Ansel turned gracefully as his body arced through the air. His hand reached out to take hold of the large stone it knew would be there. His wrist and arm twisted perfectly and his slender form’s momentum was redirected just so. A half a heartbeat later the other hand touched ground and his body followed through into a roll, finally uncoiling smoothly to crouch behind a wide stonewood trunk.
Fist sized balls of blue-white flame flew through the air where he had been.
His heart beat quickly, excited but not upset. His lungs were only just getting worked up.
Rangers. They had sent an entire unit of Rangers. The finest of the Mageguard Orders.
He chuckled soundlessly to himself.
Only a unit.
At least it wasn’t more Legionnaires or Vigilar. Rangers might actually be a bit of fun.
Ansel had never killed a Ranger before.
He breathed softly and slowly. Everything was silent.
They were waiting.
Idiots. He was better at waiting than anyone.
“We have you surrounded Blademaster,” called a deceptively delicate female voice. “I am called Actus Reyna and we’vre come to bring you home. You’re too …” the woman paused for a moment, “too special to be left roaming on your own Blademaster, but we don’t want to hurt you.”
No they didn’t. It was one of the many things that made all the other Orders of the Mageguard so uncomfortable to be around. They were boring. They were idiots.
“The Tessar just wants you to come home. She just wants to talk to you.”
His expression fell and he drooped slightly in his crouch behind the tree. The Tessar. So she had survived, and must have been healed enough to be able to talk. Talk talk talk. All she ever did was talk. Talk and punish. She wouldn't even be upset he tried to kill her. Just that he failed. She'd just be disappointed, not upset.
It wouldn’t stop her punishing him though.
Always punishment.
His skin rippled down his back and arms.
The knightmare memory of the box flashed in his mind.
He blinked against the pain and terror and shook his head.
No. No more punishments.
He had escaped. He was free.
No more punishment.
There was the sound of a branch pushed gently out of the way to the south-south east. Then a soft rustle and step. His ears thought about the sound for half a heartbeat. It was two sets of lightly armoured boots and reinforced bayr-leather trousers brushing past greenberry bushes about ten meters away. They were both men by the weight of their footfalls.
Another armoured boot on lichen, eight and a half meters to the south-west. The Actus’s voice had been to the east-north-east. They’d be in pairs.
Ansel couldn’t help but nod to himself in appreciation.
The Actus hadn’t been lying. They really did have him surrounded.
It was idiotic of course, but it was more than a whole Column of Legionnaires could have achieved.
“The Tessar will never stop coming for you Blademaster.” the delicate voice called, this time a half meter closer, “You know that.”
Six Rangers in pairs, all approaching cautiously and on the defensive.
All relying on magic.
His face smiled. Idiots. 
What to do. What to do.
His toes flexed happily in the damp earth. His feet wanted to feel a sternum crack. Would a Ranger’s leather armor be enough to protect them from that? Probably.
Both feet wanted to find out very badly though, and even his knees were curious.
One hand wanted to palm a nose bone up into one of Ranger’s brains, but the other one wanted to carefully squeeze carotid arteries, totally starving the brains of oxygen. The hand wanted to see if the Ranger would spasm and have a seizure.
Ansel knew there wasn’t time for that though.
His hands had been obsessed with brains lately. They would need to have their fun in quicker ways for now.
He ignored the yearning of the akinaash on his belt. It would be fastest of all, but the Rangers would be way more fun without the blade and he wasn't in that much of a rush. It could wait it’s turn.
To his surprise, his right knee wanted to break a sternum too, but his left knee wasn’t bothered.
His knees were full of opinions.
Now both elbows felt left out.
His forehead quietly hoped for the simplicity of slamming into a jaw bone and breaking it, but knew the Ranger’s jaw guards would make that too hard.
His thumbs wanted to gouge out eyes. His arms wanted to try breaking a neck, even though they knew they were too skinny. His teeth wanted to try tearing out a major artery even though his tongue didn’t really like the taste of blood.
And again his knees chimed in, both wanting to somehow help with the neck breaking.
There was never enough killing to go around.
