Kira's camp was less a camp and more a collection of stolen goods hidden in a hollow tree.
"Home sweet home," she announced, pulling aside a curtain of hanging moss to reveal a space just big enough for two people to sit uncomfortably. Inside, Ren could see bedding that looked like it had been lifted from multiple different houses, a collection of knives in various states of sharpness, and what appeared to be a small shrine made of revenge.
The shrine consisted of a rough sketch of a man in armor, presumably Lord Varen, surrounded by dried flowers that had turned the color of old blood. Tiny knives, no bigger than Ren's finger, had been stuck through the drawing in various creative locations.
"You've put a lot of thought into this," Ren observed.
"Three years of thought." Kira ducked inside and began rummaging through her supplies. "Sit down. Rest while you can. Tomorrow, we train."
Ren settled onto a patch of moss that might have once been someone's pillow. His body, this strange reconstructed vessel that felt like his but wasn't quite, ached from the day's walking. He hadn't realized souls could get tired.
"Can I ask you something?"
"You just did."
"The last Collector who came for Varen. What happened to them?"
Kira's hands paused over a bundle of dried meat. When she spoke, her voice carried the flat tone of someone reciting facts rather than stories.
"Her name was Sera. She appeared about twelve years ago, same as you. Dropped out of nowhere, compass on her palm, hunting fragments. She'd already collected maybe thirty by the time she reached Eldrath. Powerful. Dangerous." Kira unwrapped the meat and began slicing it with one of her smaller knives. "She challenged Varen directly. Walked right up to his fortress and demanded her fragment back."
"That seems... unwise."
"It was. But she was arrogant. All those absorbed memories and powers had gone to her head. She thought she was invincible." Kira held out a strip of dried meat to Ren. He took it, though his reconstructed stomach wasn't sure how to feel about food. "Varen beat her. Took her fragment. Then he spent three days torturing her before she finally stopped coming back."
Ren's chewing slowed. "Stopped coming back?"
"Collectors can't permanently die. Not easily. Every time you're killed, you resurrect somewhere nearby. But it costs something each time. Fragment energy, soul stability, something like that." Kira's storm-cloud eyes met his. "Sera died forty-seven times before she ran out of whatever was keeping her alive. By the end, she was begging Varen to make it stick."
The meat suddenly tasted like ash in Ren's mouth.
"He kept her fragments. All thirty-one of them. Uses them to enhance his knights, his weapons, his fortress." Kira's voice dropped lower. "That's why he's so dangerous, Ren. He's not just holding one piece of you. He's holding thirty-two. A small army's worth of stolen power."
Ren looked down at the Compass on his palm. It still pulsed steadily, pointing northeast, showing a "moderate" danger level. How could thirty-two fragments register as only moderate?
"The system doesn't account for collected fragments," Kira said, reading his expression. "It only detects YOUR fragments. The danger level is based on how hard it will be to absorb your specific piece, not how powerful the holder is overall."
"That seems like a design flaw."
"The whole system seems designed to get Collectors killed." Kira finished her own strip of meat and wiped her knife clean. "Which is why we're not going to do what Sera did. No direct challenges. No honorable combat. We're going to be smart about it, and we're going to be extremely unfair."
"I like unfair."
"Good. Because tomorrow, I'm going to teach you how to fight dirty." She grinned, the hatred in her eyes briefly replaced by what might have been real enthusiasm. "And on that note, I need to know what you're working with. Strip."
Ren blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Your body. I need to assess what we have to work with. Muscle tone, flexibility, old injuries that might affect your movement." She rolled her eyes at his hesitation. "I've seen plenty of bodies, soul-man. Yours isn't going to shock me."
He supposed she had a point. And modesty seemed like a strange thing to cling to when he'd already died once and had his soul shattered into nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces.
Ren stood and removed his traveling clothes, revealing a body that was familiar but different. He was still him, same height, same general build, but there was a subtle wrongness to it. His skin was too smooth, lacking the scars and marks that twenty-six years of living should have accumulated. His muscles were defined but unused, like a sculpture rather than a tool.
Kira circled him slowly, her professional eye cataloging every detail. "New body. Makes sense. The fragments construct a vessel when you arrive." She poked his shoulder, testing the flesh. "Good raw material, but no muscle memory. You've never trained this form for anything."
"I was a paramedic in my old life. I knew basic self-defense, but..."
