The fire had burned down to a low orange eye by the time Lyf finally spoke.
Orin sat across from him with his knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, cloak pulled tight more out of habit than cold. The Rendmaw Gorgolin's carcass lay a little ways off, already cleaned and quartered, its stone-plated hide stacked aside. The smell of cooked meat clung to the clearing, rich and heavy.
His stomach rolled every time the scent hit him.
He could still feel the give of the beast's neck between his teeth.
Lyf poked a coal with a branch until it cracked and fell inward. "You're going to stare that hole through the ground if you keep frowning at it like that."
Orin didn't answer.
Kahn-Ra lay in his usual spot by Orin's boots, curled like any ordinary black bobcat. His eyes were half-closed, tail occasionally flicking—lazy to anyone else, but Orin could feel the quiet awareness humming under the act.
The fire snapped. A moth blundered into the heat and vanished.
Lyf let the silence stretch a little longer, then tossed the branch aside. "All right, kid. Let's talk about it."
Orin's fingers tightened on his knees. "About what? Me losing the cleavers? Getting pinned?" His voice came out rougher than he meant.
Lyf snorted. "You got pinned by a three-star you've never seen before, with armor plates and a jaw built to turn bones into gravel. That's not the part that interests me."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, expression turning just a shade sharper.
"I want to talk about the part where you bit it."
Heat crawled up Orin's neck. "That wasn't… it just happened."
"Yeah," Lyf said quietly. "That's why we're talking about it."
Orin's jaw clenched. He stared at his hands. They looked normal again. Human. No fur, no claws, no molten lines. Just faint scars and fresh scratches.
"I didn't think," he said. "It had me. My arms were giving out. My throat…" He swallowed. "I just… reacted."
Lyf nodded once, slowly. "Good. That's the first honest thing you've said since we dragged the body over."
Orin looked up, frowning. "You think biting a Monari is good?"
"I think being honest about what you did is good," Lyf said. "The biting is… interesting."
He let that sit a moment, then pointed with his chin toward the dark bulk of the Gorgolin hide.
"Walk me through it. Step by step. When did it start to feel different?"
Orin let out a breath. The memories were close—too close. He had to pick his way through them carefully or they'd swallow him whole.
"It had me pinned," he said. "Front paws on my shoulders. I couldn't reach the cleavers. Couldn't buck it off. It kept leaning in and I could feel my arms shaking."
He flexed his fingers unconsciously, feeling that phantom weight again.
"I thought… this is it. Again. Another beast. Another… choke." His chest tightened. For a second, he saw the Vrexus's shadow rearing over the church formation, heard Sonny shouting, Lisa's voice—
He shoved the memory back.
"So I moved," Orin said. "I twisted my head and bit down. Right… there." He tapped the side of his own neck, just below the jaw. "Flesh, not the armor plates."
Lyf watched him without interrupting.
"The blood hit my mouth and everything just… jumped. My arms stopped shaking. It felt like… like someone poured fire into my muscles. I got my shoulder under it, rolled, and then… you saw the rest."
"You felt the surge right when the blood hit?" Lyf asked. "Not when you decided to fight back, not when you pushed, but when you actually swallowed?"
Orin thought about it. "Yeah. It wasn't the decision. I'd already decided not to die. It changed when the blood hit my tongue."
Kahn-Ra's tail thumped once against Orin's boot.
Of course it did, his voice brushed through Orin's mind, low and dry. You were always going to be a difficult menu.
Orin almost flinched. He didn't answer, not out loud or in his head. He didn't trust his thoughts enough yet.
Lyf sat back, letting out a slow breath through his nose. The firelight painted faint lines of reflection along his gray skin.
"Good," he said. "So it's not just panic. It's contact."
Orin stared at him. "Good?"
Lyf shrugged. "Specific is good. 'I get weird when I'm upset' is useless for training. 'Drinking monster blood makes me stronger' is horrible—but at least it's a horrible thing I can work with."
The words made Orin's stomach twist. "You say that like it's normal."
"Oh, it's not," Lyf said lightly. "Not even a little. But it's… familiar."
That made Kahn-Ra's eyes slit open a fraction.
Careful, he murmured, only for Orin. He's thinking of someone. He just isn't saying who.
Orin kept his face still. "Familiar how?"
Lyf's gaze flicked to Kahn-Ra, then back. "Let's keep this simple for now. Your blood doesn't behave like a standard Blood Hunter's. You know that much."
"I know I killed my family," Orin said flatly. "That's what I know."
Lyf didn't look away. "Yeah. You did. And you're here because you don't want to do it again. Which means we can either pretend you're a normal student who had a bad day… or we can talk honestly about what you are."
The words settled between them like another log dropped on the coals.
Orin swallowed. "What am I, then?"