A twig snapped to the south-south east.
Ansel sighed, ignoring his knees and focusing on the impatient pair of Rangers coming from that direction.
Apparently they wanted to be first.
They just weren’t quite close enough yet.
He waited. 
And waited.
It gave his eyes plenty of time to take in and memorise the detail of his surroundings. There were the greenberry bushes, the old fallen rowan behind him, the high branches of the huge stonewood, ferns, various other trees, and of course the six Rangers in their slowly shrinking triangle. 
His ears told him that the eager pair really were rushing things. They were only a half dozen meters away now, on the edge of a small clearing, trying to hide behind tall ferns and a small copse of broadleafs.
His ears could just make out their whispers as they cast their shield spells. Rippling meter wide discs of force appeared on the backs of their raised hands.
Idiots.
Taking a slow breath, he made sure arms and legs were ready and let his heart and lungs get a bit excited.
Sternums awaited!
With a little smile his legs tensed and he launched himself at an angle through the high ferns, diving into a roll on the other side before springing up again. His hand reached out to grab a broadleaf trunk as he flew through the air, changing his momentum and swinging round just as the two Rangers were crouching into their defensive stances, shield hands raised in front of them.
Good, Vigilar wouldn’t have been so quick and this would have gotten very messy.
As expected, the Rangers' low stance allowed Ansel’s little body to sail over their heads. Legs moving in a perfect arc, they landed him in a spinning motion behind the pair. As his upper body flowed down, he let his torso and arms channel the momentum of the landing into both his fists, striking forward into two poorly protected tailbones. Ranger armor was far more minimal than a Legionnaire’s.
He wasn’t strong, even with his body’s skill and control, but he was the fastest in his cohort. The trainers had all said so.
Both Rangers recoiled in pain and surprise, lurching reflexively and crying out as they turned into each other.
Ansel’s hands retracted and shot out again, this time upward. Two pairs of fingers slammed between the small jawguards and reinforced collars, nearly crushing a carotid artery in each neck. 
The idiotic pair jerked and twitched, pain and shock compounding. They were almost tangled in each other and as one of their heads whipped round, Ansel took a chance to slip a rigid pair of digits through the helmet’s faceplate. He wasn’t quite big enough yet to burst an eyeball from a single strike, but it helped throw the ranger off balance a bit more, and his shield spell disappeared from the back of his hand.
Both were losing their balance and teetering over, though at least one of them was still focused enough to grasp awkwardly towards him as they fell.
The initial attack had taken five heartbeats. 
Fingers and hands worked quickly as the pair crumbled to the ground. His right hand found a chance to punch one of the Ranger’s trachea. The gurgling noise made the smile on Ansel’s face broaden as he went to work on the other.
As it turned out, neither his knee nor his foot got what they wanted. 
Designed for agility and mobility as it was, even the leather and linen of Ranger armor was protection enough to keep sternums from breaking.
Oh well. Maybe another day. Millis officers never wore armor at all! He’d been wanting the chance to kill one of them for a long time. They were only ever in cities though. Going to one of the capitals would be risky while they were searching for him, but it might be worth the risk to break a Millis officer sternum!
One thing at a time though. 
You didn’t get dessert if you didn’t finish your dinner.
By the time the two Rangers lay in choking heaps, clawing at their destroyed windpipes, it had been more than twenty heartbeats and the second pair was almost on him. The third and final pair with the soft voiced Actus was close behind. They weren’t rushing like the first two idiots though, they moved slowly and carefully. Shield hands up and attack hands ready. They couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see them, but it didn’t really matter. It was as if he could. His mind knew exactly where they were and what they were doing, it always did.
He nodded to himself.
Four at once could be fun.
As they approached, Ansel picked up a dead branch and snapped it over a knee, then tossed the two splintered halves off to his right for later.
With a happy giggle, legs launched him up and hands grabbed the trunk of one of the thicker broadleafs and he scrambled up it soundlessly, careful to spread his weight evenly around the soft branches.
Twenty seven heartbeats later, all four remaining Rangers stepped carefully through the underbrush.
