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Chapter 9 - Falling Silence

Pain roared through the huntsman's chest with every ragged breath. His vision blurred with tears and blood as he struggled against the assassins pinning him down. Their grips were iron shackles on his shoulders and arms, their gauntlets slick with his blood.

"LET HER GO!" he bellowed, his voice raw, tearing his throat. "TAKE ME! TAKE ME INSTEAD!"

But his words fell into the cold silence like stones sinking into a black lake.

Sila whimpered from the corner, clutching her stuffed hare to her chest. Her blue eyes, wide and luminous with tears, met his. Her lips trembled as she whispered, "Papa… help me…"

Every muscle in his body burned with desperate strain as he fought to break free. He lunged forward with all his remaining strength, throwing his captors off-balance. One assassin stumbled, his grip loosening just enough for the huntsman to wrench his left arm free.

He surged toward Sila, rage and terror fuelling his fading body. His boots slipped in the blood pooling across the cabin floor. His vision lurched as his leg skidded out from under him on the slick, dark crimson slick.

Time slowed.

He felt himself falling sideways, past the hearth with its dying embers, past Lira's headless corpse slumped beside the shattered table, past Aryn's small body lying still and silent in a spreading pool of blood.

He fell into the stairwell that led down to the storage cellar. His shoulder clipped the wooden banister, splinters tearing into his skin. The world spun around him, moonlight flickering across the broken door, the assassins' veiled faces staring down at him with cold indifference.

Then his head slammed into the stone step at the bottom.

A blinding white light burst behind his eyes, so bright it swallowed everything. His skull cracked against the unyielding stone with a sickening crunch. The sharp iron tang of blood filled his mouth as his vision darkened at the edges, black creeping inward like ink in water.

He tried to move, but his body would not respond. Only his eyes flickered, blurry and half-open, staring up through the stairwell into the cabin's shattered remains.

He saw Crowshade step forward, the curved bone-handled knife still dripping with his blood.

He saw the swordsman grab Sila's hair, dragging her forward onto the blood-soaked floor. Her stuffed hare fell from her grasp, landing in the red with a soft, wet thud. She reached for it with trembling fingers, her sobs breaking into tiny gasping hiccups.

"Papa…" she whispered, her voice a faint, broken reed. "Papa…"

The huntsman tried to speak. His lips moved soundlessly, shaping her name over and over. Tears pooled in his eyes, blurring her small form. The world dimmed further, sounds fading to muted echoes of boots on broken wood and quiet weeping.

He saw the swordsman raise his blade, the steel catching a stray shaft of dawn light filtering through the shattered doorway. For a single instant, the edge gleamed like silver fire.

Then it fell.

He did not hear the sound it made. His hearing had fled, leaving only silence. But he saw the spray of red that fanned across the broken timbers behind her. He saw her small body collapse forward, hair falling across her tear-streaked face.

And with that sight, the last fragile piece of his soul shattered.

Darkness swallowed him whole. There was no sound, no pain, no breath. Only falling. Endless falling, into an abyss so deep it swallowed his grief, his rage, his name.

The huntsman fell through the dark, deeper and deeper, until even memory faded.

His final thought before oblivion claimed him was her voice, echoing like a dying star.

Papa…

The darkness pressed around him, thick and suffocating. Cold seeped into his bones, curling through his flesh until he felt nothing at all. Time lost meaning. There was no heartbeat to mark the moments, no breath to count them by.

He was adrift in silent void.

Then, through the blackness, something stirred.

A flicker of movement, darker than the dark around it. Eyes opened within the void, gleaming like twin crimson moons. Power pulsed in the empty space, vibrating through what remained of his spirit with a low, terrible hum.

A voice, deep and ancient, rumbled through the darkness. It was neither male nor female, neither gentle nor harsh. It was a sound born of shattered oaths and forgotten thrones.

"I see you, Huntsman."

He could not speak. His mouth did not exist here. But his mind screamed silently, a wordless wail of grief and rage.

The darkness coiled tighter around him, as if amused.

"They took everything from you," the voice said, echoing through the void with cold finality. "Your family. Your purpose. Your hope. Would you take it back?"

The huntsman's shattered consciousness flared with hatred, blazing like a dying sun. Visions of Lira's severed head, of Aryn's lifeless eyes, of Sila's final pleading whisper – they burned through him with searing clarity.

Yes.

YES.

"Would you give me your head, Huntsman, and take my gift in return? Become my blade, and I shall give you vengeance beyond any mortal's reach."

The darkness pulsed, and with it came visions. Himself, rising headless from the blood-soaked cellar. The assassins screaming as shadows consumed them. Crowshade impaled upon a black-bladed scythe. The king on his throne, begging for mercy that would never come.

He saw himself beheading them all. Their families. Their children. Their legacies. Every life that had touched his family's death snuffed out like candles in a storm.

The voice whispered, softer now, like silk sliding over steel.

"Give me your head, and I will give you their heads in return. All of them. Even their gods will tremble before you."

His grief, his rage, his sorrow, his love – all burned into a single cold, hard truth.

There was nothing left but vengeance.

His silent scream became a word.

Yes.

"Then rise, Headless Huntsman."

The darkness surged forward, swallowing him whole.

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