Elrik's eyes opened not with a start, but with a slow, groggy reluctance, as if surfacing from the depths of a too-deep lake. The world swam into focus, blurred at the edges, the afterimages of an impossible dream clinging to his vision. A voice, sharp with a tension he felt in his own bones, cut through the haze.
"Elrik! Can you hear me?"
He blinked, the world snapping into a jarring, mundane clarity. Julian stood over him, his face etched with impatience and a lingering shadow of fear that seemed at odds with the haughty posture he was already forcing back into place. The memory of the Guide's lashing word 'unfoundedly arrogant, impatient,' hung in the air between them, a truth Julian was visibly trying to outrun by reclaiming his arrogance.
Elrik shot upright in his chair, a sudden, jerky movement that made his head spin. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat out of sync with this quiet moment.
'This chair.' He was in the same chair, in the same half-wrecked—no, the tavern wasn't. Splintered wood and the sour smell of spilt ale surrounded him. But... something was wrong. The world was too normal. He patted his chest, his arms. His clothes were whole, the fabric rough and familiar under his fingertips. The deep, bone-weary exhaustion and the phantom pains from Luthern's assault were simply... gone. Vanished, as if they had never been.
A cold dread, entirely separate from the memory of the fight, began to trickle down his spine. His body trembled, a fine, uncontrollable shivering that had nothing to do with the temperature. He was drenched in a cold sweat that clung to him like a second, freezing skin.
His gaze dropped to his right palm, as if the answer to this profound disquiet might be written there. For a heartbeat, the brand was there again, not on his skin but beneath it, etched into bone and blood. He felt it, pulsing with a heat that didn't warm but warned, a tether to something vast and watching. A complex, crimson symbol, a lattice of arcane geometry that pulsed with a warm, alien light. It flared in his memory, vivid and terrifying, and was gone, leaving only the unmarked skin of his palm, an illusion, a phantom scar.
Then, the memories did not return; they crashed.
They flooded his mind not as a recollection, but as a visceral reliving. The soft bed that wasn't a bed, the log walls of a cabin that shouldn't exist, the mask on the desk, and Him, the Guide. The smile in the shadows beneath the hat brim, the words that were both a promise and a threat, the feeling of golden sand, the six burning spheres of the Echelons. The weight of a contract signed not in ink, but in his very soul, the crushing, desiccating horror of seeing himself age a lifetime in a mirror—
"Elrik!" Julian's voice was sharper now, laced with a new anxiety. "What is wrong with you? You look like you've seen a wraith."
Elrik's head snapped up, his eyes wide and slightly wild. He stared at Julian, really seeing him for the first time since waking. The carefully composed arrogance was back, but it was a fragile mask over the pale, shaken young man beneath. The one who had been beaten. The one the Guide had so mercilessly dissected.
"Do you..." Elrik's voice was a dry rasp. He swallowed, trying to wet his throat. "Do you remember? Anything... after?"
Julian's eyes narrowed, a flicker of something unreadable, guilt? Fear? Passing through them before his expression shuttered closed. "I remember enough," he answered, his tone curt, final. He turned away, already moving toward the shattered doorway, his movements tense with the urge to flee. "We need to go. Now. Before he decides to come back and finish the lesson."
It was the logical course of action. The only course of action: run, hide, regroup.
But the Guide's voice whispered in the vaults of Elrik's memory, cold and clear as crystal. 'That is Julian's concern.'
He looked at Julian's retreating back, at the impatient set of his shoulders, and for the first time, a cold seed of doubt sprouted in his heart. What was Julian tied to? What had truly brought Luthern Varn down upon them? The Guide's voice coiled: 'That is Julian's concern.' Elrik's fists clenched. His heart told him to follow; his scar told him to resist.
"No," he said finally, the word trembling but undeniable.
Julian stopped and turned, his expression one of pure disbelief. "What?"
"I'm not running." Elrik pushed himself to his feet, his legs still unsteady but his resolve hardening. "I'm reporting this to the Town Watch, an attack like this, in the middle of a town? They need to know."
Julian stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "Are you insane? Report it? To whom? What are you going to tell them? That a magical old man kicked our asses and then vanished into thin air? They'll lock you up for being drunk or mad!" He stepped closer, his voice dropping to an urgent, furious whisper. "This isn't a game for the town guard, Elrik. This is... something else. We handle this ourselves."
But the more Julian protested, the more the doubt grew. Why was he so against going to the authorities? What was he hiding?
"He attacked us, Julian," Elrik insisted, his own voice rising. "That's a crime. It's their job to handle crimes." He sidestepped Julian, his mind made up. He couldn't trust the narrative anymore. He had to find his own path, his own truth.