They were in a tight formation, shields summoned, finally having realised how idiotic it had been to separate in the first place. Unusually, Ansel’s logic chose that moment to have an opinion, pointing out that the Rangers weren’t used to fighting other humans, let alone a Blademaster, so it was a bit unfair to judge so harshly.
Considering how rarely his logic had opinions on much of anything, Ansel decided to listen. Maybe it wasn’t the Ranger’s fault.
Still. Nothing was anybody’s fault really.
They were still idiots.
They were still going to die.
Idiots.
As the four Rangers approached, it was like they didn’t even see their dead comrades. One of them glanced at the downed pair, the bigger of the two bodies still jerking slightly as he choked to death on his own collapsed throat. None of the four even paused.
Ansel had another little moment of appreciation. Legionnaires and Vigilar almost always lost control in some way. They got angry or sad or stupid or some other idiotic thing.
The four Rangers just moved slowly past their dead comrades.
Right under Ansel.
Two of them were women.
He’d save them for last if he could. Women were special. Like the Tessar. 
He remembered his blade sliding through her face.
A flash of the nightmare shook him and his head jerked, hitting a branch. 
The mind images faded quickly, but he had made a noise.The damage was done.
One of the rangers jerked their head up and whispered to the others urgently. A heartbeat later all four were motionless with their shields raised over their heads, overlapped slightly to create a perfect barrier.
Merda. 
Ansel’s heart was afraid now. He forced it to stop panicking. Adrenaline just made everything shaky.
“He’s up there. Don’t even blink.” The unit’s Actus whispered. The softness was gone from her voice.
They waited.
He waited. He was the best at waiting.
Leaves rustled on the breeze. 
Somewhere nearby birds sang briefly to each other.
Ansel’s heart had calmed down. This was going to be fine.
A tree vole scampered through branches behind him.
One of the men shifted his weight.
Ansel grinned.
Another volunteer.
One of Ansel’s hands was on a long thin branch, the other to his side, his legs coiled against the trunk. His toes gripped satisfyingly on soft bark. Two of his fingers were sore but he ignored their complaining. There was fun to be had.
In a heartbeat he shook the thin branch like a whip, and the leaves at its distant end shook violently. In the same instant, his feet and legs pushed, thrusting him down at the ground like a thrown stone.
The rangers were focusing on the shaken leaves when Ansel landed on his hands in front of the volunteer Ranger. His arms absorbed what little force his lithe body could produce, coiling like a leaf-adder, then releasing it all at once, throwing his feet under his raised shield and into the chest of the man. 
Ansel’s feet didn't get to break a sternum, but they got the painful impact on the man’s chest armor and the satisfaction of pushing him backward into the other three. All of them with their attention still on the tree and their shields still raised over their heads.
How had the idiots fallen for the same trick twice in a row?
That’s what you got for relying on magic.
He had been out of the tree for two heartbeats and the rangers were stumbling, their little formation destroyed. One of them tripped on a root and started to fall.
Ansel’s ears heard a whisper.
Blue fire sprang from their Actus’s hand and smoke and steam rose from the ground where Ansel had been. He was already wrapping his legs around the waist of one of the men, much to his surprise. He punched the Ranger once in the open face of his helmet, breaking his nose, and when the man jerked his head back reflexively in pain, Ansel punched him three times in his exposed trachea. 
It was boring and repetitive, but it worked.
Even as the man fell, choking, Ansel leapt back as he heard the spells muttered behind him, deftly avoiding another volley of blue-white flame. 
His logic was surprised. 
Mageguard never fired with their comrades in such close quarters. At least they weren’t supposed to. 
This Ranger Actus was either smart enough or desperate enough to break the rules.
Good for her.
Still, it meant he needed to move faster. The tripped women had fallen completely, but the two rangers left standing were focused on him now.
Ansel leapt around from spot to spot. Ground to tree, to ground, to ground, to tree root, to ground, to tree. Now the tripped woman was recovering.
Ansel dodged the fireballs easily, moving chaotically, working to keep them off balance and lead their attention away from the tripped woman. 