Lyf smiled faintly. Not mocking—more like he was smiling at the question itself. "Right now? Someone who can take a beast's blood into his own system and spike power off it. That's as far as I'll go tonight."
He lifted a hand before Orin could push. "I'm not dodging you. I just don't like lying, and I'm not ready to tell you all the names I've heard whispered around things like you."
Kahn-Ra's tail gave another deliberate flick.
He is choosing his words, Kahn-Ra told Orin, tone a little sharper. Listen to how he avoids the titles, not just the truth.
Orin exhaled through his teeth. "So where does that leave me?"
"Here," Lyf said. "Sitting by a fire. Heart beating. Not feral. Which means we can talk terms."
"Terms," Orin repeated.
Lyf leaned forward again, resting his forearms on his knees. The playful edge in his eyes cooled into something more focused.
"You told me what it felt like when the blood hit," he said. "Now tell me when it stopped."
Orin thought back. The fight after the bite blurred in his head—blood, movement, the sound of cleaver through muscle.
"It faded after the kill," he said slowly. "Not all at once. More like… dropping down steps. Each second weaker than the last, but still stronger than before I bit it."
"Any sense you could grab it again?" Lyf asked. "Pull it back once it started to slide?"
Orin shook his head. "No. Once it started going, it kept going. I tried to keep moving so I didn't feel it all at once."
Lyf nodded. "So: contact, spike, natural taper. Not something you can just toggle on and off with a thought. Yet."
"Yet," Orin said quietly.
Lyf's mouth quirked. "I'm a hopeful teacher. Sue me."
He fell quiet for a moment, staring into the embers.
"Here's what I'm thinking," he said eventually. "What you did wasn't Blood Surge."
Orin frowned. "I've heard the term. From other Hunters. I've never learned it."
"You will," Lyf said. "Hachi pushes it hard once they trust you not to rip your own arteries. Blood Surge is a technique. You call up what's already in your veins—the infused Monari blood—and cycle it through nerves and muscle. It's a controlled burn."
He gestured toward the Gorgolin carcass.
"What you did was different. You dragged something foreign into your system and your body grabbed it like dry wood grabbing a spark. That's not a technique. That's a trait."
"A trait," Orin murmured.
"It's part of you, not a trick you learned with breathing exercises," Lyf said. "You didn't shout a phrase. You didn't move a certain way. You took the beast into yourself and something in your blood knew what to do with it."
He's not wrong, Kahn-Ra said, voice low. You are built to adapt to what you consume. The question is whether you adapt… or become it.
Orin's hand tightened on his sleeve.
"So I'm a monster that eats other monsters and steals from them," he said.
Lyf gave him a look that was more tired than amused. "You're a boy who bit something trying to kill him. Let's not dress it up with poetry."
He let that land, then added, "But yes. Practically? You can pull power from what you consume. That's ugly. It's also useful. Both can be true."
Orin stared into the fire. "What happens if I do it again?"
"With the same kind of beast?" Lyf shrugged one shoulder. "My guess? Diminishing returns. Your body already recognized that pattern once. It'll file it away. First bite, everything's new. Second bite… not so much. You don't get to climb to the top of New Altera by eating the same thing every day."
Orin huffed a small, humorless breath. "So if I want to get stronger, I have to keep finding new things to eat."
"You want the kind of answer that sounds nice," Lyf said. "But I'm not in that business. I'm in the 'tell you what will actually keep you and everyone around you alive' business."
He pointed two fingers at Orin's chest.
"You don't have to do anything," Lyf went on. "You could refuse to ever bite again. Live on what's already there. Fight with steel and sweat like everyone else. But you'll always know there's more in reach if you're willing to cross that line."
Orin's throat felt tight. "And you? What do you want me to do?"
Lyf's answer was immediate. "I want you to learn the costs before you decide how far to go. I've seen people destroy themselves chasing power they don't understand. I'd rather you not be one of them."
The fire popped, a coal collapsing into itself.
"So what now?" Orin asked. "We go out tomorrow and you throw more monsters at me and wait to see what I eat?"
"Not right away," Lyf said. "Tomorrow we train something boring."
"Boring?"
Lyf grinned. "Footwork. Guard discipline. Breathing. The things every hot-headed prodigy thinks are beneath him until someone puts a spear through his lung."
Orin managed a faint, reluctant smile. "I don't think I'm beneath that."
"You will after I run you for an hour," Lyf said cheerfully. Then his tone softened again. "But before we get there…"
He tapped his own temple.
"I want you to remember exactly what it felt like when the surge hit," he said. "The heat. Where it started. Where it spread. How your breathing changed. Not just 'I got stronger.' Specifics. We're going to need them later."
Orin closed his eyes for a moment and forced himself to recall it. The hot flood through his arms. The way his vision sharpened. The way his ribs had screamed, then gone quiet under that rush.
