Chapter 6 Lyssa
LYSSA
Evening falls cold and uncomfortable around our small fire, the atmosphere thick with unspoken tensions that make even simple conversation feel dangerous.
Kaerith and Elira sit apart from us, heads bent together in whispered conference that excludes Thorrin and me as deliberately as physical barrier.
Their voices carry just enough to tantalize without revealing content—fragments about "tactical advantage" and "necessary methods" and "acceptable losses" that make my chest tight with growing unease.
We used to share everything. Plans, fears, hopes for the future we were building together. Now they plot in shadows while treating us like children too naive to understand the harsh realities of survival.
"What are they discussing?" I ask Thorrin quietly.
He stares into flames with expression carved from winter stone. "Strategies I am not sure I want to hear."
Across the fire, Elira gestures sharply as she makes some point that draws approving nod from Kaerith. Whatever they're planning, it has his full support. Whatever darkness they're contemplating, they're walking into it together while leaving us behind.
The exclusion hurts worse than I expected. We were family. The four of us against a world that tried to destroy what we'd built. Now that unity fractures along lines I don't understand, dividing us into categories of those who accept necessity and those who cling to naive idealism.
When did protecting each other become naive?
"Tomorrow we move closer," Kaerith announces without looking up from their private conversation. "Gather intelligence on their patterns, their defenses, their vulnerabilities."
"All of us?" Thorrin asks carefully.
"Elira and I will handle reconnaissance. You'll maintain perimeter security."
The dismissal is polite but absolute. Important work for the corrupted, guard duty for those who haven't evolved beyond sentiment. As if we're liability rather than asset, burden rather than family.
"We could help with—" I begin.
"You could compromise the mission," Elira interrupts with voice carrying patience reserved for explaining obvious truths to slow children. "This requires specific mindset you haven't developed yet."
The casual cruelty of it takes my breath away. Not anger or frustration, just matter-of-fact assessment that I lack whatever psychological transformation they consider necessary for real work.
Since when does my sister speak to me like I'm stranger?
The change reveals itself in small details that accumulate into portrait of someone I no longer recognize.
She catches the rabbit with efficiency that speaks of extensive practice—quick, clean trap that immobilizes without immediate killing. Standard hunting technique. But it's what comes next that makes my stomach turn.
Instead of ending its life mercifully, she crouches beside the trapped animal and studies its fear with clinical interest. Watches how it struggles against bonds that only tighten with movement. Observes the exact moment when panic gives way to exhausted resignation.
"Elira," I say quietly. "Just kill it."
"Why?" She looks up with genuine curiosity, as if my discomfort is interesting puzzle requiring solution. "It's going to die anyway. What difference does timing make?"
"Because it's suffering unnecessarily."
"So?" The question comes without heat, without cruelty, just honest confusion about why suffering matters when outcome remains constant. "Fear doesn't change meat quality. Pain doesn't affect nutritional value. What practical difference does its emotional state make?"
I exchange glances with Thorrin, seeing my own horror reflected in his amber-lit gaze. This woman once spent hours teaching me to identify plants that ease pain. Who valued gentleness as strength rather than weakness.
Now she discusses animal suffering like academic exercise in resource management.
"It matters because causing unnecessary pain is wrong," I say, knowing how naive the words sound even as I speak them.
"Wrong according to whose standards?" Elira's voice carries patient tone of teacher correcting student's fundamental misunderstanding. "Morality is luxury we can't afford anymore, Lyssa. What matters is efficiency, effectiveness, results."
She turns back to the rabbit with renewed interest, experimenting with different pressures to gauge reactions. Taking notes, essentially, on optimal methods for extracting maximum fear response from helpless prey.
When she finally kills it—quick twist that snaps neck cleanly—the mercy feels like afterthought rather than kindness.
"There," she says with satisfaction. "Now I understand exactly how much pressure triggers panic versus resignation. Useful information for future applications."
The clinical assessment makes bile rise in my throat. She wasn't torturing animal for pleasure. She was conducting research into psychological manipulation techniques.
Somehow, that's infinitely worse.
I wait until Kaerith takes watch duty before approaching Elira by the dying fire.
She sits cleaning her knife with methodical precision, each stroke removing not just blood but some invisible contamination only she can perceive. The weapon gleams in firelight like captured star.
"We need to talk," I say, settling beside her despite every instinct warning against proximity.
