The growl shook the air.
Yellow eyes glowed from the shadows, locked on them with hunger. The wolf was bigger than Eros remembered, larger than any dog he had ever seen in his old life. Its body was half-rotten, hide stretched over bone, saliva dripping black from jagged teeth. Patches of fur clung like wet rags. Heat rolled off it, the sick kind that felt more like infection turned into flesh.
Eros raised his axe, shoulders rigid. His throat was dry. Beside him, Halix's grin thinned into something sharper. He twirled a dagger in each hand, steel catching the pale sun. He looked almost entertained.
"Ugly mutt," Halix said. "Don't blink."
The wolf lunged.
Halix was faster. He stepped in with frightening speed, carving a shallow line across the beast's jaw, then slid back before its teeth could close around him. His stance wasn't desperate like Eros's. It was clean, precise, as if he had done this for decades.
Eros cut from the side with his bone axe. He wasn't clean. He was momentum barely held together by will. The axe head slammed the wolf's shoulder, skidding across ridged bone. A claw swept the space where his throat had been a heartbeat earlier. He dove sideways, dirt and ash scattering under him.
Instinct made him reach for the old echo in his throat, the scar that had once whispered danger before the eagle struck. Nothing. No warning. Only his own ragged breathing.
The wolf came again. Eros swung heavy and wild. The axe clipped a fang, sent it spinning into the ash like a broken shard of pottery. The beast hardly flinched. It snapped for his forearm. He tore back. Its teeth snapped shut on air, and then Halix crashed into it from the blind side, daggers tearing across its ribs. Black ichor sprayed. The stench was like rotting metal.
"Keep its head busy!" Halix barked.
Eros obeyed. He swung at the skull, missed, and rolled gracelessly away as the beast twisted toward him. Its breath scorched his face. He hacked again, landing a weak strike that jolted his arms. His shoulder throbbed where its claws had already cut him.
He waited, stupidly, for the scar to guide him. Just once. Nothing. «So it only works with the thing that made it. Perfect. I'll need a collection of scars before life gets easier.»
The wolf leaped. Eros planted his feet and swung like a batter trying to crush a meteor. The axe cracked against its temple with a wet sound. The creature stumbled. Halix slid in like a shadow and drove both daggers down behind its skull. The beast spasmed. Eros hacked again and again until bone split and its final cry rattled the ash around them.
Silence dropped too quickly.
Ash drifted down like gray snow. Eros's chest heaved, each breath scraping raw. His shoulder burned. Not mortal, but enough to remind him that nothing here wanted him alive.
Halix pulled his blades free and flicked blood aside with a practiced twist. For a heartbeat he looked pleased with himself, then the old smile returned.
"Well," he said, "that had spirit. You swing like a drunk lumberjack. But the heart's there."
Eros stared at the carcass, saying nothing, breath ragged, hands stained black. He half-expected the Reader's Notes to appear, a flame flickering back to life as it had after the eagle. Nothing. The air stayed heavy, the sky just as indifferent. His brow furrowed.
«Why not? Wasn't that enough? Or was it Halix who truly killed it, driving those daggers into its skull?» The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. If the reward only came when he struck the final blow, then he was chained to carrying the burden alone, even with company at his side.
Halix nudged him with an elbow, dug into his pouch, and tossed him a berry. "Payment for services rendered. Eat."
Eros caught it, narrowing his eyes. He remembered the last ones: sweet, bitter, strangely useful. He also remembered waking in a world that wanted to choke him.
Still, his shoulder pulsed. He ate it.
This one was sweeter, almost pleasant, with bitterness that lingered at the back of his tongue like smoke. Warmth slid through his veins. The claw marks tightened and closed. Relief loosened the knot that had been living under his ribs.
"See?" Halix said. "Six out of ten for taste. Eleven for keeping you alive."
Eros rolled his shoulder. The ache faded. He hated being grateful. «Wonderful. He's my pharmacist now.»
