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Marek leaned against the rift’s wall, his very focus lost on the pattern of the blizzard. The fallwind of the heights fought the radiance of a runned blade, the latter held low in the man’s grip, keeping thermic balance throughout Marek’s body.

It had been no easy task to find refuge along the sentry of frigidity that was the Icing Boundary. For the most part, the Crown of the North, firm against time itself, gave off no fissure and therefore no shelter.

And speaking of the Crown of the North, neither of the two could find words to describe the surreality that surrounded such a titanic monument.

Its outstanding presence invited Marek and Sigrid to glance, but whenever their eyes meandered way too high, overwhelm made them stop.

A king who could be disrespected by others’ glance alone. Stalling breaths by its sheer presence. Always watching.

Hours of little discussion had transpired before they found the so-coveted shelter, but the break had been short-lived, at least for Sigrid. Hunger was soon to abound, so the monstress needed to hunt for food beyond the shadow of the colossal rampart.

The manticores’ territory held the nearest hunting ground; thus, the most accessible nourishments lay within its boundaries.

‘Rest. I’ll be back soon,’ had been her words before leaving his side.

Clock winding into the present, Marek bore the elements with nothing but a heated shortsword and a pinholed longcloak smeared with arachnid ichor, staring beyond the crack’s entrance at the snow drift obfuscating most of his view, bearing that itch at the bottom of his throat, more pushful with each hour it passed.

A maelstrom swirled in his mind, ideas and thoughts coming in gusts.

This break might be his last with Sigrid — or the last of his life, for that matter. Everwintry Blackpeak — Georg had called Hissing Wing’s lair — was half a day away, according to Sigrid’s knowledge.

His moments with Sigrid, the woman he learned to love, might be counted by the sands of an hourglass. Yet, after his confession about Aurelio’s death, Marek felt he owed Sigrid an explanation.

Suddenly, the entire trip until that point did not feel long enough.

Marek shook his head and let a couple of coughs escape his mouth.

“Maybe… I can find Mørk and his group. With allies, my odds of surviving would spike.” He contemplated, diverting his thoughts to something useful.

There were layers of complexity upon that choice, like how his human compeers would stand his company, or the fact that he would abandon Sigrid’s side for the remainder of the journey back.

A disheartening prospect, that was it, but the alternatives were not benigner.

A cough and a sigh.

“... I already miss her.”

Marek tore his sight off the outside, thinking there were several minutes left before Sigrid returned.

The rift he found himself in was not the widest as even a bear would struggle to wiggle through, but it stretched several yards deep and a dozen or so feet high, forming a broken triangle.

The Icing Boundary was like a waterfall of the coldest winds, and the runned sword suddenly found itself losing a battle of dualities, its length getting colder as minutes ticked by. Marek needed to go deeper if he wanted to preserve his bodily warmth.

Boot soles scraping ice, the man advanced to the back of the cave, taking his wrappings by the strand along the way.

Moving toward the end went against his instincts, but Sigrid had assured him no predator dared to approach the Icing Boundary. After marching under its shadow, Marek could tell why that was the case.

Three feet away from the end, Marek dropped his device against the wall. Right before slumping down to mimic his belongings, he kicked a loose floor shatter, sending it against the back wall.

It vanished.

“What the—”

The fighter halted on the spot, mien frowning into a grimace.

Oak-colored orbs blinked as if to make sure the snow stuck to his retinas had not deteriorated his eyesight.

“I must be seeing things…” He murmured, but his brain was not as convinced.

After everything he had gone through, he knew better to let the Frostscape trick him under the facade of commonplace wilderness.

“...” Hesitantly, his boot drew circles on the ground, trying to break off another piece of ice. One fragment went off, and so Marek drew his leg back before sending his foot forth.

The pebble clicked with the first impact, but upon reaching the bottom, it emitted no sound. The ice had gone missing just as its predecessor had.

“Crap!”

The flinch he elicited matched that of a wildcat seeing its reflection in a mirror for the first time. The shortsword was brought to the level of his chest, his feet nearly tripping as he tried to adopt a defensive stance.

“No. Simply _no. _Manticores and spiders had been more than enough for one day. I’m fed-up with more—”

“Marc?” Came a feminine voice, causing Marek to spin toward the speaker, utter surprise etched on his face.

“Si—?!” Something caught his foot; in his careless spin, the strand of his wrapping coiled around his foot. The circumstances led to an event that a horde of spiders and slippery ice had not attained until then: making Marek stumble backward.

“Watch out!” He heard Sigrid screech and something heavy thump against the floor before his head phased through the ice, half his head passing through the solid wall as if it were made of air.

Upon feeling the cold embrace of the floor with his head, the atmosphere felt different; he could not hear the blare of the northern winds, nor the yells Sigrid shouted. He, nonetheless, heard a faint creak.