"About?"
"About what's happening to you. To us. About the changes since we discovered Malakor is alive."
Her hands still on the blade. "What changes?"
"The planning that excludes us. The casual cruelty toward helpless animals. The way you speak about suffering like it's irrelevant academic concept." I keep my voice steady despite fear making my chest tight. "You're becoming someone I don't recognize."
"I'm becoming someone capable of surviving what's coming." The correction carries no anger, just patient clarification of obvious truth. "The person you knew was luxury we could afford when threat remained theoretical. Now that we know what we're facing, adaptation is required."
"Adaptation into what?"
"Into whatever form provides tactical advantage against enemies who've already proven their efficiency." She resumes cleaning the knife with renewed focus. "Sentiment didn't save Tuskon and Vicky. Gentleness didn't protect them from systematic murder. Mercy won't prevent additional casualties."
"So you abandon everything that made you worth saving?"
The question hangs between us like challenge neither of us wants to acknowledge. She looks up from her weapon maintenance with eyes that reflect firelight without warmth.
"Worth saving according to whose judgment?" she asks with genuine curiosity. "You speak as if moral purity has inherent value beyond emotional satisfaction. As if being 'good' matters more than being effective."
"It does matter."
"Why?"
The simple question strips away layers of assumption I didn't realize I carried. Why does goodness matter beyond personal satisfaction? Why should mercy take precedence over efficiency? Why preserve gentleness when brutality achieves superior results?
"Because," I finally manage, "without it, we become no different from those we're fighting."
"Exactly." Her smile carries no warmth, only cold satisfaction at my understanding. "We become equally effective. Equally dangerous. Equally capable of protecting what we value through whatever methods prove necessary."
"That's not protection—that's becoming the threat."
"The distinction only matters to those who can afford ideological luxury." She sheathes the knife with decisive motion. "I prefer practical solutions over philosophical comfort."
The conversation ends not with argument but with recognition that we're speaking different languages now. She's moved beyond moral frameworks I still inhabit, evolved past concerns that continue constraining my thinking.
I'm losing my sister to something that wears her face while speaking in stranger's voice.
Sleep brings no mercy from the day's revelations.
In dreams, Elira stands over bound figures with knife gleaming in light that casts no shadows.
Her face carries expression of clinical interest as she makes precise cuts designed to maximize fear without causing immediate death.
Research, she explains with patient teacher's voice.
Learning optimal methods for extracting information from unwilling subjects.
The bound figures look like Tuskon and Vicky. Like me. Like everyone we've ever tried to protect through bonds we thought made us stronger.
She moves between them with methodical efficiency, documenting responses to various stimuli. When they beg for mercy, she tilts her head with genuine curiosity about why they expect compassion from someone who's evolved past such limitations.
"Pain is data," she explains while working. "Fear provides leverage. Suffering creates opportunities for behavioral modification. Why would I abandon useful tools because of sentimental attachment to outdated moral frameworks?"
In the dream, her teeth have been filed to points. Her fingers end in claws that part flesh with surgical precision. Her eyes reflect light like polished stone, beautiful and completely empty of recognition when she looks at me.
"You could become like me," she offers with sisterly affection. "Let go of weakness disguised as virtue. Embrace practical solutions. Discover how much stronger you become when conscience stops limiting effectiveness."
I try to run but find myself frozen, watching as she turns back to her work with renewed focus. The knife moves with artistic grace, each cut deliberate, each incision calculated to achieve specific psychological impact.
When I finally wake, gasping and cold despite dying fire's warmth, uncertainty floods through me like poison.
Was it nightmare born of paranoid fear? Or preview of transformation already begun?
Across our camp, Elira sleeps peacefully beside Kaerith, her face serene in firelight that makes shadows dance like living things. Beautiful. Familiar. Completely terrifying in ways I can't articulate.
I watch her breathing, looking for signs that might distinguish dream from reality, vision from memory. But her features reveal nothing except perfect calm of someone who's found peace through accepting necessary evolution.
Tomorrow brings closer contact with Malakor's stronghold. Tomorrow we gather intelligence that will guide whatever action they're planning in whispered conferences that exclude us.
Tomorrow I discover whether my sister still exists beneath the efficient killer who's taken her place.
The uncertainty keeps me awake until dawn, staring at familiar face that might already belong to stranger.