Cold Light

CHAPTER 16 Monster

Kateryna came to, disoriented and exhausted, with a splitting headache.

She pushed herself onto her elbows, her back sore from laying on her spear, and looked around. Her eyes widened at the sight.

The battlefield looked like a massacre.

No, it didn't just look it, it was a massacre.

The field was charred and completely covered by ashes. The forest was hardly intact, trees fallen over and burned. There was no sight of a living demon and the ground was littered with angelblood bodies. Kateryna could hardly tell if any angelbloods were alive. A few were twitching in pain, but there was no other indication besides their feeble aura.

The silence pressed relentlessly down upon Kateryna, the calm after a storm.

She tried to push herself further up but collapsed back on the ground. She felt like she had been pushed through a grater and put back together.

The last thing Kateryna had remembered was seeing a fellow angelblood brutally murdered right before her eyes and then a blinding light.

Kateryna managed to push herself up into a sitting position, only for her head to be assaulted with a piercing pain.

She brought her hand to her head when realization struck her and whispered to herself in horror.

"What have I done?"

_

"Freak."

"Hey, don't get too close. You might get cursed."

"She's not normal."

"Murderer."

Kateryna set her lunch plate down on the table harder than she intended to, causing Tegan and Lee to look at her in surprise.

Lee frowned sympathetically. "Don't let them get to you, Kateryna. They don't understand yet, but you saved us all."

Kateryna sat down, her shoulders tense. "Not all. I killed so many people, angelbloods included."

Tegan shook her head furiously. "Kateryna, if that burst of energy didn't kill all those demons, there wouldn't have been any angelbloods left to save."

Kateryna bit her lip before laughing bitterly. "You know, I used to think you angelbloods were freaks. Pretty ironic that I would be the freak among the freaks."

A group of younger angelbloods passed by. "Monster."

She stared at her plate. "Do you think I'm a monster?"

Tegan responded immediately. "No! Of course not."

Kateryna looked at her, her eyes wary. "Really? I wiped out an entire field of demons and angelbloods and you don't think I'm a monster?" She said dubiously.

Lee shook her head. "We've only known you for a few days, we can't judge you by how much power you have or the control you have over that power. But by what I know of you from these past days, you are not a monster. We all have flaws. One of yours just might be that you don't know your own strength."

Tegan nodded. "And no matter what, we'll stick by you. That's what friends are for, right?"

Kateryna looked at her friends and let out a small smile. "Thanks guys."

_

"Kateryna, are you going to try at all?" Asked Quintus, the weaponsmaster.

"I can't, teacher. I'll hurt someone."

"Oh you don't know that. Come on, I know you can do it."

Kateryna stared at her hands, then looked at everyone around her. They were shooting balls of elemental force at targets on the other side of the field.