It worked. It shouldn’t have, but even this brave Actus was an idiot.
Both his feet and hands were complaining a bit now, though his heart and lungs had reached a lovely state of excitement.
One more leap, but this one turned into a side roll on impact instead of a bounce, and he tumbled for a half heartbeat. As the three Rangers were looking where they thought he was going to be, he was under the tripped woman just as she was getting back to her feet. He grabbing an ankle and pulled with all his meagre strength. 
Already off ballance, she went down relatively easily, turning in the air like a tumbler clown. Her arm went out just in time to keep herself from landing on her head, but he was there to grab that hand away, simultaneously reaching up to put his other hand behind her head and help her face slam into the half buried broadleaf root she had tripped over in the first place.
There was a lovely crunch from open front of the flimsy helmet.
She wouldn’t be dead yet though. He’d have to check on her after.
By the time the woman’s body had gone limp, the other two had turned and fired.
Ansel was already in the air, arcing to the dry, shattered branch he had prepared earlier.
Fire singed the tattered remnants of his shirt as he paused to retrieve his makeshift weapons. His mind knew it was the other woman, the Actus, who had gotten so close to catching him. She was learning.
Time for the direct approach.
He leapt straight at the last man standing. The Ranger crouched into a defensive stance just in time, his meter wide shield of impenetrable magic springing from the back of his hand as he swung it in front of him. Through the invisible disc of force, Ansel could see the man’s eyes widen as he flew straight at the shield.
He turned in the air, twisting and reaching out with the two half sticks gripped carefully in the ends of his fingers. 
He landed on the shield, grabbed its edges, and held on.
“Whaa …” the man lurched back like a treesnake had landed on his hand.
Ansel grinned as he perched over the top edge of the wall of rippling force. No one had told these Rangers about a Blademasters special training.
You couldn’t really touch a Mageguards shield. It wasn’t really there, it was a sort of un-thing. A shield was the absence of. It was the absorption and reflecting of. His feet, braced against it, were panicking, going mad with the impossibility of what they were doing, but he ignored them. He knew the shield was there and how tol hold onto it, even if Book of the Guard said it was impossible.
His hands, holding the sticks that gripped the edge of the shield that wasn’t there, were nervous of course, but they had the sticks. Sticks existed. They might be held against the rippling edge of un-something, but they were sticks. Hands could hold on to sticks.
It had only been a heartbeat or two. In another one, the panicking Ranger might drop his shield spell out of pure shock.
Ansel needed to be quick, even for him.
In a single heartbeat, his right hand and it’s stick left the shield. That arm arced down around the rippling edge of non-existence and back again, then he coiled himself to leap off the Ranger. As he did however, the guardsman jerked and stumbled. Instead of his planned leap back, Ansel went half flying, half falling to the side, right into the path of the Actus’s armoured fist.
Pain shot through him and he coughed as he hit the ground. At least three of his ribs screamed out, shattered by the impact of the woman’s blow. He had to breathe and focus, but breathing hurt. His lungs struggled and choked. He rolled onto his right side, away from the pain and towards his attacker. 
She stood there, shield dismissed and guantleted fists raised. 
Good. She had finally learned.
Behind her, the last of her comrades, the one he had just jumped from, had fallen to his knees. His leather and metal-clad hand clasped uselessly around his neck. Blood gushed from between his fingers. The hole left by Ansel’s broken stick was wide and ragged. The Ranger would be all but empty by the time his head hit the dirt.
Ansel pushed himself up onto his knees, wincing despite himself. His left arm was terrified.
“The Uma and the Tessar want you back Blademaster. They think they can finish your education, that you’re still controllable. But I think we both know better.” she settled into an attack stance reserved for Vigilar sparring. “It might cost me my career, but you’ve just killed the five people that meant the most to me in the world. So I think I’ll just kill you.”
With legs at an angle to him, weight on the balls of her feet, she held her right hand in front of her face, open but ready, and her left hand back beside her helmet, unclenched but tensed.
He smiled as he stood, finally able to quell most of the pain in his side. 
