The brown leather pack sat open on the rough wooden table. Thalos crouched over it, checking and rechecking each item with a frown far too serious for his age.
The pack had been his father's, so his grandmother claimed. Thalos had never known the man, but the bag bore the kind of wear that spoke of long journeys: the dust of far-off lands pressed deep into its seams, the faint tang of old smoke to the straps. Now it would carry everything standing between Thalos and the fate the herbal sage had warned him of.
Their house was a single room of sun-baked clay and weathered timber. The roof sagged in the middle, beaten down by years of storms. Wooden shutters rattled in the wind. Smoke from the hearth lingered in the air no matter the season. Beneath his bare feet, the stone floor was cold and uneven; shelves along the walls bowed beneath jars of dried herbs, folded linens, and the small salvaged treasures of a lifetime.
In the far corner, his grandmother lay motionless on the straw-stuffed bed, a faded quilt drawn to her chin. Her breathing was shallow. Her hands, thin, rested loosely on her chest. She had not spoken in two days, her gaze fixed on the cracked ceiling beams as though searching them for an answer.
Thalos's chest tightened. He wanted to promise her everything would be fine, but the words caught in his throat. Instead, he reached for the waterskin by the door, checked for leaks, and placed it carefully in the pack.
The herbal sage's voice still echoed in his mind.
"The tree grows only in the high mountain pass. Its bark must be ground and inhaled while fresh, or it loses all strength. Without it…"
The old man had let the sentence hang, knotted hands gripping his cane. His small house had smelled of mint and bitter root; bundles of drying plants hung low from the rafters. In the dim light, his face seemed like it was carved from wood, deep lines grooved into brow and cheek.
"The path is dangerous. Few return. There are… stories."
"Stories?" Thalos had asked.
The sage's eyes flicked toward the shuttered window.
"A monster roams there. No one knows its form—only that it attacks travelers. Those it touches turn to stone. I've seen them in the foothills—faces twisted mid-scream, eyes wide as if the fear had never left them."
Thalos had swallowed hard but stood his ground. His dark curls fell into his eyes; he brushed them aside, boyish features was set with a stubbornness that belonged to someone older.
"I'll go," he said.
The sage stared at him. "It's death you walk toward."
"I hear you. But if I stay here, she dies anyway. If I go… there's a chance."
After a long pause, the old man took down a thin roll of parchment, edges curled, ink faded to brown.
"I've kept this for years. The path to the mountain."
Thalos tucked the map inside his coat and bowed. "Thank you, Elder."
Back home, he pressed a kiss to his grandmother's cool forehead. She gave no sign of hearing, but he liked to think she knew.
Now, in the fading light, he packed with quiet urgency. From beneath the bed, he pulled a clay jar of coins, savings from fishing, odd jobs, carrying merchants' bundles, the palace gardens. He spilled them onto the table, the dull clink loud in the small room.
"For food," he murmured, "and for survival."
From the shelf he filled a smaller jar with water, adding it to the pack alongside flatbread, dried figs, salted goat meat, a wedge of hard cheese, walnuts, and strips of dried apricot. He folded in an extra shirt and trousers, a woolen scarf, a flint, and wrapped the coins in cloth to silence their jingle.
Then he stopped. Looked. Every dent in the table, every threadbare blanket, every crack in the wall held memory, his grandmother's voice by the fire, her hands guiding his as he mended a fishing net, the way she taught him to read the wind. This was the only home he had ever known.
If he failed, he would never see it again.
He shouldered the pack, hugging it once before setting out. The wooden door creaked closed; the iron key was cold in his palm. He locked it and slipped the key into his pocket.
The market road stretched east. Thalos took a few steps toward it, then slowed. Ahead lay the mountains, their peaks swallowed by cloud.
He drew a deep breath. The smell of woodsmoke and baking bread drifted faintly from the town behind him.
It would be the last familiar scent for a long, long time.
———
The wind in the high hills carried the taste of stone and wild thyme.
Gorgona wandered lazily across the ridges, her bare feet silent against the earth. She did not hurry; she never had reason to. What could possibly chase her?
A pebble caught her toe. She flicked it away and watched it tumble down the slope until it vanished between thornbushes. Her gaze lingered long after it was gone, as if she could still see it falling. Then she shrugged, bent to pluck another stone from the dirt, tossed it in the air, and caught it again, smiling faintly at the small, empty echo it made in her palm.
The hills unfurled in every direction, dotted with twisted trees whose branches curled just like claws. She climbed one with the ease of someone born to it, gripping the bark with fingers strong enough to crack anything. The branch swayed under her weight, but she sprawled across it as though it were a soft bed, snakes on her hair spilling down.
Her eyes drifted closed.
"Lazy again," a voice whispered.
"Let her be," another replied, sharp as flint.
"She should be hunting."
"I am listening," Gorgona muttered, without opening her eyes. "You never stop talking, so I hear every word whether I want to or not."
No one stood nearby. The voices were companions stitched into her head. They argued. They laughed. Now, they hissed.
A breeze slid through, carrying a scent she recognized instantly: the stale tang of humans.
Her lips curled.
She slipped down from the tree, landing in a crouch. The ground was soft beneath her toes. She moved between rocks without looking; she knew every inch of this land. And then she saw them.
The statues.
They stood where they had fallen, a scatter of figures caught mid-motion.
A man with his sword half-drawn.
Another with his mouth wide open, frozen in a scream that would never finish.
A man shielding his eyes, his stone fingers chipped where birds had perched.
Gorgona walked among them as one might walk through a graveyard.
She touched the swordsman's cheek. The stone was cold, lifeless. Her nails scraped against it, flaking away gray dust.
"How stupid," she said, not looking at him. "To think you could harm me. I'm a monster, yes, but not the kind you can kill with blades or bravery."
Her gaze swept over the rest. "You thought yourselves clever. You thought yourselves heroes." She leaned close to the man, eye to blind stone eye. "And look where it got you."
The snakes on her head slid forward as she turned away. Even now, the carved faces seemed to recoil from her presence.
"I'm not just one kind of monster," she said to the silence. "I'm two… maybe more. The most dangerous kind you'll ever meet." She exhaled through her teeth. "And still, they come. Gullible little things."
She climbed a pale boulder and sat cross-legged, elbows resting on her knees. Above, the clouds shifted, muting the light.
The wind stilled. The voices on her head faded to murmurs.
Something cool touched her cheek.
She froze. Lifted a hand, then stopped before her fingers met the drop. It slid down her skin, slow and deliberate. Another followed. And another. Yet the earth around her stayed dry.
Not rain.
A shiver traced her spine.
Perhaps some remnant of divinity clung to her still, something from before the curse, from a life she barely remembered. Perhaps the sky remembered too, and wept for her alone.
She let the drops fall.
Fragments stirred in her mind: a voice calling her name in a language she no longer knew, the laughter of the gods. All of it rotted away long ago, leaving her here in the hills, waiting for the next fool to stumble close.
She lay back on the boulder, whistling a nameless tune she had carried for centuries.
The voices on her head returned.
"Someone's coming," one whispered.
"Far yet," another said.
"Closer every moment."
Gorgona smiled, but did not rise. "Let them come."
Her fingers traced the deep grooves in the stone beneath her. She could almost taste the fear already on its way, warm, fresh, alive.
A shadow slid across the clouds. She tilted her head, but the sky was empty again.
Somewhere below, a sound echoed faintly through the valley, not quite a step, not quite a voice.
Gorgona sat up, the snake on her head falling over her shoulders and recoiling like a dark mask.