The air felt still. Frozen. Inside the heavy mist, the sky bled downward. Black tears fell from the clouds, thick as tar.
Nouz tried to breathe in as hard as he could, yet only a minuscule amount of stagnation entered the crevices of his lungs. There was no smell. No taste. No cold sting of ice against his skin.
He stood, and right in front of him, towering high, was the highest middle part of the Stake. A singular spire in the middle of the mountain-like structure, jutting upward like the tip of a spear. At the spear's tip, a crystalline roost had been made from Eternal Ice.
Korviana's abode. The Roost of the Rime Ravens.
Nouz walked forward. The mists followed him, still. A voice, faint as a whisper, echoed.
"Only the poisoners can finish the deed. Our kind is dying of the cold, and the cold is perpetuated by the ravens."
"The Rime Ravens…" He looked upward, toward the Roost. A place already empty and abandoned by the time Korviana ascended into an Apex, birthing Zyneios through its crystalline corpse.
He swallowed.
He knew what happened fifteen years ago was a disaster. He knew that disaster was needed, in order to protect the Nhevari.
He knew. His father, Nouan, also knew.
He took a step forward. The mists parted slightly down the middle, exposing an unbeaten path for him to tread.
The whispers came back to haunt him.
"Sykkan bark. Grind it. Mix it with dried blood of a cold-blooded beast."
The sykkan trees came into view. Leafless. Frozen. A cruel excuse of a tree from the Upper Parts of the Stake. Like crystal stalagmites torn from some perpetually frozen cavern deep inside the mountain, the trees stood alongside their brethren, forming an intimidating sea of frozen thorns.
The path wound, narrowly avoiding each and every tree.
He walked forward.
From inside the mists surrounding him, the shade of his father, obscured by the cold, ground the sykkan bark using a mortar and pestle. Diligently, each movement was carefully calculated, each push carefully measured, each pull light.
"…Dad."
The spectre shifted and disappeared like smoke, assimilating with the mists surrounding him.
Nouz walked forward, toward the top of the Stake.
"Boil the first third of the Longrass stem. Mix it with the corneal fluid of the Apideis."
A cabin sat deep inside the Upper Parts of the Stake, near the sykkan grove. Smoke puffed from its chimney. Dim light shone warm from within.
Someone might be there. Perhaps someone he knew, even.
His left arm brushed the cabin's rough exterior. He pushed the front door, already weak with age, preserved by the cold.
Only one medium-sized room inside, a rectangular space of four by six meters at most. Right in front of him stood a long desk with many phials, stone mortars, mixing stations with multiple-sized spoons, and straws made from ice. At the far edge of the room, a cupboard held jars of herbs, barks, muds, furs, body parts of small animals, and many different types of blood from the denizens of the Stake.
He scanned to the right. A hearth, made from stone and mudbrick, contained a roaring flame. Smoke was redirected upward through the chimney, slightly bent to the left. A dried leather carpet made from deerskin lay in front of it.
Another table, filled with dinnerware. Two plates, two spoons, two knives. One of the plates was still dirty, roasted hare with berries left behind.
He scanned further, to the rightmost part of the room, near the window beside the door. A bed, filled with hay and softened sykkan roots. No pillow.
Nouz did not enter the cabin. A sinking feeling filled his chest.
He could still hear the sound of mixing. Small porcelain spoons touching, chiming. He could still smell the pungent aroma of overburnt herbs, his failures. He could still feel his father's stern expression, Nouan's sharp eyes watching over him, even fifteen years after his death.
"Mix everything with fresh snow from the Upper Parts of the Stake. Beware of the Nhivens. Be even more wary of the White Garms."
He glanced to the left, toward a bucket right outside the front porch. There was a place he remembered, very close to the cabin, where fresh snow could be harvested before it shifted downward and melted into the Dalmas. Nhiven and White Garm watering hole.
The place where he instructed Yarda and Weaz to dissolve the poison crystal he made.
He ignored the bucket. With his left arm, he closed the door to the cabin and continued his walk upward, toward the peak of the Stake, toward the Spire.
"Lastly, open the wound on your arms."
A stinging sensation flared on his left arm.
The cold brought out the ache of the dozens of times he had opened his own skin. A vertical wound, the last part of the process of the Nhevari Poisoner. His own body had to know the poison. He had to understand how it worked, how it would tamper with a living being's inner workings, and through that thorough understanding, the crystallization process could finally occur.
"Pour everything in."
