The cold woke Touya with a bone-freezing wind. His mind was emerging from a vortex stained with blood and madness, replaced by an empty, vibrating calmness. The madness had come, it seemed, and left without a trace. He saw Lanert standing watch silently beside him. His face was heavy with worry and exhaustion.
"Are you okay?" Lanert whispered, his voice soft enough to blend with the howling wind. "Your wounds... seem to be healing quickly. That's a good thing, at least."
Touya tried to sit up, every muscle aching in protest. His memory was fragmented; the werewolf, the screams, the coldness of the dagger. "Aren't you going to ask anything?" he mumbled, his voice still hoarse.
Lanert shook his head slightly. "I have a rough idea. A powerful trait... theft, absorption. If you use your mind, of course. But the side effect," he paused for a moment, "is a bit too... effective."
Touya spoke, trying to dispel the fog in his mind. "I think... I go insane. Temporarily, right?"
Lanert laughed with a bitter smile. "Possibly. Now, we need a plan. Our primary goal is to get you into your soul's awareness dimension. For that, we need to be safe. We must find a settlement. We need to survive, plot a route, and... find food."
A flash of hunger lit up Touya's eyes. "Actually—"
Lanert cut him off with a sharp tone. "No. We are not eating that. He was human."
Touya shifted slightly and let out a muffled chuckle. "It was just a joke." The emptiness in his eyes showed how thin the joke was.
For two days, there was nothing but two silhouettes in the endless white. Every step was torture. Finally, towards the end of the second day, they saw trails of smoke on the horizon. A settlement.
As they approached, they realized it was a primitive camp made of ramshackle huts and a fence adorned with bones. In the air, alongside the smell of cooked meat, was a sharper, more metallic scent. Noises and shouts came from inside.
The guard at the gate was a burly man, his face covered in scars. He eyed them. "Halt! Who are you?"
Lanert took a step forward. "We're lost. We need help. Food, water, and a place to rest for a bit. We mean no harm."
The guard eyed them suspiciously, focusing particularly on Touya's wild gaze. "Hospitality is expensive. What can you offer?"
Lanert pulled out his last few valuable items from his pocket and offered them. The guard's eyes lit up at the gleam, and he cracked the gate open. "Inside. Go to the fire. Don't ask too many questions."
As they entered, the camp's primitiveness and savagery hit them in the face. People were huddled in furs, their faces hard and ruthless. A large pot was boiling over the fire. A woman handed them two bowls of a hot, dark stew and some hard bread. While Touya wolfed down the food with a monster's appetite, Lanert observed his surroundings. Something... was off. The meat tasted strange, too sharp and foreign. On the wall, next to a bird whose feathers weren't fully plucked, hung a small, pale finger bone, unmistakably human.
Lanert's face turned deathly pale. His stomach began to churn. "Touya," he whispered, his voice trembling. "Don't eat the food."
But Touya had already finished his bowl. "Why? It was tasty."
That night, as they tried to sleep in the cold, filthy hut allotted to them, Lanert suddenly sat up. His stomach was in turmoil. He rushed outside and vomited onto the snow. The disgusting truth of what he had eaten was making him physically ill. Human flesh. He had eaten it unknowingly.
Just then, he was startled by voices outside. He hid stealthily behind the hut. Two men were dragging a corpse to the edge of the camp. "This is the last one," one of them grumbled. "We'll have to go hunting tomorrow."
Lanert's blood ran cold. They were trapped. He immediately returned to the hut, shaking Touya awake roughly. "Touya! Wake up! This is a cannibal camp! We have to escape, now!"
Touya's eyes snapped open, an instinctual sense of danger taking over. He gripped his dagger. Lanert cracked the door and looked out. The guard was dozing by the fire. "Come on," he whispered.
They slipped out of the hut silently. However, Lanert's sick stomach betrayed him. He gagged and vomited again. The sound woke the guard.
"Hey! They're escaping!" the man shouted, grabbing an axe.
Instantly, the camp was on alert. Armed men burst from their huts. Lanert pushed Touya. "Run!"
The beast inside Touya awoke. Instead of running, he turned on the nearest man. The man swung his axe, but Touya, with a moment of focus, felt his move, the tension in his muscles. Without even needing to touch, he stole the power, the speed from that swing. The man staggered in confusion, his axe swinging uselessly in the air. Touya channeled this stolen power into his own fist, driving it into the man's jaw. The crack of bone tore through the night. The man crumpled to the ground.
"Touya, no! Run!" Lanert shouted, pulling on his arm. His curse only allowed defense, not offense. Another man attacked him with a spear; Lanert instinctively phased, the spear passing through him harmlessly.
Touya, fueled by the temporary stolen power, kicked another man down. But they were outnumbered. "Lanert, clear a path!" he snarled.
Lanert, with a final effort, strained his awareness. He grabbed Touya, and together they passed immaterially through a group charging towards them. They reached the camp's gate. The guard stood before them. Touya, without hesitation, still feeling the stolen strength, drove his dagger into the man's shoulder. It wasn't a killing blow, but it was enough to shove him aside. The two companions began to run into the dark, snowy night, the enraged screams of the cannibals echoing behind them.
When they were far enough away, they hid under a rocky outcrop. Lanert was still trembling, nauseous. "What we ate..." he groaned.