Without another word, he walked out of the ruined tavern, leaving a stunned and furious Julian behind.
Outside was eerie silence. The rain had ceased; cobbles gleamed under a bruised-lead sky, and puddles distorted closed shopfronts. A shutter banging shut, a cart abandoned mid-aisle, smoke from a single chimney trailing like a question mark. Zarethun, a town that thrived on the constant hum of commerce, was holding its breath. After a storm, everyone retreated, merchants securing their goods, citizens staying warm indoors, waiting for the all-clear to resume their bustling lives. The emptiness was oppressive, amplifying the sound of Elrik's own frantic heartbeat in his ears.
He ran. Boots slapped puddles; the sound echoed too loudly in the empty lanes. He was looking for a uniform, a symbol of order, for anyone who could make sense of the chaos that had upended his world.
He turned a corner and nearly collided with two broad-shouldered men. They were imposing figures bundled in heavy, knee-length black winter coats, their authority unmistakable. Each wore a fur ushanka pulled low over the brow, and pinned to the front, gleaming against the dark fur, was a polished silver badge etched with the familiar, coiling form of a dragon, the emblem of the Imperial Watch.
The lead guard threw out an arm, barring Elrik's path. "Whoa there, lad! The town's on a weather hold. What's all this rushing about?" His voice was a low rumble, weary from a long shift.
Elrik skidded to a halt, gasping for air. "I—I was attacked. At the tavern on the main square. My friend and I... we need help."
The two guards exchanged a look of pure scepticism. The second one leaned in, peering at Elrik. "Attacked? You don't look attacked. You look like you took a wrong turn and got scared." His eyes scanned Elrik from head to toe, finding no tears, no blood, no bruises.
"It's true!" Elrik insisted, the words feeling pathetic and inadequate even as they left his mouth. "It was an old man... but he wasn't just strong. He... moved things. Without touching them," he faltered; the words sounded insane even as he spoke them.
The first guard sighed, a puff of steam in the cold air. "Right. Things. Korb, go take a look at the tavern. See if there's a mess or a passed-out drunk to haul in." The watchman, Korb, nodded and jogged off in the direction Elrik had come from.
"You," the first one said, placing a firm but not unkind hand on Elrik's shoulder. "Come with me; we'll get your statement down at the Provost's office, let the professionals decide what's what."
A few minutes later, they stopped in front of a stout, two-story building of solid stone and timber, the town's bastion of order. Just as the guard raised his fist to knock on the heavy oak door, it swung inward.
The man who filled the doorway was a mountain in a military uniform. He was old, but it was the age of a gnarled oak tree, broad and formidable. His face was a landscape of weathered skin and a magnificent, grey-streaked moustache that seemed to command respect all on its own. For a moment, the watchman expected a mate or a comrade, but after a closer look, his professional demeanour slipped into outright awe; he stiffened, his spine snapping straight as a rod.
"Commander Eisenhower, sir!" he blurted out, dipping his head in a gesture far deeper than a simple nod. "My apologies, sir, I didn't mean to block your way."
Commander Johan Eisenhower's sharp eyes, previously scanning the sky, dropped to Elrik, passing over the flustered watchman. There was a depth to that gaze, a weight of experience that made Elrik feel transparent, as if the old soldier could see the phantom brand on his palm and the chilling memories etched behind his eyes.
"Are you all right, son?" the Commander asked, his voice a gravelly rumble that was surprisingly gentle. "You look pale, the cold getting to you?"
Elrik's mind went blank. The watchman's obvious reverence for this man was intimidating. A commander!? Should he bow? Salute? Mumble something respectful?
The watchman, recovering slightly, answered for him. "Just a minor disturbance, Commander. A reported assault at a tavern. I'm taking the witness to file a report. Nothing for you to trouble yourself with, sir."
Johan's eyes remained on Elrik for a moment longer, thoughtful. Then he gave a slow, single nod. He reached out, and with a hand that could have easily spanned Elrik's entire head, he gently patted his hair. It was a paternal, almost grandfatherly gesture, but from this titan of a soldier, it felt unnerving.
"Stay indoors, son," the Commander advised, a faint smile visible beneath his magnificent moustache. "And wear something warmer, the weather may have quieted, but its bite is still cruel." his presence was fading, but the weight of his authority lingered like a shift in air pressure.
Elrik stood frozen, the spot on his head where the Commander had touched him feeling strangely warm. He was used to being treated like a young man, capable and strong, someone to be given tasks, not patted on the head. The gesture, meant to be reassuring, only deepened his sense of being adrift in a game where he didn't know the rules or the players.
