The silence was a weapon, and they both wielded it with practiced skill. Ten paces of barren, windswept trail separated them, a no-man's-land of crushed gravel and biting wind. It was not a silence of peace but of ceasefire, each footstep a muffled drumbeat in a war of unspoken hatred.
Veridia walked with her spine ramrod straight, a pathetic mimicry of the regal bearing that had once been as natural as breathing. Her every muscle ached, a deep, weary complaint against the endless march, but she would rather dissolve into dust than show it. Her mind was a torrent of rage, each gust of iron-scented wind a fresh reminder of this profound indignity. To be shackled to *her*.
Ten paces behind, Seraphine stumbled on a loose rock, catching herself with a hissed curse. She was no longer a shimmering, untouchable illusion. She was agonizingly real, her fine boots scuffed, her perfect face smudged with grime. The change had soured her mockery, stripping it of its witty detachment and leaving only a bitter, personal venom.
"If you had accepted Warlord Grummash Bonebreaker's offer of pack animals, we wouldn't be walking like peasants," she muttered, her voice sharp enough to cut.
"If you hadn't tethered my life to your pathetic existence, I wouldn't need to entertain the grunts of an Orc at all," Veridia shot back without turning. "An Orc whose idea of strategy you praised until it led us directly into the Vowed's path. You're a host, Seraphine. You know how to narrate a disaster, not how to avoid one. Now keep up."
The argument died there, starved of air. There was nothing more to say. Their animosity was the very ground beneath their feet, the sky above their heads. It was the only constant in this miserable new reality.
Then, the curse flared.
It was not a gradual ache but a sudden, violent wrenching deep in her metaphysical core, as if an anchor had been ripped from her soul. A wave of nauseating emptiness washed over Veridia, so intense it stole her breath and made the world flatten into a two-dimensional stage set. The reddish dirt faded to a dull, lifeless grey. The wind's howl dissolved into a low, buzzing static in her ears. She stopped, her hand flying to her stomach. A tremor started in her hands, a fine, uncontrollable shudder. The ceasefire was broken. Her own body had betrayed her.
Seraphine's footsteps halted. Veridia didn't need to see her face to know. She could feel the shift in the air, the sudden, predatory stillness. A flicker of cruel, triumphant satisfaction, sharp and bright, crossed the link between them. Veridia's desperation had just handed her sister a weapon.
***
The initial agony receded, leaving behind the familiar, gnawing hunger that was now the driving force of her existence. Pride, anger, even her hatred for Seraphine—they were all luxuries, peeling away to reveal the single, primal need beneath. The world was no longer a backdrop for their conflict; it was a hunting ground.
Her senses sharpened. The scent of iron in the dust became a tangible taste on her tongue. The rustle of a lizard in the scree was a sharp, distinct sound. Her eyes scanned the barren landscape, no longer with contempt, but with the frantic, calculating assessment of a starving predator.
*A beast?* Her mind raced, the thoughts cold and clipped. *A Glass-Hide Boar would be a spectacle, but the effort to pierce its armor would drain more than I'd gain. A goblin scout? Possible, but their Essence is thin and sour, laced with paranoia. Unfulfilling.* She needed something more. Something potent. Something sapient.
A cold sweat broke on her brow as she glanced at her hand. For a terrifying instant, a faint, shimmering line, like a crack in glass, appeared across her knuckles before fading. Her form was losing integrity. She could feel her own substance thinning, a horrifying sensation like water seeping through cracks in a dam. The tremor in her hands worsened.
Then she caught it. A new scent on the wind, cutting through the sterile smell of rock and dust. It wasn't just a creature. It was woodsmoke. Cured meat. And beneath it, the faint, metallic tang of an unwashed man. It was the scent of life, of a full belly and a strong pulse. A mix of hope and dread coiled in her gut. She turned, her movements now quick and certain, following the scent as if pulled by a string.
"Oh, I recognize that look," Seraphine's voice dripped with theatrical pity from behind her. "The great Princess Vex, sniffing the air like a common ghoul. Is it a corpse-rat that's caught your discerning palate this time? Or perhaps something a bit more… rustic?"
Veridia ignored her. Her eyes locked onto a barely-there trail branching from the main path. A discarded pickaxe head, its wooden handle splintered, lay beside a set of heavy, deliberate boot prints. The trail led up, into a more sheltered pass.
"It's a meal," Veridia said, her voice a low rasp. Her eyes were fixed on the path ahead. "That's all you need to know."
***
They found him from an overlook, a rocky ledge peering down into a small, secluded basin. A lone prospector, a great brute of a man with a thick, matted beard and shoulders like boulders, knelt by a stream, panning for minerals. His crude camp—a canvas lean-to, a smoldering fire, a haunch of dried meat hanging from a spit—was a pathetic display of mortal squalor.
But to Veridia, he was magnificent.
He radiated a healthy, vibrant life force, a thrumming energy so potent it made her teeth ache with need. He was isolated. Powerful. A high-yield source, far from any help. He was perfect.
The wave of revulsion was immediate and visceral. This was what she had been reduced to. To perform a degrading spectacle of seduction for a creature she considered barely sentient, a beast that walked on two legs. His sweat, his grime, his brutish simplicity—it was an affront to her very nature. But the alternative was the gnawing agony of the curse, the slow, humiliating dissolution into static. There was no choice. The actress in her head, the cold, calculating survivor, took the stage. This revulsion was merely a costume. The hunger was the motivation. The Patrons were the audience.
Seraphine leaned against a rock beside her, the sullen anger gone from her face, replaced by a genuine, smug smile. In this moment, she was no longer a fellow sufferer. She was the host, ready for the show to begin. Her presence turned a necessary act into an exquisite torture.
"Well, well," Seraphine purred, her voice a silken thread of victory. "A real, live mortal. Look at the shoulders on him. This should be a much better broadcast than that dreary wolf pack. Matron Vesperia does so love a rustic tragedy." She gestured with a perfectly manicured hand toward the basin below. "Don't be shy, sister. Go on."
Her eyes met Veridia's, glittering with triumph. "Give the Patrons what they paid for."
Veridia stared back, her own face a mask of cold, hard resolve. The hunger was a fire in her belly, the humiliation a block of ice in her chest. She gave a slow, deliberate nod. It was not a submission to Seraphine. It was an acceptance of the disgusting task ahead. It was the curtain rising on her next performance.
Without another word, she turned from the overlook and began the descent into the basin. Each step was heavy, deliberate, taking her closer to the prospector and the inevitable, soul-crushing spectacle.