"But you're starting from zero." She nodded, unsurprised. "That's actually not as bad as it sounds. A blank slate means no bad habits to unlearn." Her hand moved down his arm, squeezing the bicep, testing the elbow joint. "Decent flexibility. Fast-twitch muscle potential is high. The fragment system probably optimized you for combat without realizing it."
Her examination continued, impersonal and thorough, her touch clinical rather than intimate. She checked his reflexes, his balance, his range of motion, making small sounds of approval or disappointment at each test.
"You'll do," she finally announced. "Get dressed. Tomorrow, we start turning you into something dangerous."
Ren pulled his clothes back on, feeling oddly vulnerable despite the fact that Kira had already seen everything. "What's the plan? We've got, what, a week until Varen arrives at that village?"
"Six days." Kira settled onto her own bedding, her back against the hollow tree's inner wall. "I can't turn you into a master fighter in six days. But I can teach you how to survive. How to exploit openings. How to fight without honor." Her smile turned sharp. "And most importantly, how to die without staying dead."
"You said resurrection costs something."
"It does. But you're only at one fragment. You don't have much to lose. Better to burn through your death immunity now, while you're weak, than later when you have hundreds of fragments at stake." She pulled a thin blanket over herself. "Sleep while you can. Dawn comes early, and I plan to kill you at least three times before lunch."
Ren stared at her. "You're joking."
"I never joke about murder." She closed her eyes. "Goodnight, soul-man. Try not to die in your sleep. That one's on your own time."
He lay awake for a long while after her breathing evened out, staring at the darkness inside the hollow tree, thinking about a woman named Sera who had died forty-seven times before it finally stuck.
The Compass on his palm pulsed steadily, counting down to a confrontation he wasn't sure he could survive.
But then again, survival wasn't really the point anymore, was it?
---
Dawn came with a knife to his throat.
Ren's eyes snapped open to find Kira crouching over him, her blade pressing just hard enough to dimple the skin. Morning light filtered through the moss curtain, catching the side of her face.
"Lesson one," she said pleasantly. "Always sleep with one eye open. If I was an enemy, you'd already be dead."
"I think I still might be."
"Not yet." She withdrew the knife and stood in one fluid motion. "Get up. We're starting."
The forest outside the hollow tree was beautiful in the early morning. Mist curling between ancient oaks, birdsong echoing through the canopy, shafts of light painting patterns on the forest floor. Ren might have appreciated it more if he wasn't still trying to get his heart rate under control.
Kira led him to a small clearing where a fallen log provided a natural training ground. She'd laid out several weapons on the mossy surface: a short sword, a longer blade, a pair of daggers, and what appeared to be a sharpened stick.
"Choose your weapon," she said.
Ren looked at the options. "I have no idea what I'm doing."
"That's why you're choosing. Your body knows things your mind doesn't. Fragment construct bodies have instincts built in. Pick up each weapon, feel how it sits in your hand, and choose the one that feels least wrong."
He started with the short sword. It was lighter than he'd expected, balanced well, but something about it felt confined. Like wearing shoes that were slightly too small.
The longer blade was worse. Too heavy, too unwieldy. The reach that should have been an advantage felt more like a liability.
The daggers were better. Close, quick, requiring the kind of rapid-response movement that felt almost familiar from his paramedic days. But still not quite right.
The sharpened stick, absurdly, felt the most natural. Lightweight, versatile, its length and balance clicking into place with his reconstructed muscles.
"Staff fighter," Kira observed. "Interesting. Not the most lethal option, but versatile. Good for defense and mobility, good for keeping enemies at a distance while you figure out what you're doing." She tossed him a longer, sturdier pole that had been leaning against a nearby tree. "Here. Properly weighted training staff. Now, defend yourself."
She attacked without warning.
Ren barely got the staff up in time to block her first strike, a sweeping slash that would have opened his throat if he'd been a heartbeat slower. The impact jarred his arms, and before he could recover, she'd already spun past his guard and planted a knee in his stomach.
He doubled over, gasping.
"Too slow," Kira said, stepping back. "Again."
She attacked. He blocked. She slipped past his defense. Pain.
"Reading your movements too easily. Again."
Block. Slip. Pain.
"You're thinking too much. Let your body react. Again."
This time, Ren didn't think. He let his arms move on their own, let the staff become an extension of himself rather than a tool he was using. Kira's strike came. He deflected it. Her follow-up came. He shifted his weight, letting it slide past.