The guard, visibly relieved that the encounter was over, ushered Elrik inside. The Provost's office was the heart of Zarethun's security, a practical space smelling of old wood, ink, and damp wool. A bald, middle-aged man with the world-weary expression of someone who has heard every possible excuse sat behind a large, cluttered desk. He didn't look up as they entered.
"Hammond, if this is about another disputed barrel of apples, I swear to the Stars I will—" the Provost began, massaging his temples.
"It's an assault complaint, sir," the guard, Hammond, interrupted quickly. "This boy says he and his friend were attacked at the tavern on the main square."
The Provost finally looked up; his eyes were tired and deeply unimpressed. He sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of petty crimes. "Let me guess. A merchant refused to pay his tab, a disagreement got heated, and now someone has a split lip and wounded pride. Fine. I'll send a runner for damages and have Korb round up the usual suspects."
"No, sir," Elrik interjected, finding his voice. "It wasn't like that. It was an old man. A stranger. He... he came for my friend. And it wasn't even a fight, it was... he was like a force of nature."
The Provost leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers over his stomach. "Why?" he asked, the single word flat and bored.
'Why?' The question echoed in the hollow space the Guide's revelations had carved inside him. 'Because Julian is involved in things he shouldn't be? Because a terrifying entity from beyond the world told me so? Because I saw my own body turn to dust, and my friend wouldn't give me a straight answer?'
The words were ash on his tongue. The Guide's final warning was a shackle on his speech. 'Do not speak of me. Not to your friends, not to your family, not even in dreams.' The memory of his own withered, ancient face in the mirror, of his lungs screaming for air that wouldn't come, flashed before his eyes. It was a threat more real than any blade.
He couldn't say it. He couldn't say any of it.
His lips parted, ready to explain — and froze. The words curdled, strangled in his throat. His tongue felt heavy, his lungs burning as though the act of speaking itself carried the weight of death. He swallowed, trembling. "I... I don't know," Elrik whispered, the admission making him feel feeble and foolish.
The Provost's expression didn't change. He'd heard it all before. "Of course you don't," he said, the boredom returning to his voice. "Seems your friend is late on some debt... We'll look into it. And we'll have a word with your friend, too, to see what his side of the story is. In the meantime, try to stay out of trouble." It was a dismissal, polite but absolute.
The guard, Hammond, gave Elrik a slight nudge toward the door. The meeting ended.
Elrik walked out of the office and back into the quiet street. The door clicked shut behind him, the sound weighted finality. He stood alone on the slick cobblestones, the grey sky pressing down on him. The cold was seeping through his clothes, but it was nothing compared to the cold knot of helplessness tightening in his chest. He had tried to do the right thing, to seek order from the chaos, and had been neatly dismissed. The institutions meant to protect him could not see the monsters he could now feel lurking just beneath the surface of the world.
And haunting it all, clearer than the memory of the fight or the Commander's pat on the head, was the phantom sensation of paper-thin, aged skin stretching over his own young hands, and the sound of a cheerful, merciless voice whispering a single, damning title: Blessed.
...
Commander Johan Eisenhower stepped through Zarethun's eastern portal, the iron-bound gate grinding shut behind him with a sound that carried finality. Ahead lay only the short march back to Company-375's camp, a simple shift from one duty to another.
Yet unease rode his shoulders like a weight, cold and insistent, untouched by the damp evening air. The meeting with Zarethun's officials had been... inconclusive, and dangerously so. This frontier hub, perched against the volatile wilderness, had reported nothing unusual. No magical disturbances, no cult whispers, no monster surges, nothing beyond the usual thefts and merchant quarrels. A suspicious absence, considering the intelligence that had reached him.
Had his reports been wrong? Or had they been tampered with before ever reaching his desk?
Johan doubted the error; the scouts were seasoned, and the sources corroborated, his instincts sharper than most. He had expected hours of grim testimony, evidence demanding his Company's immediate intervention. Instead, he had been met with placid denial, bureaucracy cloaked in polite smiles, too neat, too convenient.
That left the likelier answer: someone above him was sandbagging, hoarding information like coin. Power games, as always, while his men walked the real borders where those games drew blood. Johan ground down his frustration. Obstacles could be bypassed. He would find the truth, with or without permission.
He moved through the forest not on a path; his massive frame, which should have been a liability in the dense undergrowth, seemed to part it willingly, twigs did not snap under his boots; the earth itself seemed to soften his tread, concealment was his ally, even with the ever-present, low thrum of danger that promised monsters, yet, today, the forest was unnaturally still, no skittering in the bushes, no baleful glows from the deeper shadows, the silence had the shape of a held breath.
Then, it broke.
A disturbance pricked at his senses, a ripple in the fabric of the natural world. It was not a sound, not a smell, but a pure shift in pressure, a tear in the mundane. He froze, his head turning sharply to the right, his gaze narrowing to slits. Two hundred meters away, through a lattice of bare branches and stubborn evergreens, he discerned three figures.