Maybe this one wasn’t an idiot. Her face was calm, not showing any of the doubt or fear that most did when confronted with him. She was at least two hands taller than him, and likely twice his weight without armor, but she showed no sense of foolish arrogance. She led with her strong side forward, careful and confident. 
Her hands looked excited.
His hands certainly were. 
His feet had already forgotten the un-ness feeling of the shield and were enjoying the soreness of the fight and softness of the ground under them. He couldn’t quite stand up straight, but it was just as well. He kept his left arm limp, the unbloodied half of the stick barely held between a couple fingers there, dangling.
She didn’t move or even glance at the apparently useless hand, and his mind knew she was buying it. 
People always believed in weakness and doubted strength.
With the red stained stick in his right hand pointed toward her, Ansel crouched into an attack stance of his own.
She lunged forward.
He dodged easily under the first two swings. She wasn’t used to this, despite her confidence. 
He swept to her side, moving and darting, avoiding fists and forcing her to pivot, twist, and move on his terms. There was no point in striking back. In a proper one on one fight, neither his fists nor his little wooden daggers would be of any use. 
He would wait for the right opportunity.
But she might not be an idiot. She might realise what he was doing and retreat.
Plus, every dodge or move he made shot pain all through him.
But it didn’t matter. He could feel the pain after, there wasn’t time now.
Ducking and rolling despite the agony in his ribs, he stabbed obviously up towards her side. Her gauntlet moved and swatted his arm out of the way. He knew her deflection was coming and moved with the blow, but that parry would leave a bruise on his little wrist.
He feigned another attack, still with his right hand, this time towards a raised armpit. It was always a good weak spot. 
She parried again, just as she was meant to. 
His legs were getting tired. His side ached. His arm was complaining.
He let his attacks get slower and weaker.
The couple dozen heartbeats of their little dance was beginning to drag on. She was never going to land another proper punch on him, nobody was quick enough for that, even when he was letting himself feel the fatigue. 
But it was getting boring, and it was taking more and more focus to keep going.
His ears were trying to tell him something. His mind knew something.
He couldn’t afford to listen to either of them though.
He had to focus.
He dodged again, darting to the left, ducking, then stepping back, then lunged to the right. He needed all his focus to block the pain and stay moving.
Dodge. Turn. Fake thrust and parry. Duck.
There! 
The hanging left hand sprang up and forward as he spun inside her guard. His whole body followed the tightly gripped shard of wood as it slammed through the open face of her helmet, into and through the glistening softness of white and brown. The collected force of his body crushed dry wood against the thin bone at the back of her eye socket and shards of branch continued through, destroying cream coloured jelly on the other side. 
His face was close enough to feel her last breath on his forehead and see the moment of realisation in her other, still seeing eye.
Thrill rippled through him like a wave over a riverbank, tingling and arcing through his limbs. 
He had done it.
A whole unit of Rangers. 
The cool forest breeze was ecstasy on his skin. Knees and ankles weakened and both arms went limp in pleasure as the body of the Actus slumped heavily to the ground.
His hands let go of their wooden implements. 
A thin moan escaped him.

“That’s quite enough.”
His eyes shot open and his body froze. 
The thrill vanished like it had never been.
The crushing terror of the nightmare flashed in his mind.
The pain in his side, the soreness of his feet and hands, all his senses crashed back into awareness.
“Turn around Ansel.”
His body obeyed before he knew what was happening, limping slowly in a small circle between the knees and arms of the crumpled Ranger Actus. Now he realised what his ears and mind had been trying to tell him.
He was surrounded. 
Properly this time.
The reality flooded in. Thirty Rangers were spread in a wide circle around him. Thirty six minus six. He had only faced a single unit out of an entire Column, and the rest stood cautiously behind trees, bushes and high ferns. Well within their optimal range and well out of his.
Not that any of them were needed.
Stepping casually through the trees, Tessar Betta stopped at the opposite side of the little clearing now filled with corpses, a safe distance from him. Her lined face wore a gentle smile. Her perpetual and unyielding little grin. The nightmare flashed in his mind and his face twitched.