Heat began to spread within his veins. He watched the scar carefully. No blood was spilled this time. No wound was opened this time. Yet the pain was real and terrible.
Every drop of introduction, assimilation, forced toleration of dozens, if not hundreds, of kinds of toxins burned inside him. Stagnated. Sequestrated. Neatly compartmentalized into small structural changes alongside his heart and vessels.
His temperature dropped lower, a trait of the poisoner's line.
His heart slowed.
Nouz closed his eyes.
Among the Nhevari, poisoners were treated like a spectre. A filthy part of the warrior tribe that could not fulfill their charge to present their lives and die at the Outer Rim of Gehenna. The runts. The weakest link.
Yet the poison was needed.
The Forsaken's musculoskeletal structure, or whatever resemblance to structure they had, adapted easily to the Nhevari way of war. Infernal Armaments that used flames worked well until the Forsaken developed a resistance to flames. Infernal Armaments with blunt properties worked well, crushing skulls and ribs, until the Forsaken developed something that resembled layers of fat along the outer parts of their bodies, rendering dull impacts useless.
Yet with every adaptation, another weakness was born. The Forsaken were not perfect. Nor were the Nhevari. For every Forsaken with flame immunity, warriors with other types of Infernal Armaments exploited the gap. For every Forsaken with blunt immunity, warriors with slashing and piercing weapons exploited the gap.
And the poisons were there to complicate everything.
They, the poisoners, were needed by their tribe. An invaluable part of their military might. An important cog in the machine.
A way to force the Forsaken to believe this was the path they should take. To force them to adapt. To become resistant to poisons. To become immune to toxins.
Just so the other Nhevari warriors, with their amazing Infernal Armaments, could win another battle for one more day in the never-ending carnage.
Yet, the treatment the poisoners received was among the worst.
Castrated, mutilated, exiled, set aside, vilified, made into the honorable warriors' slaves, and forced to be grateful they were not outright murdered because of their uselessness.
Yet that same uselessness, their inability to wield an Infernal Armament, their inability to speak to the Soul within Gehenna, turned them into great poisoners. That same flaw became a massive advantage that bought the Nhevari countless victories.
The Nhevari... Nouz spits on the ground.
Ingrates, each and every single one of them.
"Let the poison work its way through your body, until it is inevitably expelled from your wound."
Nouz watched the wound near his left wrist. A long vertical slice that had opened the vein hundreds of times. Scar tissue persisted there, stubborn and thick.
A place where the skin grew tougher. A place where the vein grew stronger. A place where the blood flowed faster.
The wound bled.
A dark, purplish crystal pushed slowly outward with the flow of blood.
The crystallization was complete.
He would save them all.
He would be the savior of the Nhevari of Elm.
He would make them regret every instance they treated his father with disdain.
He would chain them all down.
Each. Each and every single one of them.
—
—
Snow had settled upon the Western Split. The forest sat eerily still. White snow blinded the eye, even with a dark sky and no moon to be seen.
"That's… a cabin?" Yarda crouched behind a snowed-over rock. His hands were free. He clutched them together to warm them. "Never knew Nouz got a cabin this high on the mountain."
Weaz squinted. The dim light within the cabin flickered now and then, but he couldn't tell if it was movement, or just the small, ordinary restlessness of fire.
He crouched right next to Yarda and opened his tool belt.
"We only got some throwing knives and caltrops."
Yarda opened his pouch. "Well, I got your phial, and… some leaves."
Weaz's expression painted a clear disappointment, without hesitation.
The disdain from his partner only made Yarda smile more devilishly. "Oh, c'mon. It's okay. We won't need any stupid stuff anyway. It's just Nouz."
"Just Nouz, you say. He got a hostage with him. One wrong step and your teacher will die from a weird poison that only Nouz can make."
Yarda scoffed. "She's also your teacher, numbskull."
Weaz looked at Yarda with a familiar, disgusted expression. "You. The Yarda. The one who went three years without understanding how numbers work. Calling me a numbskull."
"At least I know how to tie my own shoes."
"What if I tie my shoelaces around your neck."
"At least I didn't actually think about killing Chief Rahzmir with Nouz's weird concoction."
Weaz went silent at Yarda's quick retort.
It was true. Nouz told them to incapacitate Chief Rahzmir using the concoction, and Weaz had actually considered doing it, fearing Nouz and Rahzar might do something worse.
