They said Hunters didn’t need much sleep, but Alessia’s body took exception. She’d slept a full ten hours, catching up from weeks of exhaustion, or maybe the Trial had simply drained her. One thing she noticed: her dreams were far more vivid than normal. She couldn’t tell if that was trauma or the Presence.

  Breakfast was the last thing on her mind. The thought of a fried egg over toasted bread, once appealing, turned her stomach now. Even a dried fig sounded repulsive, but the urge to drink remained.

  She stretched as she made her way to the water basin. Her once-familiar green eyes were gone. Eerie silver eyes gazed back at her from the reflection.

  Would Phantom Ophelia’s eyes have been silver too, or was Alessia’s transformation something else entirely? Was she a bastardization of what should have been?

  She cupped her hands and dipped them into the water. The silence pressed in, not the quiet of early morning, but something absolute. Wrong.

  “Hello?” she said aloud, testing for sound.

  Nothing. Not even the echo of her own voice, only vibration. Not the drip of water from her hands back into the basin.

  Complete silence.

  She gripped the basin, steadying herself.

  “No,” she said, or thought she said. The vibration in her throat confirmed it, but the sound never reached her ears. “No, no, no.”

  Calm. Calm. Breathe. It wants you to lose control.

  Her knuckles went white gripping the edges of the basin.

  Alessia could feel the Presence stirring behind her thoughts. Panic was feeding it. She knew that, but nothing like the intensity of the Trial.

  Yet.

  She flinched as a hand touched her shoulder without warning.

  It was Master Tormund, his eyes narrowed, head tilted. His lips moved.

  “What?” Alessia asked reflexively.

  He stopped. His expression shifted as he studied her face.

  “I can’t hear anything,” she said.

  His eyes widened. Whatever he’d expected to find when he came to check on her, it wasn’t this.

  His mouth moved, speaking she assumed, though the words were lost to her. Then he held up one hand, palm out. Wait. That much she understood. He turned and strode toward the door, moving with urgency.

  Alessia watched him disappear into the hallway, and the silence pressed in heavier than before.

  She gripped the basin to ground herself. What’s happening to me?

  She’d lost her Brothers. She’d lost Damian. Now silver-eyed and deaf. What else could the Trial take from her? What else would she discover was broken?

  She thought of Hunts. Of tracking monsters through forests where a snapped twig or a growl gave warning. How was she supposed to hear a corpse ghoul’s wet shuffling? A siren’s wail?

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  How was she supposed to fight when she couldn’t hear her enemy coming?

  Hunters needed their senses. Enhanced hearing, enhanced reflexes, that’s what kept them alive against vampires and wraiths. Things which moved faster than human eyes could track.

  She was supposed to be stronger now. Instead, she was crippled.

  The Presence stirred again, feeding on her spiraling thoughts.

  “Calm. Calm. Breathe.”

  But the mantra felt hollow when she couldn’t even hear the words leave her lips. Only the vibration in her throat confirmed she’d spoken at all.

  She looked up from the basin. Master Tormund stood in the doorway with Scribe Willem, both men watching her. Scribe Willem’s weathered face was unreadable, but Master Tormund’s expression held something she didn’t like. Uncertainty.

  Scribe Willem’s lips moved. He was speaking to her, she realized, but the words were lost. She shook her head.

  He nodded slowly, then pulled a piece of parchment and charcoal from his robes.

  “What’s happening to me Willem?”

  He wrote deliberately, then turned to show her the parchment.

  I don’t know. How do you feel? Sick? Normal?

  She read the words twice, then sank onto the edge of her bed. Tears began to form.

  “I feel fine. Everything feels fine. I just woke up and can’t hear.”

  Master Tormund and Scribe Willem exchanged glances and spoke to each other. She watched their lips move, excluded from the conversation about her own condition.

  Scribe Willem began to write once more, his hand moving carefully across the parchment. He turned it toward her.

  We believed that women were biologically unable to complete the Trial.

  She stared at the words. Centuries of failure, explained in a single sentence. But she’d proven that wrong, hadn’t she?

  He was writing again, adding to the message.

  This appears to be a consequence of success.

  Alessia put her hands over her face.

  “Of course it is. Can you give me something for it? To fix it?”

  He wrote again, it was shorter this time.

  No.

  The word sat there on the parchment. Simple. Final.

  Alessia lowered her hands from her face and stared at it. She should feel something. Rage, despair, anything. But there was nothing. Just emptiness where emotion should be.

  She’d survived the Trial. Become the first Huntress. Received Damian’s medallion and Phantom Ophelia’s blade.

  And now she was broken.

  “Okay,” she managed. The word felt distant, like someone else was speaking through her mouth. “So how do I Hunt?”

  Master Tormund shrugged as Scribe Willem began to write again.

  Your other senses may sharpen to compensate. Many who lose hearing report heightened awareness of movement, vibration, spatial changes. Combined with what the Presence already gives you, this could become an advantage.

  He stopped writing midsentence, but continued after a moment.

  It will be difficult, but not impossible.

  She read the words. Read them again. They should have meant something. Hope, maybe, or at least a path forward. But they just sat there on the parchment, as distant as everything else. She stared at the words until they blurred. Didn’t nod. Didn’t respond. Just stared.

  Difficult but not impossible.

  She was so tired of difficult.

  Movement drew her attention back. Willem was writing again, his hand moving carefully.

  During your Trial of Adjustment, you should learn to lip read, it will serve you well in the future.

  Alessia nodded once. Not because she agreed. Not because she felt hope. Just because it seemed like the response they expected.

  “Okay,” she said again.

  Scribe Willem and Master Tormund exchanged another look. Concern, maybe pity, but she didn’t have the energy to care what they thought. She’d survived the Trial. She’d become a Huntress.

  And now she’d learn to live with everything that had cost her.