Ansel’s body ignored that though and stood to rigid attention, ribs screaming. He watched her, almost unblinking, dread flooding his veins. 
She was no idiot. 
Hands clasped loosely in front of her, uniform pressed and perfect, everything in simple order. She stared down at him like they sat in her office at the school. Her shaved head glistened slightly in the dappled light through the branches. A small scar, exactly the width of his akinaash blade, drew a pale line across the light brown wrinkles of her cheek.
The healers had done good work. 
A pair of Rangers appeared behind her and moved to stand on either side. They didn’t bother with their shields.
They didn’t even have the decency to stand defensively.
Idiots. 
“You’ve done well.” she said casually.
He should respond. His voice wanted to. It needed to. “Thaaa …” He fought and won, stifling the words to a groan.
Her eyebrow twitched, but she recovered quickly, “The Actus was correct Ansel. We were never going to let you run around like this for long.”
He hated her so much. So deeply and completely. The hatred was a part of him, not like a hand or lung, but interwoven with the true him inside. 
She had tricked him. The whole fight with the unit of Rangers was a distraction so they could box him in properly.
He was such an idiot!
The loathing burned in him, growing brighter. His right hand, sore as it was, twitched at his side. 
He had done it once. He had managed to fight the nightmare and kill her once. 
Summoned by the thought, the nightmare flashed brightly in his mind, but he managed not to react this time.
Both hands wanted so badly to crush the life from her. Every part of his body called out for her to die in a different way.
His akinaash, still strapped to his hip, remembered her near-death fondly.
His right hand twitched again.
Her eyes shot to the movement, “I said that was quite enough.” 
The nightmare flashed and his hand froze at his side.
No. He could do it. He had already done it.
“You’ve always been the smartest of your brothers Ansel, but it gets you into trouble. Umkuula Sara has always wanted to put you down for it.”
Rage flared again at the Umkuula’s name. His feet wanted to feel her skull crushed under them. 
The nightmare flashed. The dark enclosing slats of wood. His knees drawn up to his chest. The timelessness. 
He blinked.
Tessar Betta gave a small approving nod.
“We’ve let you have your fun, but now it’s time to come home and get back to work. You’re almost ready for your final duel.”
That made his hands happy. 
He had killed so many of his brothers over the years, working his way through the training. It wasn’t as fun as Rangers or even Vigiar, but it was better than nothing.
“That’s what you’ve always wanted isn’t it Ansel?” she said, letting her little smile widen sickeningly, “To finally graduate. To earn your uniform and be deployed?”
His throat seized and his voice yearned. 
He fought. He wouldn’t say it. He had to fight.
“Ye .. yessss … ttt… tteess …” 
He clamped his jaw shut with everything he had, teeth cutting into tongue. In the moment of stabbing pain, his akinaash called out, the nightmare flashed, but the call won and his blade was in his hand.
The memory of the thrill rippled from the hilt and into his fingers.
Tessar Betta blinked.
The Guardsmen took a stance.
Boots all around him moved against branch, fern and shrub. 
She held up a hand. They froze.
“If you don’t stop this nonsense immediately Ansel, you’re going to have to spend some time in the box when we get home.”
The nightmare flashed, the light seeping through the slats.
But his akinaash was still in his hand. The thrill warmed up his arm in little ripples.
“I know the trooss.” he said carefully around his swollen tongue.
The Tessar sighed patiently, “And what truth is that?”
“Magic ishan reawll.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Of course it’s real Ansel. What can you possibly mean.”
The warmth had moved up to his elbow.
“Magic ishent reawl.” 
Her arm shot out with surprising speed, her mouth moving imperceptibly as she cast a blue white ball of flame that flew over his right shoulder, warming his ear. 
“Then what was that Ansel?” 
All he wanted was to kill her. It was all his akinaash wanted. All he needed. 
To be free.
The nightmare flashed in his mind again, but the waves of thrill were nearly at his shoulder.
“The Book uv the Guard.” he said slowly, “The shpelsh.” he forced his mouth to make a frown.
