp it yet. It is enough that it burns."

His words were vague, deliberately so, like a riddle wrapped in the quiet hum of the chapel's sanctuary. Kaya felt a flicker of something — hope? Doubt? — but she could not place it, as fleeting as the shadows cast by candlelight.

Kaya's eyes lifted to meet the priest's calm gaze. "Who guides you?" she asked, curiosity threading through her voice despite herself, a soft tremor beneath the surface.

The priest smiled faintly, the corners of his eyes crinkling with quiet patience, deliberate as the slow turning of seasons. "The Light guides us, though it is not a being, but a path. Each priest walks it in their own way, seeking harmony with what lies beyond." he gestured his hands widely, as if to encompass the entire chapel and all who dwelt within its walls.

Kaya frowned slightly, shaking her head. "I've never been one for faith. People say the Light, the gods, or whatever it is, but I don't… I don't know if I believe in something I can't see or touch."

The priest nodded as if he understood more than she said. "Belief is not always a matter of certainty. Sometimes it is simply the willingness to walk forward, even when the way is unclear."

"Do you ever doubt?" Kaya asked suddenly, leaning a little closer, her breath mingling with the faint scent of incense and candle smoke, as several other priests began to shuffle into the chapel and extinguish the lingering flames from the candles. "How do you keep going when everything around you feels so broken?"

A pause hung in the air, the sounds of the chapel seemed to quiet around them, heavy and reverent. The priest's voice softened to a whisper. "Doubt is part of the journey. It humbles us and keeps us honest. We do not walk because we know the path perfectly, but because it is the way to healing, to understanding."

Kaya considered this, the words settling inside her as the smooth stones beneath cold water — solid but unseen. "I'm not sure what I'm searching for," she admitted. She looked down at her charred clothing and dirty skin, opening her hands to see the callouses of her bow hand, the scars and marks of combat, past and present. She closed her hands into fists tightly and slumped into the wooden seat that supported her. Shoulders fell and her hands came to rest in her lap as her head dropped forward and the tears threatened to invade her eyes once more.

The priest inclined his head, the movement slow and deliberate. "Sometimes, not knowing is the beginning of all things."

Kaya closed her eyes briefly, letting the stillness settle around her like a warm cloak, as the tears were forced to fall down her cheeks, cutting a path of pain through the viscera of her stained flesh. She thought of Soren and Salec again, as she lifted her head just enough to peer to the doorway where she could see Soren still sat by his brothers side. His face too, scarred with tears, eyes bloodshot and filled with pain. Two brothers bound by blood and battle, each fighting their own war within. The demons they had faced were no mere beasts but twisted echoes of the chaos that had swallowed the world whole. And yet, here in this quiet place, there was a fragile thread of normalcy — a chance to breathe, to heal, to consider what might come next.

"I don't know what I am," Kaya admitted, her voice breaking as the tears began to rage, a soft murmur against the chapel's hush. "I'm just me."

"Exactly so," the priest said gently, the softest breeze stirring fallen leaves. "Sometimes, that is the most extraordinary thing of all."

Outside the chapel's thick stone walls, the sun was beginning to climb higher, casting pale gold across the battered village beyond. The light spilled like liquid honey over smouldering ruins, shattered trees, and the silent forms of the villagers who had fallen before their brigade made it to defend them. Kaya knew the world was not yet safe, and the darkness waiting beyond would not rest. But in this moment, she allowed herself a breath, a brief reprieve from the relentless march of fate.

She wiped away her tears and took another deep steadying breath. Her thoughts drifted to the strange whispers she had heard — voices that did not belong to the living, shadows that slipped at the edges of her mind like cold fingers. The poison that had touched her skin, linking her to the Dark Eyes, the lingering unease she could not shake. Now, added to that, the priests words, not the first time someone had referred to a light within her. She wondered, not for the first time, what those things meant. Was there something within her, hidden and waiting? Were they simply offering comfort to one so wounded and lost as her? Surely everyone carries a part of the divine light within them?

The priest rose, slowly as his frail old form could not quite manage the task with any degree of ease, and began to turn away from Kaya his steps slow and deliberate on the stone floor, the soft scrape of his robes the only sound. "Rest now. When the time comes, the path will reveal itself. Until then, walk in the light you have, even if it is dim."

Kaya nodded slowly, watching him disappear into the flickering shadows, and felt a quiet determination take root in her chest. The chapel's stillness felt both comforting and suffocating. Outside, the sun continued its lazy climb, unburdened by the nights event, casting pale gold across a world scarred and broken.

The chapel's quiet held a weight she hadn't expected. The priest's words echoed softly in her mind, and for the first time in a long while, Kaya allowed herself a flicker of something like comfort. She glanced around the grand room — the worn altar, the last of the flickering candlelight, the carved wood stained with time.

With trembling fingers, Kaya pulled loose from the hem of her tattered cloak a strip of the rough fabric. She tied it around a sturdy beam near the altar, knotting it tight against the worn wood. The coarse fibres bit into her skin, a sharp contrast to the softness of the dawn light spilling through the chapel's stained glass. It wasn't a prayer — not yet — but a quiet defiance, a tether thrown against the encroaching darkness.

"Maybe," she thought, "there is some light inside me after all. Even if it's just a flicker." Kaya felt the weight of that brokenness inside her, tangled with a fragile thread of determination. She wasn't whole, not yet. She was uncertain, vulnerable, and searching — but no longer did she feel lost.

Outside, a bird sang quietly in the burnt remains of a tree, the only voice brave enough to greet the morning. She turned slowly, feeling the sun's pale warmth brush her face like the gentle touch of Aeyi's first light. The silence around her seemed to hold its breath, waiting. Kaya lifted her chin, eyes shining with a tentative resolve. One day, she would sing again. For now, she would listen — to the quiet, to the dawn, to the fragile hope that stirred deep inside her.

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