Ethan didn’t stay in the room.

  He could have. It would’ve been easy to sit there until the weight turned into something like comfort. Easy to pretend the stone was holding him together.

  Instead he stood, wiped his hands on his trousers, and walked back into the tunnels.

  Life didn’t stop just because something terrible had happened. It just… moved around it.

  A few goblins were already working. Not talking much. Sorting the scattered tools from the fight. Pulling arrows out of cracks in the stone. Dragging broken shields into a pile like it mattered they stayed organized.

  Ethan passed them and got looks that weren’t quite fear and weren’t quite trust.

  Attention.

  They’d seen him kneel with the child. They’d heard the begging voice go small. They’d watched him rise after, shaking, and then smash a man’s face into nothing because words had landed where they shouldn’t.

  And then they’d watched him step back into the dark and do something with himself that none of them had names for.

  They didn’t crowd him.

  But they tracked him the way you tracked a knife you weren’t sure you were allowed to pick up yet.

  Retsa sat near one of the side fires, shoulders wrapped in an old hide. She didn’t look up as he approached. She didn’t need to. Her hearing was better than most of theirs.

  She spoke first anyway.

  “You bleed inside,” she said, matter-of-fact, in goblin. No softness to it. No accusation.

  Ethan stopped beside her. “Yeah.”

  Retsa finally turned her head and looked at him. Her eyes were cloudy, but not dull. Just old. Like river stones.

  “You cut you,” she said. “Not cut man. Cut self.”

  He swallowed. “I didn’t have… other options.”

  Retsa made a noise in her throat, half-disgust, half-amusement. “Always options. Boss chooses which hurt.”

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  Boss.

  He didn’t correct it anymore. Not today.

  He sat on a rock across from her, elbows on his knees, staring at his hands.

  They were clean now. That felt wrong.

  A smaller goblin passed behind Retsa, carrying a bundle of bloodied cloth. He glanced at Ethan, then quickly looked away again.

  Retsa noticed that too.

  “They watch you,” she said. “Like big-fang.”

  Ethan’s jaw tightened. “I’m not him.”

  “No,” Retsa agreed. “Big-fang take. You… hold.”

  Hold.

  Like the child.

  He didn’t answer. If he tried to talk, he’d say something ugly.

  Retsa kept going, because she always did.

  “You hold nest,” she said. “That why they stare.”

  Nest. The word hit him weird. Too intimate. Too true.

  “We’re not your blood,” she added, blunt. “But you act like. You make rules. You take blame. You stay when scared.”

  Ethan let out a short breath. “Does that make it better?”

  Retsa’s mouth twisted. “Make it harder.”

  He almost laughed. It came out like a cough instead.

  She watched him for a beat longer, then turned away and began sorting dried herbs with fingers that were still steady despite everything.

  That was her version of mercy. Letting him sit near her without making it into a ceremony.

  Ethan took out his journal later, when the tunnels had quieted enough that no one was passing close.

  The cover was scuffed. A corner burned. The charcoal stained his fingertips as soon as he touched it.

  He didn’t write about kingdoms.

  He didn’t write about queens.

  He wrote what he had.

  What happened

  They came prepared.

  They held formation.

  They adjusted fast.

  Traps bought time, not victory.

  What I did

  Shadow can cut, pull, blind.

  Shadow costs: nausea, tremor, vertigo.

  Overuse makes it hungry.

  What I failed

  A child died because I hesitated.

  Not because I was weak.

  Because I tried to be clean.

  He stopped there, breathing hard, and stared at the words until the letters blurred.

  He turned the page and forced himself to keep going.

  Rules (new)

  Do not wait for permission.

  Do not chase “pure.”

  Use power early or pay later.

  Then, after a long pause:

  But don’t let it use you.

  That one felt like a dare.

  Ethan closed the journal, pressed it against his chest for a second, and let the pressure settle.

  He could feel the shadow coiled in him, quiet now, like a dog that had tasted blood and was pretending it hadn’t.

  He didn’t like that.

  He didn’t like how easy it had been.

  He didn’t like the part of him that had enjoyed the certainty.

  A goblin voice snapped him back.

  “Boss.”

  Krill stood at the mouth of the tunnel, breathing fast. Younger hunter. Quick eyes. Too much energy for this kind of day.

  He didn’t come closer. He didn’t want to step into whatever Ethan was carrying.

  “What,” Ethan said.

  Krill swallowed. “Retsa say you need eat.”

  Ethan blinked. “Retsa said that?”

  Krill nodded once, then added, harsher, like he was trying to prove he wasn’t afraid: “You not die. Nest need boss.”

  Ethan stared at him.

  Krill’s ears flicked back, annoyed at himself, then he muttered, “Soft boss still boss.”

  And then he turned and left like he hadn’t said anything at all.

  Ethan sat there in the quiet and felt something in his chest tighten.

  Not comfort.

  Not forgiveness.

  Just the awful fact of being needed.

  He stood up and went to eat.