"It started in my chest," he said. "Right here." He pressed a palm over his sternum. "Then out through my shoulders into my arms. My legs got some of it, but not as much. Everything felt heavier and lighter at the same time. Like my body was willing to move and the ground just… helped."
Lyf nodded slowly. "Good. You're paying attention. That's half of what separates someone who survives from someone who gets a statue on the academy lawn."
He stood, stretching his back until the joints cracked.
"Last thing," he said.
He looked down at Orin, expression serious but not unkind.
"Don't do it casually," Lyf said. "The biting. The blood. Don't do it for fun. Don't do it to show off. Don't do it because some part of you likes how it feels. Treat it like a last resort until you understand what repeated use does to your head."
Orin swallowed. "You think it'll change me."
Lyf's gaze held his. "Everything you do will change you. This just does it faster."
Kahn-Ra uncurled enough to stand, stretching with a slow ripple along his spine. He brushed his side against Orin's calf, then padded a few paces toward the trees.
He speaks less foolishly than most humans, the tiger murmured in Orin's mind. For once, listen.
"I heard that," Lyf said dryly without looking over. "And I'm not human, furball."
Kahn-Ra froze mid-step.
His head turned, eyes slitting. For a heartbeat his tail went still.
You did not sense me in the cave, Kahn-Ra said, mind-voice narrowing to a point. You did not sense me at Hachi. You did not sense me until I allowed it. You are—
Lyf snapped his fingers once.
Around them, shadows thickened—not a rush of darkness, not a violent surge, just a slow drawing-in of light until the fire's reach seemed to stop a few arm-lengths out. The night beyond became a soft, impenetrable dome. The wind still moved. The trees still whispered. But the world outside the clearing felt held at a distance.
Orin's skin prickled.
Lyf rolled his shoulders like a man loosening a cloak. "Relax. It's just a curtain. I don't like surprises listening in when people start comparing notes."
Kahn-Ra's fur bristled along his spine. He sat, no longer playing at lazy. Power pressed around him, contained but undeniable.
What are you, then? he asked, this time out loud for Lyf's ears, the sound a low rumble.
Lyf's grin flashed. "Someone who's very good at not being seen when he doesn't want to be. And someone who has done this dance before."
He looked down at Kahn-Ra fully now, eyes alight with something between mischief and recognition.
"You've grown," Lyf said. "Last time I saw you, you were taller than a tavern and had three fewer scars."
Kahn-Ra's eyes went sharp. You—
"You probably don't remember me," Lyf went on. "You were too busy trying to bite a skyship in half. But you'd remember my master's name."
He lifted a hand and traced a lazy curve in the air, like drawing a sigil only he could see.
"Zurath," he said quietly. "He's the one who taught me how to wrap space like this."
The name struck Orin like a stone in the ribs. He didn't know why. It meant nothing to him. But something deep in his chest stirred, the same place that had flared when the Gorgolin's blood hit his tongue.
Kahn-Ra's aura sharpened, pressing against the shadowed boundary. You were his apprentice.
"Still am, if stubborn loyalty counts," Lyf said. "Even if he's off getting himself framed and exiled instead of staying where people can yell at him."
He shrugged, the motion loose, as if the words didn't tug at anything in him.
Orin watched them both, a wire of unease tightening behind his sternum.
"You knew someone like me," he said quietly. "Before I was born."
Lyf's gaze flicked to him, then softened just a fraction.
"I knew someone who believed people like you were possible," he corrected. "And who spent his life annoying everyone else by saying so."
He let the shadow curtain thin. The night crept back in, stars clearer above the treetops.
"We'll talk names later," Lyf said. "Right now, all you need to know is this: what's in you is not an accident. It's messy, it's dangerous, but it can be shaped. And we're going to shape it before it shapes you."
Kahn-Ra's tail flicked once, thoughtfully.
Do not let him turn you into a copy, the tiger said in Orin's mind. You are not your father's experiments, boy. You are your own problem.
Orin's heart stumbled at the word father, even in that vague hint. He didn't push. Not yet.
He looked down at his hands one more time.
They were steady now.
He wasn't sure if that comforted him or terrified him.
"I'll learn," he said, more to himself than to either of them. "Whatever this is. I'll learn it before it kills anyone else."
Lyf nodded once, accepting the promise without ceremony.
"Good," he said. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow we see what you can do without any blood involved. If you only shine when you're chewing on monsters, I'm going to be very disappointed."
Orin huffed a breath that almost counted as a laugh.
He lay down on his bedroll, cloak pulled over his shoulders, Kahn-Ra circling once before dropping heavily against his side—a warm, solid weight reminding him he wasn't entirely alone.
The last thing Orin saw before sleep dragged him under was Lyf sitting by the fire, staring into the coals with a look that didn't match his easy grin at all.
A look that said he'd seen this kind of power before.
And that this time, he was determined to get ahead of it.