The sky was grey, milky, formless.
The kind of sky that swallows the entire day, without sunrise or dusk, and weighs on your shoulders like an invisible slab of lead. The frozen ground crunched underfoot, hard as stone. A little ways off from the camp, between the sparse trees, a circle had been cleared in the snow, trampled by boots until it formed a crude, oval-shaped arena — rough, but sufficient.
Victor had been standing there for a while already.
He wore a light coat he could sweep aside with a motion, the sleeves rolled up over his pale forearms. A scarf wrapped around his neck. And over his left eye — where the emptiness still pulsed at times like a phantom pain — his eye patch. He had grown used to it — or at least, he appeared to have.
The sword in his right hand was not his own, but the one Edric had given him. A silent gift, the morning they'd left after Deran. The blade was worn, burnished, but solid. It fit well in his palm. It had already seen use. It was real.
Edric paced around him slowly, hands clasped behind his back. His breath rose in soft clouds in the freezing air. He said nothing. But he watched.
Victor advanced, adjusted, tested. He repeated the movements he'd been taught dozens of times. His silhouette was no longer that of the emaciated boy who had joined the troupe. He had gained muscle, denser limbs, a new kind of weight. But his movements still lacked balance. He kept compensating — too much anticipation on one side, not enough looseness on the other.
Edric saw everything.
Victor knew it. And still, he waited.
When he finally spoke, his voice was calm. Lower than usual.
"You're throwing yourself to the right. You think you're correcting, but you're exposing your imbalance. Let it come. Wait for your body to understand."
Victor didn't answer. But he adjusted. He tried. Again.
Edric stopped in front of him. One hand resting on the pommel of his own sword. The weight of his gaze was gentle, but precise. He didn't look at Victor like a student. Not exactly. But not like an equal, either. More like... someone who needed guiding. Balancing. Supporting without saying so.
"Want to go again?" he asked.
Victor gave a curt nod.
"Good."
They resumed. Slowly at first, like a dance. Their swords brushed, tested, met with restraint. Victor breathed through his mouth, short and focused. The eyepatch darkened his peripheral vision slightly. He forced his neck to turn faster, his hips to adjust earlier. Every part of him was seeking a new center.
Edric could feel it.
He didn't speak of it, but he read it in the micro-gestures. That dry, near-silent stubbornness. That determination born not of anger, but of absence. Something had been taken from Victor. And in its place now lived... this quiet fire. This refusal to be less. Less than before. Less than the others.
When Victor stumbled on a frozen ridge in the ground, he caught himself without help. And when he returned to stance, knees bent, mouth slightly open as he searched for air, Edric noted the change. He no longer complained. He endured. He began again.
So Edric raised the level.
The strikes came faster. Not brutal, but demanding. Victor parried, stepped back, slid, pivoted, bit his lip when his vision betrayed him. But he held. He held.
Then, in the midst of a feint — right shoulder, glide to the left — Edric saw the opening. And he took it.
His blade struck Victor's side. Not enough to wound, but sharp enough to sting his pride. The young man grunted, stepped back twice, then slapped his free hand hard against his own thigh, furious.
Edric sheathed his blade but said nothing at first. He watched.
Victor stood, legs apart, head lowered. He wasn't trembling. But frustration was plain in the set of his shoulders, in his clenched jaw. He breathed fast. His fingers tight on the hilt.
When he raised his head, something had shifted in his gaze. A deeper tension rose to the surface. No complaints. No plea. Just a question in his dark eyes, ringed with fatigue.
"Tell me what I need to do to get there," he murmured.
No anger. No pride. Just hunger. The hunger to learn. To become.
Edric felt something rise in his throat. An old knot, long buried. He swallowed it without flinching. He stepped forward. Slowly.
"You're already doing it," he said softly.
He stopped barely a meter away. He reached out toward Victor's shoulder — a natural, almost casual gesture. And at the last moment, he paused. His hand hovered there for a heartbeat, then lowered to rest against his own side. An instinct of restraint. Of respect.
Victor didn't speak. But he had seen. He had understood. And without a word, something settled there, between them. A presence. A warmth.
Then, with a lighter gesture, Edric tapped the hilt of the sword in Victor's hand.
"It's too balanced for your current line of sight. You should weight it a little, toward the back. It'll help you stabilize."
Victor blinked. The one eye he had left.
"Will you teach me?"
Edric smiled. Brief. Real.
"Of course."
They stayed there for a few seconds, measuring each other in silence. The wind threaded through the branches — sharp and clean. The day had not changed. The cold was still there. But it felt just a little less biting.
At last, Victor slowly pulled the leather chain from beneath his shirt. Two rings clinked softly against each other. Cold metal. Faded crests.
