Chapter-12
Divination
The air stank of burnt flesh. Smoke drifted sluggishly across the forest floor, carrying with it the sickly-sweet reek of bodies charred inside the shattered slave carriages. Varka swept his gaze across the battlefield. Carter felt his stomach twist in disgust, but Varka's expression was carved from stone.
The man's attention lingered on the commander—never directly, never enough to be caught. Watching a hawk was one thing, letting it know you were prey was another.
Varka waited. Patient. Silent. Carter could hear the man's thoughts, cool and razor-edged.
If the Empire knew about the nightmares nesting in this forest, they would have chosen another route. Unless…
Varka's lips twitched. Unless they knew, and still risked it. Reckless. Or— a pause—desperate.
Soldiers busied themselves with the wreckage, hauling crates and valuables to the few who could still stand. The commander swept the perimeter, his gaze sharp. Then he stopped.
Varka froze. Panic, subtle but sharp, stabbed through his chest.
I should leave. Soon.
The commander knelt beside a nightmare corpse, his gauntlet brushing over the charred, twisted flesh. His brow furrowed. These marks—jagged, unnatural—were not wounds an ordinary blade or soldier of the Empire could leave. His breath caught, eyes narrowing with dawning realization.
He barked orders—veterans only, sweep the forest, search for survivors.
They didn't know we were in this caravan, Varka realized. If they had, they would've scoured the woods from the start.
The commander tore off his helm, his voice carrying as he shouted new commands. Dirty blond hair fell damp with sweat, his blue eyes burning with resolve.
"Damn," Carter thought bitterly. Why is everyone in this world built like a model?
But Varka's thoughts were darker.
These so-called men of the Empire… they look no different from the Astarians they trample beneath their boots. The same flesh, the same weakness. Yet because Astarians alone inherit power, they are chained like cattle, reduced to beasts of burden.
How laughable. To despise what you resemble, to enslave what mirrors you. Is this not the way of all hypocrites? They lean on borrowed strength, blind to the truth that without inheritance, without power, they are nothing but worms groveling in the mud.
Such is the folly of men: the moment they grasp advantage, they mistake it for destiny.
And then, suddenly—Varka was gone.
He leapt from the branch, flitting through the canopy with the speed of a shadow loosed from its tether. Branches whipped past. Bark cracked beneath his boots.
Snezna was right. I shouldn't have lingered. Curiosity is a noose.
He skidded low, snapping branches deliberately, scattering footprints in every direction. A false trail, scattered like breadcrumbs into a storm.
If I follow Snezna's true path, the Valius dogs will scent us. I need to throw them off first.
The night rang with the distant voices of soldiers. Steel clanged. Orders barked. Their net was tightening. Varka's heart drummed, but his movements were flawless—silent leaps, no trace left but the ones he allowed.
Carter could only marvel. This man is built to run. If he were a video game character, his class would be Assassin.
Minutes stretched into an eternity, until at last—smoke. A thin, wavering ribbon against the moonlight.
Varka landed silently, crouched low. Snezna sat by a smoldering fire, his broad frame haloed by the faint glow. The unconscious girl lay propped against a tree, her chest rising and falling faintly.
"Took you long enough." Snezna's voice was edged with suspicion. His only uninjured hand was clamped around the girl, holding her close even in rest. "What happened?"
Varka's jaw tightened. "We need to move. This place isn't safe. They're already on our trail."
Snezna exhaled, slow, deliberate. "Didn't I warn you? Don't drag us into trouble with your damned curiosity." His eyes lingered, hard, but he didn't press further. He stamped the fire dead with dirt, shifted the girl in his grip.
Varka's gaze was elsewhere, sharp and restless. "We don't have time. I'll perform a divination."
Snezna snapped his head around. "Now? Are you insane? If they sense it—"
"They have an Ascendant among them," Varka cut in. "Third rank. We can't take him head-on."
The words dropped like lead into Carter's mind. Ascendant? His very thoughts rippled with unease.
"Desperate times," Varka muttered, his voice low. "Call for desperate measures."
He conjured a blade of shadow, lifted it to slice across his left hand—then froze. The limb was gone. Phantom instinct had betrayed him. His jaw clenched.
"This man is really fucking crazy," Carter thought, half-horrified, half-impressed.
"Here." Varka thrust the blade toward Snezna. "Do it."
"I can't," Snezna growled, shifting the unconscious girl tighter against him. "My hands are full."
Varka snarled, bit down on the blade's edge, and drew blood from his own finger. Dark drops pattered into the dirt. He whispered words Carter could neither follow nor pronounce—syllables older than steel, heavier than the air itself.
A sharp ache bloomed in Carter's skull. His temples pounded in time with the rhythm of Varka's chant.
The man crouched low, his body taut, eyes clenched. Then, after a heartbeat, they snapped open.
And the world changed.
Carter staggered inside his mind. He wasn't just seeing—he was drowning in two visions at once.
From Varka's sight, the world fractured into tides of energy—wild, chaotic, crashing against one another like storms at sea, yet bound by unseen patterns, flowing, shifting, obeying hidden laws only he could read.
But Carter's sight was different. Terrifyingly different.
To him, the world was woven from strings of light—delicate, luminous threads running through every living being. Snezna's cords pulled taut with the strain of holding the girl. The girl's own thread flickered faintly, fragile as a candle in the wind. Beyond, even the soldiers in the woods shimmered in the weave.
The strands coiled and tangled into a vast, terrible web—each life tied to another, each motion rippling through the whole. It was mesmerizing. It was horrifying. It was a balance so impossibly precise, Carter felt the wrong breath could shatter it.
And then—
The balance split open.
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