If not for Yarda, the guy he grew up with, his best friend, reminding him that Nouz's poison might be useful in stopping Rahzar's rampage later down the line, he might have murdered an old man with a dishonorable method.
Weaz looked at Yarda, still busy with his pouch, filled with leaves and broken lockpicks.
"Where did you find the body?"
"East Cemetery. It's Najen's. He died because of Frostblood a couple weeks back. His build was smaller, but very similar to the Chief. I had to leave the head behind."
"The blood?"
"Fresh dagzan blood from the pen behind the house. I butchered one that looked old and prepared the blood while you put the Chief to sleep."
Weaz never showed it in his expression, but he found Yarda's creativity and quick thinking admirable. That was why, when Yarda snatched the poison from his hand, he knew there had to be a good reason for it.
"Do you think… Rahzar will notice?"
Yarda looked at him, thinking for a moment. "Rahzar hates the Chief with all his guts, and by extension, he hates the village too. I think he'll try and investigate whether the one who got decapitated was actually Chief Rahzmir, but I doubt he'll be able to find anything concrete."
He popped the cork of his waterskin, drank a couple gulps, and handed it to Weaz. "All I heard was there was some fire fifteen years ago that destroyed his house and killed his mother. It forced his father to exile himself from the village, leaving him behind to be brought under the care of his uncle."
"His father exiled himself from the village?"
"Yeah. He wants to find justice or something. I never really paid much attention. But it was supposed to happen near Sol's birth."
"Sol's birth… and fire?"
"Yeah. What the heck. I remember someone told me there was a golden pillar of fire that reached the clouds, and then the Rimelord was born as an Apex. It was a fucking weird chain of events."
Weaz remembered how everyone always told both of them to stay away from Sol, the cursed child.
"He will curse you, and your friend, and both of you will die buried in snow."
"Did you know that Sol caused the death of the fenoshes? He touched their water trough with bare hands. All of the poor beasts had to be put down this morning."
"Do not look at him in the eye. He will kill you. All one-horned Nhevari are cursed with an unquenchable thirst for blood and an insatiable hunger for flesh."
Yet all along, he never actually remembered Sol doing any of those things.
"How far is Sol from our age?" Weaz unsheathed one of his daggers and began to sharpen it with a whetstone, still looking at the cabin.
"About three summers under. Why?"
"Three summers…"
Yarda looked at him, confused. "Does that have to do with anything?"
Weaz stopped sharpening. "No. It's just… we could've been friends with him."
"Friends with…" Yarda's voice sharpened. "Do you even hear yourself? We had nobody. No parents. No family. Everyone was dead. What do you think the people in the village will do if they find out we're friends with that runt? They'll treat us like him. Don't you remember Saylan? Don't you remember how Jaana's father was justified in putting him down like a dog outside the gates? Saylan was Sol's friend!"
Weaz only looked at Yarda's face, upset and twisted with confusion. He understood it all. Everything Yarda said.
Yarda cupped Weaz's face with both hands, forcing him to look him in the eye. "Saylan wasn't supposed to die. Whatever happened to him, happened because he was Sol's friend. Dobsy and the fisher boy, both of them are being vilified too, because they were friends with Sol."
Weaz could only watch as Yarda's eyes filled with anger. An anger lit for both of them. A rage stoked into Yarda's heart for both of them, so they could fit in, so they could find their mac'ga, their purpose and place within the village.
Yarda's face reddened with grief. "We only got each other for so long. Do you think I'll allow you to be treated like Saylan?"
"Forgive me. I never thought…"
"I love you."
Weaz looked at Yarda reflexively. It had to be a mistake.
Yarda turned away, obscuring his face. His hood was up.
"…Like a brother, I love you." Yarda's voice was slightly muffled. He was upset. Terribly upset. "And I don't want my brother to be treated that way by anyone. Even if I have to exile Sol, even if I have to hurt him, I will do it if that means you'll be safe."
Weaz looked down. He had never thought of Yarda that way before. They were close. Raised together like brothers. But they weren't one.
Not once had Weaz thought of Yarda as his brother.
A sharp pain flared in his chest.
Because from the start, he had always wished for them to be something more than that.
The door to the cabin opened slightly. A beautiful smell of freshly prepared stew.
Nouz stepped outside the cabin, both hands cupped around the handle of a dingy metal pot. Slowly but surely, he set it down on the front porch, along with a letter. He looked around before going back inside; the door closed behind him.
Yarda darted forward, then back again, with the letter in hand.
"It's cold outside. Come."