Edric lowered his gaze. Then looked up again. He waited.
"I don't know who it belonged to," Victor whispered. "But I want to understand. Even if it hurts."
He wasn't asking for approval. Just to be heard.
Edric nodded.
"Then we'll keep it. And when you're ready... we'll search."
Victor tucked the rings back against his chest, tightened the chain beneath his tunic.
Then he returned to his stance.
"Again."
Edric smiled. This time, he struck faster.
---
The snow barely crunched beneath their steps.
Emma led the way, a swift figure weaving between the pines, bow in hand, pale eyes fixed on the ground. Adam followed a few paces behind—heavier in his movements, but alert. A freshly snared hare hung from his belt, caught earlier in the morning. They had left before dawn to restock the camp. With winter here, every meal mattered.
The cold was dry and sharp. The silence, soft as a woolen blanket. Only broken by their breathing, and the faint rustle of a bird in the branches.
Emma stopped near a rocky outcrop and crouched without a sound. She pointed to a set of delicate tracks pressing into the snow.
"Doe," she said. "Passed not long ago."
Adam leaned over, frowning as he studied the trail.
"You've got the eye. I'd say no more than an hour too."
She straightened, adjusted her quiver.
"You take the rocks. I'll circle from the north."
He gave her a wink.
"Yes, ma'am."
She allowed a smile, then vanished between the trunks.
They reunited ten minutes later, kneeling on either side of the doe's body, collapsed in a bed of needles. Emma had brought her down with a clean shot. She knelt by the animal, laid a hand for a moment on its still-warm flank, then rose without a word.
Adam got to work, his knife gliding beneath the fur. The motion was precise, smooth, almost instinctive. They hunted often together—rarely needed to speak.
But today, after a quiet spell, he looked up at her.
"He's back on his feet for real, isn't he—your man?"
Emma nodded. Her gaze lingered on the forest, though her thoughts seemed elsewhere.
"He's much better, yes."
A pause. Then she added, softly:
"He got back on his feet so fast. Too fast, almost. Like... losing an eye lit something up inside him. I still recognize him. But there's something new there. An intensity."
"I've seen it," Adam said. "Doesn't let go of that sword anymore. Even Edric has trouble getting him to stop and breathe when they train."
"It's like he's decided nothing will stop him now. That he has to keep going. No matter what."
She sat on a flat stone, her fingers still stained with blood, eyes lost in the frost-covered trees.
"And me... I don't want to slow him down. I want to move forward with him. Wherever it leads."
Adam wiped his hands in the snow and sat beside her. A quiet moment passed.
"You're good together, the two of you," he said simply.
Emma turned to him.
"You think so?"
"I'm no poet or philosopher, but yeah. It shows. It's not just what you say to each other. It's how you move, side by side. Like you carry the same silences."
She smiled, eyes gleaming.
"You've got a way with words, you know."
He shrugged, feigning modesty.
"I'm wise, you see. Almost twenty-six. Basically ancient."
She gave him a sharper look, squinting.
"Is that why you're growing that thing on your chin?"
He frowned and ran a hand over the short beard just beginning to take shape on his cheeks.
"Ah! So you noticed! It's not done yet. You have to give it time. I'm going for a 'mysterious but dependable' vibe."
"Right now it's more like 'sleepy lumberjack.'"
Adam burst out laughing, loud and unrestrained.
"Hey, trust the process. I've got a vision, alright? By the end of winter, I'll have the face of a northern hero."
Emma rolled her eyes.
"If you manage to grow that thing without looking like a tired hedgehog, I'll buy you a new knife."
He raised a finger, solemn.
"Deal."
They sat there a while longer, the cold beginning to numb their fingers. Adam cast her a sideways glance, more serious now.
"And you—are you alright?"
She looked at him, surprised by the bluntness of the question.
"Me... Yeah, I'm alright. Leaving Dunleigh, leaving behind everything I was there—it wasn't easy. But it had to be done. Even with Deran. Even after the attack. I feel more whole here. With all of you. With him."
He nodded, his eyes on the tree line.
"You're stronger than you think."
"I know. But it's good to hear it."
She stood, slung the doe's pelt over her shoulders with a grimace. Adam helped her rebalance the weight.
"You know," she said, "if Victor asks me to go back into the city with him, to look for... answers... I think I'll say yes."
Adam gave her a calm smile.
"I think you'd say yes even if he wanted to jump into a volcano."
She laughed.
"You're not wrong."
They started back toward the camp, their footsteps mingling in the snow.
Ahead, in the distance, the clink of blades echoed. A steady rhythm. A breath.
Victor, still.
Edric, always.