The third dawn came slower, heavy with mist that clung to the grasslands like a veil. Vaelen woke to damp air chilling his skin, his stomach gnawing as if it were trying to eat itself from the inside.
He sat up slowly, wincing at the ache in his body. The woman was gone. Her usual place on the rock sat empty, her cloak no longer draped across her shoulders. For the first time since waking in this strange new life, he felt truly alone.
"Where…?" His voice cracked.
There was no answer. Only the wind stirring the endless plains.
'She left,' Vaelen thought bitterly, his chest tightening. 'I knew it. She said she wouldn't stay forever, but… not even a word?'
He stood, fists clenched, the fractured Current twitching faintly beneath his skin. It always seemed stronger when his emotions threatened to break loose, as though mocking his every weakness.
Before he could stew further, a sound broke the silence—low, guttural, like stone grinding against stone. The grass rippled ahead, not from the wind, but from something large moving through it.
Vaelen froze, heart hammering.
The shape emerged slowly: a beast the size of a stag, but built heavier, its hide mottled with rough gray plates like natural armor. Its head was crowned with jagged horns, eyes glinting faintly red in the mist. The air around it seemed to hum, as though the Current itself recoiled from its presence.
"What… what are you?" Vaelen whispered.
The creature snorted, pawing at the earth. Its breath steamed in the cool air, hot and heavy.
'Run,' Vaelen's mind screamed. But his legs refused to move. His body remembered what his mind tried to forget—he had nowhere to run. No walls, no cover. Only endless plains.
The beast lowered its head.
Then it charged.
Vaelen barely rolled aside as the monster thundered past, its horns gouging furrows in the soil where he had stood. He scrambled up, breath ragged.
'Think! Think! What can I do? I can't fight that thing with my hands!'
The beast wheeled around, faster than its bulk suggested, and bellowed. Spittle flew from its jaws as it came at him again.
Vaelen's chest clenched. The fractured Current roared inside him, surging like a storm. His vision blurred, his veins burned, but instinct screamed louder than pain: release it, or die.
He thrust out his hand without thinking.
The world cracked.
For an instant, raw force tore from his arm, a burst of energy that wasn't light, wasn't flame, but something jagged and violent. It struck the beast square in the side, hurling it sideways with a sound like bones shattering.
Vaelen collapsed to his knees, gasping. His arm throbbed as though every vein had caught fire.
The beast staggered up, its armored hide blackened where the Current had struck. It shook its head violently, dazed but not dead.
'It worked… it actually worked,' Vaelen thought, a wild mix of awe and fear in his chest. 'But if I try that again… will I survive it?'
The creature bellowed, staggering toward him again.
"Damn it!" Vaelen shouted, scrambling backward. His body screamed with exhaustion, his arm still burning. He grabbed a fallen branch from the ground, splintered and weak, but all he had.
The beast lunged.
Vaelen sidestepped desperately, thrusting the branch into the soft flesh beneath its jaw. The wood snapped instantly, but the distraction was enough. The creature crashed past him, slamming into the dirt with a pained roar.
Seizing his chance, Vaelen staggered forward, pressing both hands against the beast's neck. His whole body shook, the fractured Current writhing inside him like a serpent begging to be unleashed.
'One more time,' he thought desperately. 'Just one more—!'
The Current burst forth again, violent and unshaped, flooding through his palms. The beast convulsed, its body spasming under the onslaught. With a final, agonized bellow, it collapsed, twitching once before going still.
Vaelen fell back, chest heaving, every muscle screaming. His vision blurred at the edges, black spots dancing before his eyes.
He had killed it.
He had actually killed it.
The fractured Current quieted, retreating back into the hollow of his chest, but its echo lingered. For a moment, Vaelen swore he could hear whispers in his head—not words, but the faint impression of voices, layered over one another, too soft to understand.
'Not now,' he thought weakly. 'I don't… I don't care what you are. Not now.'
His hands trembled as he looked at the beast's body. Smoke still curled faintly from the wounds where the Current had torn through it. The stench of burnt flesh mixed with the coppery tang of blood in the air.
He gagged, turning away.
Minutes passed before he forced himself back onto his feet. Hunger clawed at him worse than ever, but this time, there was food before him. Ugly, dangerous food, but food nonetheless.
The woman's voice echoed in his memory: Survival is just survival.
With shaking hands, he set about carving into the beast's flank with a sharp rock. The work was messy, clumsy, and more than once he nearly retched, but eventually he had strips of meat torn free. He built a fire as best he could, smoke curling into the misty sky, and roasted the flesh.
The taste was awful—gamey, bitter, and touched with the faint metallic tang of the Current's corruption—but it filled the emptiness in his stomach.
As he ate, he looked again at the creature's corpse. Its armored hide glistened faintly, unnatural. Something told him it wasn't just a wild beast. Not ordinary prey of the plains.
"Why were you here?" Vaelen whispered, staring at the lifeless eyes.
The fractured Current stirred in response, as though it too was searching for an answer.
And then, from the mist behind him, the woman's voice spoke:
"You weren't supposed to survive that."
Vaelen spun, heart leaping. She stood there again, her cloak drawn close, her expression unreadable. For the first time since meeting her, though, he thought he saw something new in her eyes—an edge of surprise.
"You left," he said hoarsely.
"I needed to know what you would do without me," she answered calmly. "Now I do."
Her gaze flicked to the dead beast, then back to him. "The Current answered you. Not cleanly, not safely, but it answered. That means your path isn't closed."
Vaelen clenched his fists, still trembling. "And if it had killed me instead?"
Her expression didn't change. "Then the plains would've kept their secret. And I would've known you weren't the one I was waiting for."
The fractured Current writhed uneasily inside him. Vaelen stared at her, anger and confusion boiling together.
"What am I to you?" he demanded.
She didn't answer immediately. When she finally did, her voice was quiet, almost reluctant.
"Not what you are now," she said. "But what you may become."