Chapter Five – Fractures II
When the last image died away, the cold voice returned.
[Host integrity stable. Cognitive load increased. Neural cohesion — partial.]
Its tone hadn't changed, but his hearing of it had. Now every word slid across the surface of something restless inside him.
He lowered his hands slowly. The forest around him no longer looked the same. It was smaller, tamer… and full of prey.
Only one kind of prey could tell him what he needed to know.
Humans.
He closed his eyes and inhaled. The scents he'd ignored before now burned bright: woodsmoke carried on the breeze, faint traces of oil, and beneath it all the sour tang of sweat and fear. South.
The hunger didn't roar this time. It hummed, coiled and patient.
He began to move.
Not in bounding, feral bursts of before ..but in silence. Each step deliberate, each shift of muscle controlled. The forest yielded without resistance. Branches leaned away, leaves stilled, the wind itself seemed to pause.
The scent grew stronger. Voices followed .. low, tired, unaware. Through the weave of branches, he saw them: three men in travel leathers, resting around a small fire. Their weapons lay carelessly nearby.
They spoke lazily, laughter curling around a jug of something sharp-smelling. One stirred the fire with a stick, embers sparking upward.
He waited. Listened. Words meant little, but tone spoke volumes. No urgency. No guards posted. Perfect.
His gaze fixed on the nearest man ..thick shoulders, scars crawling down one arm, the reek of old blood under his nails. A fighter, dulled by rest. That one.
He stepped forward. Shadows clung to him like loyal hounds. The firelight should have revealed him, but it didn't. Not until he wished it to.
The man looked up, confusion tightening his brow. His lips parted ... to speak, to warn, he'd never know.
In the space between heartbeats, confusion became nothing at all.
The strike was clean, silent. Flesh parted, bone cracked. The man's body folded into the dirt as though the earth itself had claimed him.
The others froze. One turned, jug slipping from his hand, liquid spilling into the fire. Flames hissed, snapping upward. He drew breath to scream ..
It never left his throat.
The last man stumbled to his feet, reaching for the blade propped on the log. Too slow. A shadow stretched across the firelight. A sharp gasp, steel crushed, and then silence.
It was over. Three bodies lay cooling in the dark, the forest hushed, as though it too bore witness.
[Essence absorption: 71% efficiency. Memory fragments detected.]
The surge hit him before the words faded. Cold, burning, electric. It poured through his veins like stolen fire. He staggered, teeth clenched against the flood.
Images burst open .. maps in charcoal, trade roads and borders. Settlements marked with crude symbols. Rumors whispered across tavern tables: strange creatures in the east, patrols gone missing along the frontier. A kingdom's border. Names meaningless a moment ago, yet understood now.
Not just knowledge ..feelings too. The bite of hunger on a long road. The press of coins in a hand, never enough. The fleeting relief of firelight after rain. Scraps of life that weren't his twined into his mind, threads stitching into already frayed cloth.
He knelt among the dead, hands pressed into the earth. The forest pressed close, silent, watchful. His breath came heavy, each exhale carrying the echo of another man's life. For a moment he wasn't sure if his heart beat in his own chest or in theirs.
The fractures widened. Beast, soldier, prisoner, betrayer. Now ..traveler. Three more faces, three more voices, all woven into him whether he welcomed them or not.
But there was no chaos this time. No storm tearing at him. The pieces settled. Not whole, not steady, but useful.
He stood.
The fire crackled low, wood collapsing inward. Shadows played across his face, but none touched his eyes.
The hunger purred. The knowledge burned bright. The world no longer stretched endless and unknowable before him. It had borders, roads, settlements, prey.
He wiped his hand across his mouth, instinctive, something remembered from another life.
"So that's how it is," he said, voice low, final.
The night held its breath.
Then he turned south, and began to walk.