Touya, leaning against the rock, panting, was wiping his dagger. His eyes held the thrill of the escape and the intoxication of the power he had wielded. "It was tasty," he murmured, indifferently.
Lanert looked at him with a mix of disgust and astonishment. Touya saw his look. "What? We survived, didn't we?" he said, shrugging. The strangeness within him was making him more, and less, than human.
Lanert couldn't answer. He just sat there, trembling, staring into the darkness. The chasm between them suddenly seemed much deeper.
---
Liesta had finished wandering the dusty, muddy streets of the town and returned to the wretched room she had rented. The room, like the building, was a woody, old, ramshackle, vintage place giving off an air of 'poor exoticism'. Faded tapestries sagged on the cracked wooden walls, the floorboards creaked with every step. Its atmosphere was one of dust, dampness, and the sharp smell of old wood. A small window offered a view of the town's gray and gloomy landscape. It was a shelter, yes, but it could also be a trap. Her money was running low. If this continued, she would have to return to the wild to hunt.
Just then, the door knocked. Two maids with lifeless eyes entered to "clean" the room. Liesta watched them indifferently, as if they were furnishings as faded and soulless as the room itself.
After the maids left, Liesta prepared to go out again. She needed to find a new sword today. Hers had been badly dulled and worn in the last battle. She put on her light armor. She tossed her ice-white hair back proudly. She headed for the door and stepped outside onto the town's main street. Dusk was beginning to fall, a purplish twilight enveloping the streets. A bad feeling settled in her gut. She absolutely had to find a magical weapon. If it was cheap, it would serve its purpose anyway.
She stopped in front of the sorcerer-merchant's shop. This wasn't an ordinary blacksmith; its very aura was different. As she stepped inside, her nose was met with the scent of old parchment, rare herbs, and static electricity. The shop was filled with stones carved with mystical Miara inscriptions, adorned with cobwebs. These stones weren't decorations; they were placed at strategic points to power the magical items. Staves hung on the walls, potions sat on shelves, and daggers gleamed in glass cases.
As Liesta ran her hand over a shelf, she could feel the enchantments on them. No, actually, the spells were washing over her soul in waves. But her soul was not ordinary enough to respond to the magic in these simple inscriptions. It was sublime. Powerful. And brimming with determination, relentless resolve. Her soul, like a meadow full of beauties, stripped of monotony, was burning with flame. It was crying out to be the legal heir of determination. In the shop's silence, even the spells on the inscriptions seemed pale in the face of this soul.
Finally, her eyes fell on a sword. It wasn't expensive, but it wasn't quite for her either. It was an estoc. Excessively thin and delicate. About a third the thickness of the claymore she normally used. Its craftsmanship was poor and cheap, the enchantment runes on it were faint. Yet, it had something that drew her in. There was someone else examining the sword: a girl, only about 165 cm tall, with jet-black hair, dressed in raven-black clothes, with snow-white skin and sky-blue eyes.
If I go and kill her, the sword becomes mine, right? she thought with cold logic.
She approached lightly. The girl's face became clearer, and it was a beauty blended to perfection. A sweet, almost innocent allure that could melt a dozen men into liquid.
Liesta was surprised for a moment, then spoke in her cold, heart-scorching tone. "You look too delicate for that sword. Are you sure you can wield it?"
The girl flinched, turning her head, her sky-blue eyes wide open. She was taken aback for a moment, then spoke. "Well... I don't actually know. Is there someone who can teach me? I don't have a group, you see. I don't really like going solo, hehe." Her smile was shy and genuine.
Liesta made a quick assessment. "If you don't have a group, how have you survived in this hell?"
"I ran away," said Magien, the words seeming to slip out without thought. "From my old group. They tried... to betray me. So I ran. Then I came here. But no one wants to take a lone mage into their group." Her voice trailed off, growing smaller.
"Betrayal," Liesta repeated, rolling the word in her mouth. "A familiar theme. So, what did you learn from this betrayal?"
Magien was surprised; she hadn't expected this question. "Well... that I shouldn't trust anyone? That I should trust my own power?" she said, her voice questioning.
"Partially," Liesta said, nodding almost imperceptibly. "What you really need to learn is the limits of your power. What is your power?"
"I'm a... mage. Minor healing and basic elemental spells. Flame. I'm not very strong," Magien admitted, looking at the ground.
Liesta studied her for a while longer. Weak, inexperienced, timid. But there was an effort, a spark within her. In this desolation, was this strange feeling pity? The joy of possession? Or simply the need for a companion to rely on, something she never had? Or something that connected her to humanity? Briefly, what she felt in that girl... was this fate?
"Liesta," she said shortly. "Be ready in the morning. We're going out together."
Magien's face fell in astonishment. "What? Just the two of us? Wouldn't that be madness?"
The corner of Liesta's lips, rarely seen, pink and full like a sweet fruit, curved slightly. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible smile. "I," she answered in a calm but proud tone, "have survived alone for two and a half months, in the very heart of this wilderness. Your presence is a luxury. Accept or don't. Decide now."
Magien, after a moment's hesitation, nodded with gratitude and a touch of fear. "Okay. Alright."
Liesta bought the estoc from the merchant. It was a cheap and simple weapon, but it would serve for now. She had acquired a weak but obedient assistant. This was in accordance with Miara's rules. The strong ruled the weak. And Liesta was definitely on the strong side. The road was still very long, but she was no longer alone. At least, for now.