Her third attack drove through his guard and sent him sprawling anyway, but for a moment, just a moment, he'd been keeping up.
"Better," Kira acknowledged. "You might survive for almost four seconds in a real fight." She extended a hand to help him up. "Now, let's work on that."
The morning became a blur of attacks and defenses, bruises accumulating on Ren's reconstructed body faster than he could count them. Kira was merciless but methodical, pushing him just past his limits but explaining every mistake, every opening he showed.
By midday, Ren could manage about fifteen seconds of sustained defense before she inevitably found a way through.
By mid-afternoon, he'd managed to land his first hit, a glancing blow to her shoulder that made her grin with something close to approval.
By evening, she killed him for the first time.
It happened fast. They were sparring with real weapons, Kira had upgraded from the training staff to actual bladed tools, and Ren's attention slipped for just a fraction of a second. Kira's dagger found his throat before he could react, and suddenly he was on his back, watching his blood spill onto the forest floor, wondering if this was really how it ended.
**[DEATH DETECTED]**
**[CAUSE: EXSANGUINATION (THROAT)]**
**[RESURRECTION PROTOCOL INITIATING...]**
**[WARNING: RESURRECTION CONSUMES 0.05% SOUL STABILITY]**
**[CURRENT SOUL STABILITY: 99.95%]**
**[RESURRECTION IN: 3... 2... 1...]**
Ren gasped back to life five feet from where he'd died, his throat intact, his body whole, his clothes inexplicably still stained with his own blood. The sensation was wrong. Like waking from a dream that had been too real, his mind telling him he should be dead while his body insisted he was fine.
"How does it feel?" Kira asked, crouching beside his corpse with professional interest.
"Awful." Ren pushed himself to his feet, one hand touching his unmarked throat. "Like I got pulled out of something I was supposed to stay in."
"Good. Remember that feeling. Let it motivate you to avoid dying." She stood and cleaned her dagger on a patch of moss. "Again?"
He looked at his own body lying on the ground, the blood already fading from reality as the fragment system cleaned up its mess. In a few minutes, there would be no evidence he'd ever died at all.
"Again," he agreed.
Kira killed him two more times before dinner. Once with a blade through the heart, once with a blow to the head that probably would have been survivable if he'd had access to proper medical care. Each death hurt differently, but the resurrection felt the same: a jarring return to existence, his soul stability ticking down by fractions of a percent.
By the time they stopped, Ren had died three times and his soul stability was at 99.85%. At this rate, he could die approximately six hundred more times before his soul destabilized completely.
That seemed like a lot, but somehow, sitting in the hollow tree with a belly full of stolen food and a body full of aches, it didn't feel like nearly enough.
"Five more days," Kira said, poking at a small fire she'd built outside their shelter. "We'll drill every waking hour. By the time Varen arrives, you'll at least know which end of a weapon to hold."
"And that'll be enough?"
"No." Her eyes reflected the flames, and for a moment, Ren saw the depth of hatred burning behind them. "Nothing will be enough. Varen has thirty-two fragments, a fortress full of loyal knights, and decades of combat experience. We're going to lose."
"Then why are we doing this?"
"Because losing doesn't mean failing." Kira's smile was thin and hard. "We don't need to beat Varen. We just need to get your fragment and get out. If we're smart, we can do that without fighting him at all."
"And if we're not smart?"
"Then we die. A lot." She shrugged. "But that's what the next five days are for. Teaching you how to die well."
Ren thought about Sera, who had died forty-seven times before it stuck. Thought about the souls she'd collected, now powering Varen's war machine. Thought about what it would mean to add his name to that list, another Collector who reached too high and paid the price.
"Teach me," he said.
Kira's smile widened.
"With pleasure."
**[TRAINING PROGRESS: DAY 1 COMPLETE]**
**[DEATHS: 3]**
**[SOUL STABILITY: 99.85%]**
**[COMBAT ABILITY: BASIC (STAFF)]**
**[DAYS UNTIL CONFRONTATION: 5]**
**[NEXT OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE TRAINING]**
The fire crackled, the forest murmured, and somewhere to the northeast, Lord Varen slept peacefully in his fortress, unaware that his death was being planned in a hollow tree by a rogue and a man who had already died four times since morning.
Ren closed his eyes and let exhaustion pull him under.
Tomorrow, he would die again.
But tonight, he dreamed of nothing at all.
