Many months had passed in the silence of the Labyrinthos Forest. The harsh winter had slowly given way to the first rains of spring. Lycaon had survived, but the price was immense.
He had become one with the forest. He learned to distinguish the rustle of a snake slithering through the leaves from the footfall of a deer. He knew how to find edible mushrooms growing under the most rotten logs. The knife from his father was no longer a memento in his hand; it was an extension of his will, a tool for ending life and for survival.
But every night, as he sat alone by a small fire, the image of Lyra being taken away would return, gnawing at his soul. He could not live in this uncertainty for another day.
He decided to return to Axios.
It was a mad decision. To go back there was to walk into a tiger's den. But it was the only place with answers.
To do so, he needed a perfect disguise. His appearance, though ruined, could still be recognized by someone. He needed to completely erase the boy named Lycaon.
At a secluded stream, he looked at his reflection in the water. A face with its left half a mess of lumpy burn scars. He picked up a sharp-edged piece of rock. Without a moment's hesitation, he carved a long, deep gash on his unmarred right cheek. Blood flowed, but he felt no pain. He took black mud and ashes from an old fire pit and rubbed them forcefully into the open wound. The pain was searing, shooting up to his brain, but he didn't stop. He was single-handedly creating a new face, a face of sickness, decay, and despair.
He began to practice walking. Not the limp of an injured man, but the slow, soulless shuffle of a man on the verge of death. He practiced coughing, a dry, weak hack, as if every breath was draining his life force. He was no longer Lycaon. He was a phantom, a nameless beggar on his way back from the dead.
Several weeks later, a ragged, filthy figure appeared on the outskirts of Axios village. No one recognized him. He walked past the familiar fields but felt no nostalgia. Everything was just a foreign landscape.
He chose his position. Not in the center, not somewhere easily seen. He chose a hidden corner in the small alley beside the churchyard. From there, he could watch everyone coming and going from the church without being noticed.
He curled up in his tattered animal-hide cloak, pulling the hood low over his face. He began his performance, the role of a beggar with "consumption," sitting there, shivering and coughing, waiting for death, and waiting for the truth.