The village was small.
Not in the way cities called themselves small—crowded clusters pretending humility—but genuinely so. A single winding road cut through it like a lazy thought, bordered by low stone houses with sloped roofs and chimneys that breathed out thin ribbons of smoke. The air smelled of baked bread, damp wood, and something faintly sweet apples, perhaps, or drying grain.
It was quiet.
Not the oppressive silence of abandonment, nor the tense quiet before violence. This was a lived-in calm. The kind that came from people who slept without listening for footsteps.
Lonir noticed the difference immediately.
Life here felt… lighter.
Not happier. Just less compressed.
The weight he carried—the gray pressure that followed him like a second shadow—did not lift, but it stood out more sharply here, like oil floating on clear water. Even with the Sword's poison still whispering through his veins, even with scars tugging beneath his skin as they slowly realigned, he could see it clearly:
These people were not soaked in despair.
They were not hollowed out.
They were not ready.
He walked forward anyway.
Dust shifted softly beneath his boots. A dog barked once, then went quiet. Somewhere nearby, a child laughed—short, unguarded, unashamed of the sound. Lonir's steps slowed without him meaning to. His posture straightened slightly, not from pride, but from awareness.
Eyes were on him now.
Not many at first. Just glances—quick, curious, then uncertain. A woman paused mid-sweep. An old man stopped tying a bundle of firewood. A pair of boys froze in the middle of an argument, words dissolving into silence as they stared.
Lonir felt it then.
The mismatch.
He did not belong in this rhythm.
He approached the nearest figure he could find: a man sitting on a low stool outside his home, carving a piece of wood with slow, patient strokes. The man looked up as Lonir drew closer.
Their eyes met.
The reaction was immediate.
The man stiffened, breath hitching—not in panic, but in instinctive recoil. His gaze flicked over Lonir's face, lingered too long on the uneven scars, the faint black veins threading beneath too-new skin, the way his right arm hung just slightly wrong. The man's grip tightened around his carving knife.
He did not draw it.
Instead, he turned sharply and muttered something to a small girl playing nearby. A warning. A name. A command.
The girl looked up.
Then at Lonir.
Her eyes widened—not with hatred, not even fear—but with something simpler.
Recognition.
She grabbed the man's hand, and they moved away together, quickly but without running, disappearing behind a doorway that closed a second too fast.
Lonir stopped.
The street felt wider now. Emptier.
"…Logical," he muttered.
His voice sounded out of place here—too rough, too worn. He reached into the satchel at his hip and pulled out the small mirror, fingers brushing the worn edge with familiarity. He raised it slowly.
The reflection that stared back at him barely resembled the man who had once crouched in a graveyard, knife to his throat.
He studied it carefully. Clinically.
The hollow beneath his cheekbones had deepened. His skin carried a faint, unhealthy sheen, stretched tight in places where it had regrown too quickly. Pale scars traced his face like fractures in porcelain, intersected by darker lines—residue from the Sword's poison that had not fully faded. His eyes looked… wrong. Too sharp. Too still.
Not monstrous.
But unmistakably altered.
"This is… reasonable," he said quietly.
His reflection did not argue.
"I truly have become uglier than before."
He snapped the mirror shut and pressed his palm against his face, feeling warmth beneath his skin, the subtle pull as muscle and nerve continued to realign. It would heal. Mostly. It always did.
Side effects.
Only side effects.
Hunger gnawed at him then—not the sharp, desperate hunger of the streets, but a dull, insistent ache. His gaze drifted down the road, drawn by scent before sight.
The bakery sat near the village's center, its door propped open to let out heat. The smell of bread rolled toward him in slow, heavy waves. As he stepped closer, the villagers reacted without coordination, without words.
They moved aside.
Not fleeing. Not blocking him.
Parting.
A path opened, narrow and uncomfortable, lined with eyes that refused to meet his for more than a heartbeat. Whispers died before they fully formed. Someone crossed themselves. Someone else closed a window.
Lonir walked through the space they made for him, each step measured, aware of the tension coiling tighter with his presence.
Inside the bakery, a stout woman with flour-dusted hands paused mid-motion. She looked at him once—just once—then reached behind her without a word and lifted a loaf still warm from the oven.
She pressed it toward him across the counter.
No smile.
No refusal.
Just a rough gesture that said take it and go.
Lonir hesitated, then inclined his head slightly and accepted it. The warmth seeped into his fingers, grounding in a way pain never quite managed.
"Free food," he murmured. "I won't complain."
The woman was already turning away.
He stepped back into the street, loaf tucked under his arm, and moved on slowly. The Sword's weight was constant at his side, the poison in his veins a low, simmering presence. He could feel the difference between himself and these people with every step.
They were whole.
He was not.
He had almost reached the edge of the village when the feeling returned.
That itch.
That wrongness at the back of his skull, like a nail pressed just shy of breaking skin.
Lonir stopped.
The villagers did not notice—too busy retreating, too relieved to see him leaving. He stood still, senses sharpening, the gray inside him shifting.
Footsteps.
One set.
Careless, but not clumsy.
Lonir turned.
Varkis stepped out from behind a storage shed near the fields, cloak damp with morning dew, sword already half-drawn. His face was worse than before—half-healed, half-ruined. One eye still clouded, the other sharp with intent. The brand on his hand pulsed faintly, a dull, angry red.
"You run well," Varkis rasped. "But not far."
Lonir exhaled slowly.
"…You again."
Varkis grinned, lips pulling tight over damaged flesh. "Village folk don't like your kind. Figured you'd slow down. Thought I'd finish what I started."
Lonir did not reach for the card.
Not yet.
He took a step back, angling himself so the village lay behind him—not between them. He would not let this spill into their streets.
Varkis lunged.
Fast, but not clean.
The Sword sang faintly in Lonir's veins, urging, itching. Lonir twisted aside as the blade cut air where his throat had been, the wind of it brushing his scars. He countered with a shove—not strong, just enough to unbalance.
Varkis stumbled, recovered, snarling.
"You're weaker than I expected," Lonir said.
The words were not taunt.
They were observation.
Varkis roared and swung again, overcommitting, desperation bleeding into his form. Lonir let the edge bite into his shoulder—just enough. Pain flared, sharp and familiar.
He endured.
Not long.
Just long enough.
Varkis screamed as the reflection hit him—a fraction of what Lonir felt, but more than enough. The man collapsed to one knee, clutching his head, breath coming in wet gasps.
Lonir stepped back.
He did not finish it.
Varkis looked up at him, hatred burning through pain. "This isn't over," he spat. "I'll kill you. I'll—"
Lonir turned away.
"I know," he said.
He walked on, leaving Varkis coughing in the dirt, alive, furious, and very much not gone.
The village disappeared behind him.
The road stretched ahead—quiet, empty, indifferent.
Lonir tore the bread in half and ate as he walked, the taste dull but real.
Behind him, somewhere unseen, a thorn remained.
And Lonir knew—without urgency, without anger—that one day he would pull it out.
Not today.
But soon enough.