The afternoon bled onward without mercy.
The trail carved ever higher into Blackwind Mountain's spine, a narrow scar etched into ice and stone. Above, the blue sun sagged low and swollen, its glare turning the snowfields into a blinding white sea that burned the eyes raw. Wind shrieked through the passes, hurling ice crystals like needles that found every crack in cloth and skin.
SFX: WOOOO—SKRIEEEEE—HISS
The column was thinner again.
Silent gaps marked where servants had stumbled, fallen… and simply never risen. No one spoke of them. No one dared look back.
Levi trudged near the rear with Mira and Torin, their steps falling into a shared rhythm—three breaths, one step, repeat. His feet felt like dead weight, numb blocks barely attached to his legs. His fingers were stiff claws buried in wrapped sleeves. Mira's faint healing warmth helped when they dared pause, but it faded quickly—a candle flame fighting an avalanche.
Then the screaming started.
It tore through the wind from up ahead.
A young woman—barely more than a girl in this vessel—staggered out of line, tangled blonde hair spilling from her hood. She clawed at her own hands, voice shredding itself into raw, animal shrieks.
"Make it stop! Please—please—it burns!"
Guards moved instantly. Spears shoved servants aside as two seized her arms and dragged her forward. She thrashed, boots carving helpless lines in the snow.
Cassian dismounted with practiced ease.
His expression held mild irritation, as if a tool had malfunctioned.
He stripped away her wrappings.
Her fingers were black.
Frostbite had claimed them in swollen, ruptured patches; skin split and weeping clear fluid that froze the instant it met the air.
"No good to us like that," Cassian said calmly. Almost conversationally.
"Gangrene spreads fast up here."
He glanced at the guards.
"Cut them off."
The world seemed to hold its breath.
One guard pinned her arms. Another drew a short, broad blade.
"No—no—NO—!" Her pleas collapsed into sobbing screams.
The blade flashed.
SFX: CHOP—CHOP
Quick. Efficient.
Dark blood sprayed across the snow, steaming for a heartbeat before freezing solid. Severed fingers tumbled into the drift like scattered berries.
Her scream peaked—then shattered into hoarse, broken wails as a guard stuffed rags into her mouth and bound the stumps with rough cloth.
They dragged her to the edge of the trail and dropped her there.
Left to rock and moan in the snow.
Cassian swung back into the saddle. "Move."
The column lurched forward.
Servants stepped wide around the bloodstains.
Levi stared at his own hands inside his sleeves, flexing fingers he could barely feel. The ache was dull now. Distant.
How long, he wondered coldly, before mine turn black?
The mountain would not care.
The Spell would not care.
Mira's face was drained of color, eyes glassy with shock. Torin muttered a curse under his breath, jaw clenched so tightly Levi thought it might crack.
Night fell hard.
They dug their trenches on a narrow ledge, backs pressed to sheer rock for what little shelter it offered. The howls were closer than ever now—no longer distant echoes, but living things weaving through the wind.
SFX: HRAAOWL—HRAAOWL—KRRRRR
No torches burned near the servants. The guards kept their light high and central, shadows swallowing the outer edges.
In their shared hollow, pressed shoulder to shoulder for warmth, silence stretched until it broke.
"We can't keep going like this," Mira whispered, her voice trembling. "Alone. They'll take us one by one."
Torin nodded in the dark. "Seen it before. Workshops. Mines. Men versus machines." A pause. "Only way to survive is together."
Levi swallowed, throat raw. "Then we don't leave anyone behind. No matter what—guards, cold, or whatever hunts us out there."
Frozen hands met in the gloom—Mira's small and shaking, clasped between Levi's numb grip and Torin's callused strength.
A pact.
Unspoken, desperate, absolute.
Born of shared terror. Of warmth given freely in the dark. Of burdens lifted without complaint. Of bread broken with shaking hands.
For the first time since the red door swallowed him whole, Levi felt something stronger than fear.
Alliance.
Sleep came in jagged fragments, haunted by distant cries.
Then—
The blizzard hit.
Without warning, a wall of white thundered down the slope, devouring the world.
SFX: ROOOOOAR—WHUM—SKRIEEEEE
Visibility collapsed to arm's length. Wind howled like a living beast.
And the howls changed.
They were no longer distant.
They came from inside the storm.
Shapes burst from the snowdrifts—Blackwind ghouls. Gaunt, elongated bodies hurled forward on unnatural limbs. Skin pale as bleached bone. Eyeless sockets rimed with frost. Jaws unhinged, revealing rows of needle teeth.
Servants scattered in blind panic.
Guards shouted, forming a ragged line, spears out, torches flaring wildly.
Levi's group moved on instinct, backs slamming against the rock face.
Torin snatched a fallen spear, gripping it two-handed. "Circle up! Back to back!"
They formed a tight triangle—Mira in the center, Levi and Torin flanking her.
The first ghoul lunged.
Torin roared and drove the spear clean through its chest.
SFX: SHUNK—SPLASH
Black ichor sprayed, freezing mid-air. The creature convulsed, shrieked—and Torin ripped the weapon free, swinging again.
Another came low at Levi.
He dodged clumsily, heart hammering, seized a loose rock and smashed it into the thing's skull.
SFX: CRACK
Bone split. It reeled—but claws raked his sleeve, tearing cloth and skin alike. Fire lanced through his arm.
Mira cried out as Torin staggered, blood pouring from a gash. She pressed her hands to it, warmth flaring desperately.
"Hold still—just a second!"
All around them, the night dissolved into carnage.
Servants fell screaming, torn apart in red sprays that painted the snow. One was dragged bodily into the whiteout, cries severed mid-breath.
The guards fought grimly, blades flashing—but the storm hid more shapes closing in.
Levi swung again and again, lungs burning, muscles screaming in his frail body.
But they held.
Torin's strength.
Mira's trembling warmth.
Levi's raw, defiant refusal to die again.
The blizzard raged on.
And the night had only begun.