That night, while Nivi is kept under watch, her tribe gathers to discuss her fate.

  The vilge centre is dimly lit by woven nterns hanging from a web of vines, their light softened by leaves still wet from the afternoon’s rain. Pale smoke curls zily from the firepit in the middle, the coals long past bzing.

  Only a few vilgers are in attendance, seated on the worn log benches: hunters, family, elders. Everyone else has been sent away.

  Elder K’Yuyna’s voice carries across the circle, even in her age-soft rasp. “She is dangerous.”

  “She is a child! My child!” Nivi’s mother, K’Areya, rises to her feet. Her voice shakes. “She didn’t choose this—”

  “She is not a child anymore,” Elder K’Tarhun bellows, his tail shing behind him. “She’s something else. You all saw what emerged from her forehead. That third eye… It is unnatural.”

  Murmurs ripple through the circle. One man’s voice rises above the rest. “Wild magic…”

  Yuyna silences the crowd with a gre. “No, not gone wild,” she says. “But Other. The power she used didn’t come from the tribe, from our forest, or our gods. That was no gift. That was an infection. She drew from the same source as the many-eyed youkai who haunt the ruins. The Hyakume.”

  Silence falls.

  Across from her, Nivi’s father, K’Rahal, sits hunched forward, hands knotted tightly, fingernails digging into his palms. “She didn’t mean to hurt Lex,” he says. “They were just pying, but she panicked and he didn’t let go.”

  One of the hunters growls low in his throat. He had watched over Lex during the day. “She panicked—and turned him to stone. How many more bright new hunters do we risk losing to her panic attacks?”

  Elder K’Loren raises a calming hand. “She did not wield a weapon,” he says, gaze sweeping the gathering. “She did not set a trap. She did not even know what she could do. That much is clear. Which is exactly why she cannot stay.”

  Yuyna turns her gaze to meet Areya’s.

  The mother stands stiffly, jaw clenched, silent.

  “You saw it too,” the elder says softly. “The yellow eye.”

  “… She begged us—anyone—to help him,” Areya whispers, voice trembling. “She didn’t care what happened to her. She wept when they pulled her free. This isn’t the sign of cruelty or intent.”

  “That may be true,” Yuyna says. “But tears don’t unmake curses. Power like hers doesn’t care how or why it was used. This doesn’t change the fact it worked.”

  For a long moment, no one speaks.

  Then a younger voice breaks the silence.

  “She saved herself,” says a boy—a cousin of Nivi’s, maybe thirteen summers. “I watched it happen. Lex tackled her to the ground. He might have been pying, but she wasn’t. He brought it on himself.”

  Several heads turn toward the child, but no one moves to contradict him.

  Tarhun narrows his eyes. “And what do you propose we do, child? Forbid anyone from touching her? Even if the elders forgive her, no one else will go near her again.”

  “She didn’t ask for this,” the boy insists. “She’s one of us!”

  “She was,” someone mutters.

  Yuyna gestures for Areya to sit. The elder scans the circle. “Let us vote. All in favour of execution?”

  Two hands rise—family of the deceased.

  “Isotion in the Long Hollow?” Tarhun asks.

  “—No,” Yuyna interrupts before a hand lifts. “She would not survive alone in confinement,” she says. “And if she did… what would return to us in a year’s time?”

  Tarhun growls in anger. Loren speaks next. “Then our st option. All in favour of exile?”

  Hands rise. More than enough.

  “Then we leave her fate to the jungle,” Loren decres. “May she grant mercy... or retribution. The tribe has spoken.”

  The vilgers disperse one by one. Some leave in silence. Others mutter in frustration, but do not oppose the outcome.

  Rahal remains seated long after the st footstep fades. Tarhun approaches.

  “She’ll die out there,” Rahal says, still staring at the firepit. “She can’t even light a fire yet.”

  “She might,” the elder agrees. “Or she might survive.”

  “And if she does?”

  Tarhun finally allows himself a thin, quiet smile. “Then it will be a story worth listening to.”

  The house is quiet when they return.

  No nterns are lit inside. Moonlight filters through the woven walls, casting pale stripes across the floor—just enough to see by.

  K’Areya stops at the doorway, eyes adjusting. Her heart lurches until she spots the small lump curled in the corner on the sleeping mat. A guard stands outside the window, as agreed. Watching silently. Protecting the vilge from her, or protecting her from the vilge?

  Nivi is asleep, or at least, she appears to be.

  She’s kicked off her bnket. One arm is tucked beneath her head; the other rests stiffly by her side, wrapped in a clumsy strip of cloth where her hand still bears angry cuts.

  Her breathing is slow. Uneven.

  K’Rahal moves past his wife without a word and lowers himself against the far wall, as far from the girl as he can manage. He doesn’t look at her, but Areya does.

  She crosses the floor quietly and crouches beside the mat. For a long time, she just stares.

  Nivi is bruised. Thin. Filthy. Her face is still streaked with dried tears.

  And yet… she sleeps. Maybe from exhaustion or guilt. Or perhaps because she still believes she is safe, here.

  Areya’s hands tremble. She reaches out, hovers her fingers above Nivi’s shoulder—but doesn’t touch her.

  In the morning, they will take everything away. Her name, her home, her pce.

  Tonight is the st night Nivi will ever sleep in her mother’s house. So Areya stays, kneeling beside her, watching her daughter breathe.

  She doesn’t cry, not yet.

  But she doesn’t move either. Not until morning.

  She looks up at her husband and speaks, only loud enough for him to hear her words, and not any louder. “What now?”

  Rahal doesn’t raise his head. His voice is ft. “For us? We start over. Her? She learns, or she dies.”