"Come on," Halix said, wiping his daggers on the wolf's ruined hide. "We're close. You can almost smell food. Imagine bread. Meat that doesn't bite back."
Eros stayed quiet. He looked at the ruined head, the black gore soaking into ash, then at Halix, whose smile never reached the right places.
«Maybe this is a mistake,» he thought. «But walking alone feels worse.»
They moved on.
The Wasteland shifted. Flat ash plains rose into low hills streaked with dark stone. Broken columns jutted like old teeth. Ash pooled along the path, lifting in pale wisps with every step. The sky was a dull white behind gray stains, with thin light sketching their shadows long and sharp.
Halix talked. Too much. He narrated ruins like a guide: that cracked arch was an old gate, that ridge a wall once proud. He told a joke about a priest, a goat, and a storm. Eros ignored him.
"You ever think of smiling?" Halix asked. "No? Then blink at least. Your eyes will dry out."
"I blink," Eros said.
"Oh, so he speaks again. We're practically friends now," Halix said.
Eros grunted. «If you touch me, I'll feed you to the next wolf.»
They descended toward a narrow cut in the hills. The ground sounded different here, less like dust, more like fine glass beneath the ash. Each step cracked brittle music into the air. The atmosphere thinned. Stranger too, like a room where someone had whispered and left.
Halix whistled, a sharp, human sound.
Eros stopped. "What are you doing?"
"Announcing myself," Halix said. "Better than spooking the friendly folk."
"Friendly," Eros repeated flatly.
Halix winked. "Friendlier than you."
Eros blinked. His vision blurred, then steadied. His stomach dropped.
"What was that?" he asked.
"Travel fatigue," Halix said lightly. "It happens."
Another wave hit. His knees buckled for a breath. He steadied himself, heart racing. The air tasted of sweet rot.
«Not fatigue.»
Halix's smile finally fit.
"You're stubborn," he said. "Stubborn sells well. You'll do fine."
Eros gripped the axe tighter. The wood felt slick, foreign in his hands.
"Relax," Halix said. "You'll sleep through the worst of it. That berry was sweeter than the rest, right? Helps in situations like this."
Figures stepped from behind the ruins. Four men, then two more. Coarse clothes. Hard faces. Ropes and nets in their hands, rusted steel on their belts. They spread out with practiced ease.
Eros's heart hammered. He tried to lift the axe but his arms felt heavy, useless.
"Nothing personal," Halix said. "You asked me to trust you. I said never get attached. I meant it."
"Traitor," Eros rasped.
Halix shrugged. "Trader."
«You're funny,» Eros thought. «I'll remember that.»
The first slaver stepped in too casually. Eros swung clumsy but hard, cracking the man's forearm. The scream barely registered before two more closed in. A club slammed his ribs, air bursting from his chest. A net dropped over him. His legs failed.
Ropes bit into his wrists. The net smothered his face with the stink of sweat and dust. He fought, but his body had become someone else's.
"Careful!" Halix snapped. "He's worth more alive."
Hands yanked the net aside. A knife flashed. Eros saw it with sharp clarity. «If you kill me now, I'll make sure you never sleep again.»
He twisted, slow as drowning. The blade missed his heart, shoved into his stomach instead.
White exploded. Fire tore through him. He looked down, amazed at the metal sticking out of his belly. The slaver cursed. The world collapsed into the pain.
He exhaled wet and hot. The ground rose too slowly to meet him.
Voices blurred above.
"Idiot! You broke him!"
"He moved!"
"We can still sell him—"
"Check if he—"
The sounds melted into shapeless noise. His body drifted. Darkness widened. His old friend: the emptiness.
«So here we are! Beaten, betrayed, stabbed like an animal… I didn't even get the chance to choose. Damn them. Damn all of this.»
The Reader's Notes opened in that void, pages turning by themselves. On the page where Immortal Martyr was, two flames burned. One guttered, then died with a hiss too soft for ears.
Eros fell through that silence... while the rage inside him swelled, uncontrollable.