Three signatures, two burned bright and jagged, human, non-mages, familiar to him. The third... muted, concealed, someone skilled at hiding their essence.
In the space between one heartbeat and the next, Johan covered half the distance. His next step was not a step but an earth-cracking stride. He landed with a force that made the ground shudder, the impact announcing his presence with a physical shockwave that vibrated through the soles of the other men's boots.
The scene snapped into focus. The fallen soldier's uniform was torn, a vicious wound visible on his side. The standing one, pale and breathing in ragged gasps, had his sword raised in a trembling guard. Their opponent was an old man who looked more like a scholar than a combatant, yet he stood amidst the violence with a professional, almost surgical smile. His gaze, cold and calculating, slid from the soldiers to Johan, and the smile widened a fraction, as if in recognition.
"Commander!" the standing soldier shouted, his voice cracking with a mixture of relief and terror.
Johan didn't look at him. His entire world had narrowed to the smiling old man. He simply raised a hand, a sharp gesture that commanded silence and retreat. The soldier understood, immediately beginning to drag his unconscious comrade away from the impending storm.
"Lucky to meet a company commander out here," Luthern said, his voice smooth and cultured, as if commenting on the weather. He straightened his posture with a subtle, mocking grace that was an insult in itself.
Johan's expression remained a mask of granite, but his eyes were live coals in the gloom, promising fire. "Two choices," he stated, his voice a low rumble that carried more threat than any scream. "Tell me everything I want to know. Or I will extract it myself." The offer was not a negotiation; it was a statement of two possible realities.
Luthern placed a hand on his chin in a pantomime of deep thought. "This is difficult," he mused, his tone light, almost clownish. "How about a third? We simply part ways, peacefully, safely." He spread his hands in a gesture of harmless reason.
Johan answered with action. He didn't even turn. With a casual snap of his fingers behind his back, the awakened soldier, who had just managed to heave his comrade over his shoulder, collapsed into unconsciousness, slumping gently to the forest floor as if falling asleep. The message was clear: this conversation was private. There would be no witnesses, no interruptions.
"I see," Johan said, the words a low rumble that carried the glacial finality of an avalanche's start. He took a single step forward.
The forest erupted.
Without moving a finger, the very earth responded to his command. Water, dark and peat-rich, tore itself from the soil with a sound like a sucking wound, coalescing into sharp, high-pressure jets that shot towards Luthern like liquid spears. Simultaneously, the roots of ancient oaks and the vines of choking ivy ripped from the ground with a series of sharp, wet cracks, not with blind rage but with deliberate, snaking intent, aiming to ensnare, pierce, and crush. The air filled with the scent of loam and ozone.
He remained perfectly still amidst the maelstrom he had conjured, his eyes locked on his target, unblinking. "Tell me who you are," he demanded, the chaos around them underscoring every word. "And what you intend."
Luthern's soft laughter was a discordant melody against the roar of water and the splintering of wood. Instead of blocking, he danced, he flowed backwards through the chaos, a dark entertainer in a theatre of violence. Where his own fire magic met the lashing vines, they didn't just break; they erupted into fine ash in a burst of fire. The torrents of water slammed into a shimmering, barely visible barrier inches from his body, dispersing with a furious hiss of steam, spun with mocking grace, his movements impossibly effortless, a blood-lit glow.
"I hope you are reconsidering my advice," Johan called out, his voice unnervingly calm amidst the chaos. Luthern's only answer was a theatrical bow mid-pirouette, his grin carved across the dark like a blade of bone in the darkness. "Oh, Commander... I do enjoy our little dances." He was more focused on performing than evading, each dodge and counter a playful tease intended to wear down Johan's immense patience. Clearly, he was enjoying every single moment. Then, something shifted. It was not a change Luthern made, but a change in the world itself.
For a single, impossible heartbeat, the roar of water and the splintering of wood ceased utterly, leaving a silence so profound it was itself a sound. In that void, the world reconfigured itself.
Though the afternoon gloom should have lingered, the light bled from the sky, not into night, but into a deep, bloody twilight. The forest held its breath. Then reality cracked. The sky bled, clouds dissolving into a single crimson moon that leered overhead. Trees withered into skeletal husks, their bark splitting like rotting bone. Thorned flowers erupted from the corpses of roots, blooming in the colours of dried blood.
He catalogued the shift in the sky as one would a manoeuvre and dismissed it. When he spoke, his voice was colder than the crimson night.
"As much as I'd wanted to chat longer," Johan stated, his power gathering around him like a physical shroud, making the very air hum, "I don't have time for that."
The performance was over. The execution was about to begin.