I opened my eyes slowly, my lashes fluttering as the world came into focus.
The first thing I saw was the plain, white, and painfully familiar ceiling.
Confusion settled over me.
My gaze drifted around the room, taking in the sterile walls, and the neatly arranged equipment. Everything was so white.
Recognition hit me then. It was the sane room I had woken up in days ago.
What was I doing back here?
"How do you feel?"
The voice startled me. I turned my head, and there was Devon standing nearby. He was not close, but close enough. His hands were in his pockets, and there was something in his expression that I couldn't name.
A frown pulled at my lips as unease curled tightly in my chest.
Why was I here?
And why was I alone with him?
Then it came back. All of it did. From the introduction hall, to the line of hunters, James, and the moment I had been lifted off the ground and thrown toward the floor with nothing to stop it.
My breath hitched.
I shot upright, the movement so sudden that sharp, intense pain tore through my body instantly. I fought to ignore it.
Devon moved quickly, reaching out to steady me.
"Take it easy," he said.
I slapped his hands away hard.
"You knew, didn't you?" My voice trembled despite the anger burning through me. "You knew!"
"What?" he asked quietly.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and forced myself to stand. My muscles screamed in protest but the pain was nothing compared to this.
"Why?" I demanded, glaring at him. "You wanted me humiliated!"
"Kira, I assure you —"
"You wanted them to see how useless I am." My voice cracked on the last word, which I hated. Tears came before I could stop them, which I hated more. I hated that I was crying. I hated that he was in the room while I did it.
I wiped at them angrily, but more followed, blurring my vision.
Devon's expression changed, softening in a way I did not want to look at.
"You're not worthless, Kira."
The words were empty because all I could see was myself losing. Falling and failing.
A broken sound escaped me as the memories replayed in my head, over and over again, the humiliation hitting sharper each time.
"You don't know what it feels like," I choked out, my chest tightening painfully. "To be a failure. To be a hunter who can't even protect herself... let alone anyone else."
My hands clenched into fists at my sides.
"I'm an abomination."
"You're not—"
"Don't lie to me."
My legs gave a small tremor beneath me. Then another and before I could steady myself, my balance faltered.
Devon caught me again. His grip was firm, his warmth seeping through me in a way that only made me angrier.
"You shouldn't be on your feet," he murmured.
Before I could protest, he lifted me effortlessly. I struggled, but it was useless.
He placed me back on the bed like I weighed nothing. The moment I felt the mattress beneath me, anger surged all over again.
"Because of you," I whispered, my voice breaking as fresh tears soaked into the sheets beneath me, "everyone knows."
My fingers twisted into the fabric.
"If you'd just let me stay with the humans ... no one would have noticed me."
"What if I was as ignorant as the rest?"
I shook my head. "You weren't."
Silence.
He exhaled slowly. "When the seer told me you were powerless... I had my doubts."
A bitter laugh escaped me.
"And you decided the best way to confirm that was in front of everyone."
"Is it easier to blame me because you hate me, Kira? Is this really about the fight or is it because I'm a demon?"
"Don't say my name," I said. The anger had a different quality now. It was flatter, more certain. "Yes, I hate you, Devon. I have never wanted to hurt anyone. But if you don't leave right now, you will be the first. Powers or not, I will find a way."
It was an absolute bluff but understading moved in his eyes. He nodded, and then he was gone.
The moment he disappeared, the tears came harder. I did not try to stop them. There was no one left to see.
***
As expected, the whispers didn't stay whispers for long.
Word spread fast.
Hunters started visiting the clinic just to look at the powerless hunter. I heard the phrase through the door more than once, said in the careful tone people use when they want to be heard without being accountable for it.
At first, I ignored them. I turned away, stayed silent, or pretended it didn't matter but the numbers grew, and so did the weight pressing down on me.
It became suffocating.
Eventually, I complained to Evelyn and the doctor. I didn't know what they said or did, but it worked. The visits stopped. Still, the damage didn't.
A week and three days.
That was how long I spent in that white room, watching the ceiling and eating what the doctor brought and trying not to think about my mother and failing at it every time. My body healed slowly. The herbs helped, or the doctor said they did. The ache in my chest from James's hit was the last thing to go, and even after it faded physically, something of it remained.
When I could not take the white walls any longer, I asked Evelyn to take me back to my room.
"Call me if you need anything," she said, settling me onto the bed.
