The trees cracked like bones as Jalen wrenched them apart for firewood. He moved slow, each swing of his arm stiff, his breath puffing white in the air.
Two months had passed since the sea had spat him onto this coast, two months of storms and silence, and the cold had been sharpening every day. The water was colder now. The wind carried the bite of ice. If his guess was right, winter was not far.
He rolled the logs down the beach, the tide hissing at his ankles, and stacked them into the shape of a bonfire. His hands were raw, wrapped in strips of cloth he had cut from his shirt, but he worked anyway. A shack crouched behind him, crooked but standing, the only proof that he hadn't lain down and let the waves take him.
"I'm still weak," he muttered, more to the sea than himself. "Body's slow… healing's slow." He paused, driving another log into place with the heel of his palm. "Maybe it's Rhea's death. Maybe it's Joker. I think… I think I locked part of myself away without meaning to. Like I didn't want the power anymore."
His jaw tightened. The memory of that smile and laugh—his laugh, but not his—gnawed at the edges of his skull. He shoved it back down.
"Even Dream Mold takes it out of me now. Hurts worse than it should. Feels like I'm using it for the first time again." He stared at his trembling hands until the shaking stopped. "This has to be the weakest I've ever been."
The bonfire caught, casting an orange light that threw shadows across the sand. He sat and watched it for a long while, cooking a fish that he'd caught earlier, the crackle filling the space where his sister's voice should have been.
"This sucks... but I think the worst part is I don't even know where the others are, if they survived..." He glanced toward the grave. "At least I was able to see you one more time."
Tears formed in his eyes as he began to eat his food. "I was never the best cook but you never seemed to mind did you Rhea..."
A month later, the grave waited for him at the edge of the beach. The marker stone bore her name, RHEA, its carved letters already worn pale by salt wind. Jalen knelt there in silence, tracing the grooves with his thumb. He said nothing. There were no words left.
That was when he heard it.
The sharp crack of hooves. Screams. Wood splitting. Fire snapping where no fire belonged.
He rose at once. His body ached, ribs still raw, but his feet moved before thought caught up. He sprinted inland, across the dunes and through the line of crooked pines until the smoke came into view.
A village burned. Thatched roofs bled fire into the night. Shadows moved through the flames—raiders, shouting in a tongue he didn't know.
A woman stumbled from the wreckage, clutching a child to her chest, a sword flashing behind her.
Jalen moved.
He slammed his shoulder into the raider before the blade could fall, sending the man sprawling into the dirt. The woman shrieked, shielding her child, but Jalen only planted himself between them and the next attacker.
The swing came quickly. He ducked under it, felt the heat of fire at his back, and cracked his fist into a jaw. Bone split. His knee followed, breaking ribs. His body strained with every blow, the exhaustion always waiting one step behind, but he didn't stop.
More villagers staggered into view, bloodied, desperate, their screams cutting through the roar of the flames. Jalen forced his way to them—dragging one out from beneath a burning beam, pulling another away from a raider's spear. His chest heaved, lungs burning with smoke, but each cry of terror pressed him forward.
In the firelight, he saw her for an instant—Rhea. Not real, just memory, her chin up, eyes sharp, shouting again at Kuromi. The flash of her face steadied his next strike.
Jalen bared his teeth, dug deeper into what little strength he had left, and fought.
The flames threw long shadows across the village square. Raiders scattered when they saw him coming, their jeers turning sharp, uncertain. Jalen wiped the blood from his lip and kept walking, each step heavy, measured.
Then the crowd parted.
Their leader emerged, swaggering from the largest hut now crowned with fire. He wore scavenged armor—half-plate stitched together with rope, blackened from old burns. His grin was yellow, his voice hoarse from shouting.
"You're no villager," he called, raising a hand. "So what are you, stranger? A knight? A merc? A ghost crawling out of the sea?"
He snapped his fingers.
Chains rattled.
