Capítulo 24: "Theory Of A Kni- Hunter, I Meant Hunter. Yes, Nothing Else"(￣▽￣)" Part(II)

JULIAN FELIS

He had lied to the boy.

The sigil was still on him, never burned, never severed. The witch had seen it too and turned her gaze aside. Through it, Julian had stalked him, watching from afar as El Ritch mimicked the techniques of others and sharpened them, bit by bit, into something better. Watching the boy, Julian recognized a kindred spirit. A thief with the curiosity of a cat, he thought with an inward smirk. Just like him.

His thoughts drifted to Aldric, as they so often did. I've yet to have your eyes for people, Aldric. That man was more than strength and skill. It was his influence, the way people rallied around him, trusted him, followed him without question. Aldric's power wasn't just his body or his blade; it was his ability to command hearts and minds. Julian had always envied that.

He glanced at El Ritch, watching the boy's movements as he worked to replicate a sequence Julian had shown him. Nine days and half-a-day was left and El Ritch was, sixty percent there, Julian judged. The boy was quick to learn, quicker than most. Julian could feel temptation gnawing at him. I could steal him, he thought, the idea taking root before he could stop it. Aldric's son, yet more like Julian than Aldric could ever know.

But the thought of theft came with the phantom chill of a blade severing him in two, the vivid memory of dying five times over flashing through his mind. He sighed heavily, suppressing the impulse. Aldric wasn't a man one trifled with lightly, not if one wished to live.

And yet, Julian reflected bitterly, how much of my life is a lie? Lies to the boy, lies to the witch, lies to himself. It was the lies that tethered him to this so-called reality, as fragile and fleeting as spider silk.

The first lie, he recalled, had been to Aldric himself. Julian hadn't always been this man—or this creature. Once, long ago, he had friends. He had loved them. And then he had killed them. Not by choice, not by malice, but the deed had been done all the same. He had lied to Aldric about it after the third death by his hands, a lie that burned on his tongue even now, and Aldric made him die for the lie, again- making it fourth.

His people, too, he had lied to, feeding them false hope when their time ran out. They had perished, every last one of them, leaving him alone in a world that seemed to forget them as the centuries passed. Alone for three thousand years.

He had met the witch near the end of it, her presence a jarring rupture in his hollow existence. She had come to kill him, the last of his kind. And Julian, for the first time, had run.

Even now, the memory brought a sour taste to his mouth. Coward. His biology should have kept such feelings at bay—fear, anxiety, anger—but they had come anyway, unbidden and unwelcome. He had been created for instinct alone, not for the burden of emotion. Yet the instinct had been twisted by impulse, by something... something wrong. His kind's survival weighed on him, intentional or not. It didn't matter. Aldric had made him feel for the first time and the witch made him realize those feelings.

The witch had won that day. She killed him, as surely as Aldric had killed before. But he came back. He always came back.

[He wasn't proud of it. But pride was a luxury he had long since abandoned.

He felt fear. Pure, unrelenting fear. And with that fear came shame, and with that shame came anger—at her, at himself, at the world.

The witch had won. She killed him once more, and when he returned, battered and desperate, he did something he had never done before. He pleaded.

For the first time, Julian Felis, the thief, the outcast, the liar, the dem#*, begged.]

She had cared nothing for his pleas and raised her hand for another blow. That was when he stole it—not her power, nor her knowledge, but her sense of threat. In that fleeting moment, Julian took the part of her that saw him as dangerous, reducing it to a whisper in her mind. She paused, her expression clouding with doubt. And then, without a word, she spared him, vanishing into the ether.

It wasn't mercy, Julian knew. It was indifference.

Even now, as he stood in the ruins with El Ritch, the memory clung to him like a shadow. He had survived, yes, but it wasn't a victory. It was just another chapter in the endless, exhausting story of his existence.

He glanced at the boy beside him, watching as El Ritch peered curiously at the map in the snow, stopping his training. Perhaps, he thought, there's something to learn from him. Something I've missed in all these years.

But that was a thought for another time. For now, Julian let the boy believe in the story he was weaving, the tales he spun.

[After all, wasn't every lie just another kind of hope?]

EL RITCH

Attacks have patterns. They follow the pattern of movements.

...

No, he realized. Everything has patterns—patterns set to make them do spontaneous or continuous movements, voluntarily or involuntarily.

He had seen it too many times now to call it coincidence. The villagers, the Hunters, even Julian—everything they did, from how they swung a blade to how they paused to catch their breath, was bound to a rhythm, a series of steps that wove together like a dance. Voluntary or not, they were forced into their patterns, into the shapes of motion and stillness.

Eight. Eight movements, the people of this village followed. El Ritch had counted them. A strike to the left, a feint, a retreat, a thrust, a step forward, a parry, a pivot, a surrender. Eight. Their fighting had eight forms, eight sequences—no more, no less.

But El Ritch could not do it.

He tried, oh how he tried, but he was not made for eight movements. He could only manage three. After every third movement, his body betrayed him, faltering, his rhythm broken like a poorly-tuned drum. The pattern he so desperately sought to mimic slipped through his fingers like water through a sieve.

Why? The question gnawed at him as he swung his wooden sword again and again, determined to carve those three movements into perfection. If three was all he could do, then there would be no waste, no empty motions to slow him down.

His blade traced a horizontal arc, cutting through the air with an audible whuff. His left foot stepped forward, his weight shifting, the ground firm beneath him. Then came the thrust, the wooden tip of his sword stabbing into the empty space where an enemy might have stood. Three.

As the final motion ended, he reset with urgency, pulling his right foot forward, the blade brought back to his right hand, his left arm raised as balance. He twisted, muscles straining, preparing to swing again in a horizontal arc.

His foot slipped. His body lurched sideways, and he hit the frozen ground hard, the cold biting through his clothes. His wooden sword clattered beside him.

"Shit..." he muttered, the only curse he knew, the only one he had heard often enough to learn.

El Ritch pushed himself up, wincing as his knees scraped against the rough ground. He sat for a moment, his breath fogging in the frigid air, the sting of failure sharp and fresh. He could see it in his mind—the sequence, the rhythm. He could hear the faint echoes of Julian's steps as he performed the movements flawlessly, effortlessly.

Why three? Why only three?

It bugged him. No, it haunted him. The answer hovered just out of reach, taunting him, daring him to chase it. El Ritch picked up the wooden sword again, his hands trembling from the cold and exertion. His mind whirred, thoughts colliding like sparring blades.

The eight patterns that the others followed—they were set. But he was different. His body would not let him fall into that rhythm. Three was all he had, and he would make it enough.