Rei looked at the girl, her dark hair damp from the rain. Damp cheeks, not from the rain. She was outside the practice ground now, walking down the corridor back to her room. The old woman stood in the courtyard with a few servants and the swordmaster.
It had been too much, too soon. Miran had become overwhelmed by it. It was impossible to ignore the change. Perhaps it was for the better. It was hard to survive under the sorcerer's employ with a pacifistic temperament. This new zeal for victory, the streak of cruelty, would make it easier for her to survive.
They transported themselves to Miran's room where the girl was on her bed, her face pushed into her pillow. Silent weeping sounded throughout the room. Rei slowly pulled the pillow away from her and sat her up. She was back to herself again, soft and sweet.
"What happened to me, Rei?" she asked. Something had come over her when the weapon was in her hand. There was a wilder, more violent voice inside her head that drowned out her kinder impulses. The rain outside hit her window in a torrent. The weather had saved Amos from her. Her plan of fighting him to death by exhaustion was thwarted by the weather.
They couldn't tell her what they had done. She was too young, and humans were so suspicious of demons already. She would feel betrayed by him, and she was still unused to her impulses, unfamiliar with and afraid of her new power.
"You wanted to win," they suggested.
Miran shook her head. Even as the sun rose and she changed into her fighting clothes, all she felt was a sickness in her stomach and fear that bubbled up to her throat. But the fear had gone away, replaced by something that momentarily took control from her shaking hands and her anxious mind. Her pounding heart slowed, her jittering limbs slowed and stilled, her eyes cleared of the dullness of sleep, and her wits were at their utmost capacity.
"You had to win. And you did, child."
"I could've won in a different way."
Rei shook their head. "You won in a way that earned you respect."
Miran looked up. She didn't earn respect on the fighting ground. She earned fear, distrust, and from some of them, disgust. She was supposed to be a noblewoman, and noblewomen could fight but they could not fight dirty. They could not lust for victory, or derive pleasure from besting someone else. She saw the disappointment in her grandmother's eyes, more than usual.
She behaved like a beast. Miran stood up, ready to go back downstairs and apologize to everyone downstairs.
"Where are you going?" Rei asked. She expressed her intent to them, to which they responded by closing the doors of her room with a flick of their wrist.
"I need to apologize, Rei. Especially to Amos."
"You need to apologize to the boy who wanted to hurt you?"
"I don't know that."
She did know it. She saw it in the cocky confidence of the first part of their fight, in the crooked smile on his face the moment her grandmother announced that her next fight would be with him.
"What did you do that was so wrong? You taught that good-for-nothing thug a lesson. Your grandmother wanted you to fight him. A boy twice your size, and you gave her what she asked for. There is no need for never-ending humility and obsequiousness, Miran. You give kindness once and it will be all people expect from you. You grow soft, and they cut through you. The world is not made for gentle souls, Miran. Especially not those with a fate like yours."
Rei sighed. Their bindings grew white with heat and burned the pale skin of their wrists. The girl knew she would be in the sorcerer's employ, but she did not know what her employer would demand of her yet. She was too young.
"Make yourself unbreakable, my child. Your skin, your bones, and most important of all, your heart."
They could offer her no more clues, not without their hands bursting into flames. It seemed their master did not want the girl to know about her future employer. They instead smiled at the girl.
"There is an advantage to being unbreakable, Miran. To being strong, tough, and undefeated in a fight."
Miran looked at them. She was so young, her tear-stained cheeks still holding onto their baby fat and the curiosity in her eyes that of a child.
"You can protect the weak. You can protect those who cannot protect themselves."
Miran wanted to save herself first. Everyone expected more from her than she could give. Her grandmother wanted perfection, her swordmaster expected uninterrupted dedication. The swordmaster expected mastery of all the weapons he threw at her. And Rei, who until now had expected nothing at all, suddenly wanted her to be a hero.
"I want to protect myself," she confessed. "Why should I protect people who have nothing for me?"
They took their hand off of her with a flinch. It was only to be expected. The little girl did not know much of human kindness. The manor's servants showed her respect because they were paid to. The swordmaster was a strict teacher. And her grandmother… If Rei did not know better, they would suspect Lady Taro Carmanor of being part demon herself.
"The world is not like this prison you're being raised in," Rei explained. "Sometimes people are kind to one another without cause."
"Sometimes people are cruel without cause too."
Rei took a seat on her bed. They knew she spoke from experience.
"You haven't met many people yet, Miran," they said, patting her head. "And when you do, perhaps you will be surprised."
The first person she was likely to meet outside the manor was the sorcerer, and he would only reinforce the little girl's belief in cruelty without cause. Rei wished they could take her away, but the bindings on their wrists burned at the mere thought. They winced, and Miran noticed.
"You're hurt," she said. Looking at their featureless face for permission, she pushed aside Rei's loose red cloak and looked at their hands. She smelled singed flesh and saw white-hot metal that turned dark under her gaze.
She slid the metal back an inch, revealing skin that was already pale and without damage. Rei slid their arms back under the cloth of the cloak and smiled. Their smile reassured few people in the world, and fortunately, Miran was one of them.
"You're doing it now," they said to her. "Being kind without cause."
There was cause. She was only returning the kindness Rei showed her. Miran leaned into their red robes, breathing in the scent of lilacs and darkness. Her muscles ached, finally depleted of whatever energy had possessed them during battle.
"Sleep now," they said. As if the command had released her from consciousness, she leaned forward into their robes and slipped into sleep.
Rei looked down at her face. When she was asleep, the full intensity of her youth was on display. Worry no longer rested between her eyebrows, and her fingers unwound themselves from the thick cloth of their robe.
When they were sure Miran was asleep, they placed her onto the bed slowly and covered her with blankets. They sensed the maid at the door and bid the door to open with their finger.
The maid at the door almost dropped the tray as the door swung open in front of her. The tray she held bore the young lady's lunch, and Rei directed the young woman to place the tray on the low table a few feet away from the bed.
When she left, they stood up and headed for the table. Her meal was a spartan one. A simple bowl of soup that would grow cold by the time she woke up, a few pieces of hard, salty bread, and a glass of milk spiced with saffron.
Rei pulled up the sleeves of their robe, exposing the translucent skin of their arms to the warm air. The vein was easy to find, and the sharpened point of their nail was enough to pierce the skin. The first drop of blood hit the milk with a tiny splash, but the trickle that followed was silent.
The drink was significantly darker by the time they were done, and smelled of molasses. They turned around before leaving, watching her rest. It would be difficult, the foreign blood, laced with dark magic, mixing with her own. But it had made her stronger already.
It wasn't something the sorcerer thought to forbid them from doing, because it was a thing sorcerers did not yet know of. His master had enough power, enough servants, and over the years he had taken enough from Rei. Their time, their freedom, their memories of the time before.
Rei paused with their hand on the door. The memories from before sometimes sunk them into loneliness in the span of a breath. They were incomplete. Something had been lost along the passage from life into death. They felt emptiness in their palms, exposed to the world.
It was wrong, what they were doing to the child. She would grow up neither completely human nor demon. Her abilities would confuse everyone around her, including herself. But if they told her, she might refuse. And someday, if they fed her enough power and magic, she could become powerful enough to break more than just promises.