Something stepped out from the smoke.
It was no man. Its back bent too far, its limbs long and twisted, bound in iron at the wrists and throat. Its skin was a patchwork of scars, its face a smear of tusks and black eyes. The beast growled, the sound low, metallic, as if the chains themselves spoke.
The leader laughed. "My pet's hungry. Let's see if he likes foreign meat."
The raiders jeered, circling tighter, eager for blood.
The beast lunged.
Jalen moved too slow. His ribs screamed as he dodged the first swipe, the claws tearing through the wall of a hut like it was parchment. He rolled and came up coughing, smoke scalding his lungs.
The second blow landed.
Claws raked across his chest, throwing him into the dirt. His vision sparked white. His fingers twitched toward the ground, instinct reaching for Dream Mold—but when he tried, the strength guttered out. His body locked in protest.
He forced himself up anyway. His knees shook.
The beast snarled and came again, chains dragging furrows through the earth. Jalen planted his feet, caught the strike on his forearm, and felt something break. Pain bloomed sharp and immediate. He clenched his jaw until his teeth ground together and drove his other fist into the creature's throat.
It staggered.
Not much. Just enough.
Jalen pressed forward, every strike tearing something loose inside him, every breath rasping fire through his chest. He thought of Rhea standing on that crate, bargaining down a vendor twice her size. He thought of her facing Kuromi again and again, demanding to be knocked down just so she could rise.
He thought of her grave.
The beast swung wide. He ducked, grabbed the chain, and wrapped it around his arm until the iron cut his skin. With a roar that split his throat raw, he heaved. The chain snapped taut. The beast stumbled.
Jalen yanked it forward and drove his knee into its jaw. Bone cracked. He followed with a headbutt, then another strike, until the beast collapsed, its chains clattering like broken bells.
The square went silent except for his ragged breathing.
The leader's grin vanished. His sword clattered to the dirt.
"I—I surrender," he stammered, hands lifting. "No more blood. I give up."
Jalen spat blood into the firelit dust. His body trembled from head to toe, vision swimming. But he still stepped toward the man, his shadow stretching long behind him.
"You're going to tell me everything," he said, voice low. "Where you've raided. Who have you taken?
The leader trembled. "We- our base, north of here! You'll find our supplies and all the information you're looking for. I'm sorry, please spare me! I'll never bring harm to this village again!
The raider leader's words tumbled over themselves, spilling fear like water from a cracked jar. Jalen stared at him for a long, heavy moment, the firelight catching on the blood smeared across his face.
"Show me," Jalen said finally.
The man nodded so fast it looked like his head might come loose. He barked at his men to drop their weapons, and the clatter of steel hitting dirt filled the square.
Only then did Jalen step back. His knees nearly gave.
The villagers were watching him. Wide-eyed, silent, clutching their children, their elders, each other. Some whispered thanks. Others just kept their distance. Even the woman he'd shielded before held her baby tighter when his gaze passed over her.
He was no savior to them. He was a storm that had cut through another storm.
Jalen turned away from the leader and toward the villagers. His voice rasped from smoke and blood.
"Gather your people. Tend your wounded. The fires won't hold long."
A few nodded and ran to it. Most just kept staring.
He walked until the heat of the flames no longer pressed against his back. His body screamed for rest, but he didn't stop until he reached the edge of the village. He sat heavily against the trunk of a pine, chest heaving, and let the night in.
The raiders were bound. The villagers were safe for now. But his thoughts kept circling back to one word the leader had stammered out before silence fell:
'North.'
He dragged a hand over his face, smearing soot into his hair, and stared at the stars barely visible through the smoke. Somewhere north lay the trail.
His hands clenched around nothing. He thought of the shack by the coast. The grave. The carved stone.
"I'll come back," he murmured, like a promise to the sea, to Rhea, to himself.
Then he closed his eyes, and for the first time in weeks, let sleep take him where it wanted.