“What about them?”
“They’re not reawl.” he swallowed the blood that leaked from his bitten tongue. 
Three more fireballs flew past him. One singed his ear.
He shook his head.
“You’re being ridiculous now Ansel. I can only imagine what Umkuula Sara would say to such a thing if she was here.”
The thrill reached his shoulder, spreading into his chest. 
He gritted his teeth and shook his head.
“Fine. That’s twelve hours in the box when we get home.”
The nightmare flashed. The agony and terror. The mind-breaking horror crashed through him and his head twitched. But he still held his akinaash. The thrill still spread, rippling out and warming him, pushing back the nightmare.
“Magic ish not wordsh. All the Booksh of Magic are a lie.” 
Her eyes went wide. 
Even the Rangers behind her reacted in shock.
“Bold faced blasphemy now Ansel?” she shook her head, her grin turning to one of putrid sympathy, “I never thought I’d see the day.” she nodded, as if to herself. “Three days in the box Ansel.” 
He smiled slowly.
“That’s funny is it Ansel? Fine. A week! A full week in the box. What do you think of that?”
Waves of warm thrill washed over his chest and up into his mind.
He had always been the best at waiting.
“Yer a liiiiiiaarrrrrrrrr.”
Her smile cracked and he saw it in her eye. A moment of fear.
He had won.
His heart beat once.
The nightmare flashed, pulsed, fought. The feeling filled him. The feeling inside his crate, where they had put him. The light through the cracks, the muffled sounds, the smell of his own filth around him, his throat raw from days of screaming. The searing pain of the welts and old bruises covering his little body. Trapped with no sense of time. 
There was only pain and fear to overwhelm him.
The nightmare was so distant but so constant. The memory that was deeper than a memory. He was broken. He was born that way. They had to fix him. Him and the others like him. The little boys who loved hurting animals and hurting people, they had to be fixed to only hurt each other. 
And whoever the Tessar told them to hurt of course.
It was the only way.
The ones that lived through the fixing could be used.
They had almost finished fixing him.
He was finally going to be useful.
His heart beat twice.
The Tessar stood there across from him. The most powerful person in his world. The final voice of discipline and decision at their little school. The voice that gave Ansel and his brothers permission to fight and kill, and ordered the beatings and tortures when they didn’t do as they were told.
She had been the constant irresistible voice since they took him from his frightened parents. She had been the only one who understood why he had to do the things he did. She had never yelled at him. She was only trying to fix him.
He was born broken.
She had to punish him to fix him. To make him useful.
But he had figured it all out.
It was all a lie.
He was never broken. He was what he was. The Books of Magic were broken. 
They were a lie.
The punishment was a lie.
Everything was all a lie.
And she knew it.
She was evil, and he hated her. 
The nightmare faded. The memory of abject terror and hopelessness drifted away.
It was time for her punishment.
The thrill filled him. His skin tingled and every nerve sang joyfully. The pain in his ribs was a tickle.
His heart beat for a third time and he opened his eyes. A contented smile warmed his little face. 
Across the corpse-littered opening in the trees, Tessar Betta stood with eyes wide and smile gone. Gone forever now.
The hilt of Ansel’s akinaash protruded from her chest, centred perfectly, almost artfully. His arm hadn’t even needed to move. The grey blue of her uniform darkened around the handle of his knife like a flower blooming.
He sighed. Somehow, despite being buried beautifully in the Tessar’s heart several steps away, he could still feel the hilt of his akinaash in his hand. He could feel it’s joy and satisfaction like a warm blanket on a cool day.
His mind warned him he should pay attention though, and it was right.
The Rangers were moving. Slowly of course. But they were moving.
Some part of him reached out with the feeling of warm joy, and a moment later the akinaash was home, resting comfortably in his hand.
The thrill was fading, but only slightly. Every bit of him was ready and excited, even his broken ribs.
He felt the tingling love of his akinaash and closed his eyes, letting his mind discover all the Rangers slowly running towards him and how he would let his akinaash find each of them.
In all his ten years he had never felt so free, so excited.
This was the best day ever.