Year four… the gods blinked, and I was covered in blood.
At first, I thought it was just more training. A new hallucination. Another trick from the Trickster to "test my endurance." But when the first assassin buried a blade in my side and whispered a prayer to Velkra, I knew this wasn't a test.
It was war.
They came wrapped in divine silk, masked with gold and fire, wielding weapons that sang hymns and bled shadows. They didn't speak much. Just attacked. Fast. Precise. And brutal. Every fight was a blur of ice, breath, blood—and survival.
Eighteen came that first month. I counted. Barely survived five. Killed the other thirteen by luck, grit, and a whole lot of screaming.
The Trickster watched. He didn't help. Not even once.
"The moment I fight them," he said, reclining in the air like a bored cloud, "they'll know we're afraid. You're not afraid, are you, kid?"
I didn't answer. I was too busy trying not to die.
Every assassin was different. One controlled the wind like a puppeteer, slicing with invisible blades. Another turned silence into suffocation—I couldn't even think around him. One girl whispered my memories back at me as weapons. I still don't know how she got in my head.
I held them off. But I broke in the process.
By the end of the fifth month, I couldn't stand. My hands shook. My bones felt hollow. My breath came in stutters.
And that's when the Trickster finally stepped in.
---
He found me half-conscious, arm barely attached, chest caved in from a hammer strike. I could barely blink. Couldn't speak. Couldn't cry.
"You done playing corpse?" he asked.
I think I cursed at him in my head. Maybe I just imagined it.
"Good," he grinned. "Time to teach you how to stop dying."
---
Second Half of the Year: Regrowth
Healing wasn't some magical light. It wasn't gentle. It was screaming fire in my veins.
The Trickster taught me to reroute energy through damaged flesh, force bones to stitch mid-fight, command muscle to rebuild faster than it tore. I bled. Screamed. Sometimes passed out. And woke up in the same spot, again and again.
Every night I heard voices—the assassins, the gods, even the Trickster mumbling nonsense about bones being "overrated."
But eventually, I changed.
By the eighth month, I could close a stab wound in seconds.
By the tenth, I broke my own wrist in a spar—then snapped it back and kept fighting.
By the end of the year, I stopped dodging. I let them hit me—and watched the shock in their eyes when I didn't fall.
---
One Night
We sat on the edge of a cliff near the summit. Stars everywhere. Blood on my knuckles.
"You could've helped," I muttered.
The Trickster smirked. "I did. I made you untouchable."
I didn't say anything for a while. Just listened to the wind.
"They're still going to come," I said. "Aren't they?"
"Oh yeah. Next year might be worse."
I smiled. "Good."
--
I stopped being prey. Now, I'm just waiting to become the storm.