"Thank you," I said, though I had no idea how I would reach her if I did.
She lingered in the doorway, her expression loaded with words she wanted to say but deciding not to.
"Kira, are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine," I said.
"If you're not —"
"Evelyn, please." My voice was firmer this time. "I said I'm fine."
She hesitated, then sighed. "I'll leave, then. I have training."
"Bye."
She left. The door clicked shut, and then the lock turned. I laid back and stared at the ceiling of my room, which was dark blue instead of white, which helped.
I thought about what came next. At some point I would have to go back out. I would have to face the introduction hall, or whatever came after it, and the people who had watched me get hit across the room by James.
I would have to figure out where I fit in Safe Land's system when the system had not been built with me in mind.
I did not have answers to any of that. I had a dark blue ceiling and a sore chest.
****
The door opened that evening. I sat up, expecting Evelyn as she was the only one I knew of with a key. But the person who walked in was not Evelyn.
The earth elemental from my village came in with a straightforward cheerfulness that seemed entirely unbothered by the fact that I was in bed and had been for over a week.
"Hi, roommate," she said easily, dropping onto the bed beside me.
It took me a second to remember that Evelyn had mentioned I'd have a roommate.
"Hi," I replied.
And strangely... I didn't mind. Out of everyone here, I was glad it was her.
"Do you like flowers?" she asked.
I blinked. Of everything I had expected her to say, that was not on the list. "Yes. Why?"
Instead of answering, she opened her palm.
"What's your favorite?"
I shrugged slightly. "Roses."
Right before my eyes, a red rose began to bloom in her hand, from the stem, leaves, and petals. It unfolded slowly, and so delicately. My jaw hung. It was beautiful.
"Take it," she said, holding it out to me.
I hesitated for only a second before reaching for it. The stem was solid and real in my hand.
I smiled. A real one, not the tight-lipped version I had been producing for days. It surprised me.
"Thank you," I said.
"I hope you feel better," she continued. "I came to check on you at the clinic, but you were always out."
Warmth settled in my chest.
"Thank you," I said softly. Then, because I could not help it: "How did you survive?"
She did not seem thrown by the question. "I got lucky, I think. You?"
Heat rushed to my face.
"I… ran away."
The words tasted bitter.
She looked at me without judgment. "It is okay, Kira."
"It is not," I said. "A hunter without powers who also ran. That is what I am."
She leaned forward slightly. Her name came to me then. Kathryn. I had heard it once, in passing, months ago. "What if your powers are just hidden?"
"Why would they be hidden?"
"Kira, there has never been a powerless hunter. I have been thinking about this since the village, actually, since I first noticed you fighting without using anything. And I think your powers might be something greater than what we are used to. Something that takes longer to surface. Like seers. Most seers do not come into their ability until they are thirty."
I looked at her. "I am half-human."
"So?" She laughed, and it was a warm, easy sound. "Many hunters are half-human. That has nothing to do with it."
I wanted to believe her.
The wanting was immediate and embarrassing in its intensity. I had not realized how much I needed someone to say it until she did.
But wanting it to be true was not the same as it being true, and I had spent enough time hoping for things that did not happen.
My mother had always told me I was not broken. She had said it in different ways across different years, adapting the argument to whatever form my self-doubt had taken that season.
I had believed her because she was my mother and because I needed to. But my mother was not here, and the argument needed to stand on its own now.
"You might be giving me false hope," I said.
"Or I might be right," she said simply. "Think about it. The seer could not read you. There is a wall around you that has never existed around anyone else. Something is there, Kira. You just cannot see it yet."
I looked down at the rose in my hand, turning it slowly as I processed her words.
"You are not an abomination," Kathryn said.
She pulled me into a surprise hug. I let her, which was not something I usually allowed easily. It helped. I did not know why exactly. She had not solved anything, the situation had not changed, my mother was still missing and I was still without a gift and the whole of Safe Land now knew it.
But something in the hug made the weight of it feel distributed rather than concentrated entirely on me.
"I need a shower," she said when she pulled back. "Training today was brutal. I will be right back."
She disappeared into the bathroom and the door closed behind her.
I could hear the water start up through the wall.
I sat with the rose in my hands and looked at it for a long time.
Maybe she was right. Maybe the seer's wall meant something. Maybe the fact that nothing about me fit the expected pattern was not evidence of a defect but of something else entirely.
I did not know, but for the first time in over a week, I was willing to consider it.