During the couple of heartbeats he was on his back, Marek managed to glance at what looked like a wooden table swaying loose on the ice and shadowy outlines lying beyond a hole.

But self-preservation had greater priority than curiosity, and before his heart could beat a fifth time, Marek rolled upward and repositioned himself so he could face the enigmatic wall once more.

“Marc!” The pain in his ears told him that Sigrid was right beside him. Such an efficient warden. “What was that?!”

“I— I tripped and—”

“Your head! Half of it vanished!”

“It did?”

His free hand scurried up and frisked his head, all while his eyes remained glued ahead.

“It isn’t gone.”

“You don’t say!” His ears stung anew. “How did you do that?!”

“I have ideas.” Marek backstepped, wary of the mystery in front. Sigrid began imitating him, but after one step, she stopped. “Witchcraft most certainly. Product of the illusory doctrine. Who cast it? Hell if I know.”

He snatched the wrappings and slung them on his back in one swift action.

“Whoever made this is friend of none. Let’s dwell in this secret no longer. We’ll find another shelter.”

“... Wait.” Sigrid hooted softly, frustrating his attempt to escape.

“What?” He turned around, blinking and frowning. He noticed how Sigrid’s features had shifted from surprise to something that edged wonder, her posture more relaxed than seconds before. “Did you miss the moment my head moved past the ice—”

“A door… on the other side.”

“Is that what stops you from—” Marek stopped, words freezing in his throat. “—Hold on. Can you see past just fine?”

“It’s flimsy… but that door…” She padded closer, beak sniffing. “And that scent… They’re so familiar…”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Marek scrambled back to her. “You don’t know what lies beyond.”

“It’s weird, but… I— I think I do… As if I’ve seen it in a dream of sorts…”

A talon reached out for the wall — for what stood beyond the wall. Marek urged Sigrid to stop, barking between teeth, her senses obeyed nothing --- those were charmed by something invisible. After his warning proved to be futile, Marek had no choice but to bite down his frustration and unsheathe Iousterard.

Finally, the avian hand passed through the wall, the peculiar feeling making her silvery eyes dilate and her ears perk straight. Not satisfied with that, the advance continued, hand and forearm ensuing, then the shoulder and wing. Within seconds, only Sigrid’s tail, swaying idly from side to side, was visible to Marek.

Seconds ticked by without Sigrid saying a thing, so after licking his lips, Marek spoke. “Sig…” He urged, but the chimera did not react. “... Shit.”

He steeled himself and took one stride forward. The ambience changed anew, the cave growing isolated from the blare of the outside.

The first thing he noticed was the wooden piece that, just as Sigrid had said, was a door, one hanging off a hinge, leaving a one-foot gap that led to some sort of house.

The second thing he noticed was Sigrid, standing frozen beside, one talon flexing in the air, whereas the other clutched the fluff of her chest.

Her sight was unfocused, and shallow puffs of air whistled out of her beakholes. The most fearsome predator of the North seemed breathless and one push away from falling to her knees.

“Sig… do you know this place?”

“Yes, but no.” His brows winced at the nonanswer.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but…” The hand that flexed in the air moved to join the other in the secureness of her tuft. “I might have been there long ago.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————

A shard of silver in his ribs — Sharp, burning, teeth-clenching. The agony that pierced through life and death. It was an illustrative metaphor for what Madakai was currently experiencing.

Shatters and nuggets of ice rolled by and past his feet.

Of all the follies that Dalavut could have carried out, why had it chosen one that put a mountain between the vampire and its handle?

More chunks broke into pieces. Clawed and handless arms were plowing debris apart, sheer duty compelling the lieutenant to hollow out every inch of ice.

What was the Gift thinking?

Driving his bearer to self-extermination?

To kill the chimera so Madakai had a shot against the sellsword?

Madakai could not fathom what had driven the sword to perform that gambit. What was worse, its connection with the item seemed severed. The hum of the blade had been silenced.

The first time since he had awakened, Madakai stood alone.

A chunk as big as a cattle was flipped over, rumbling against the floor and breaking into pebbles. There was no treasure beneath it — only chunks bigger than that Madakai had just overturned.

He was truly looking for a needle in a haystack.

Dadless!

His fist slammed onto the ice, sending forth a sonorous ripple across the empty glacier, carving a web of cracks on the surface, and producing small-scale avalanches.

It took several eyeblinks for the reverberation to stop, and when crystal ice vibrated no more, an uneasy calm settled down like mist.

Survival over emotional bursts. Not chagrin but focus.

Each time the ice groaned — each time a shard broke off and ticked nearby — could mean an enemy lurked nearby, and whenever the wind currents lapped his withered skin, a subtle move foretelling the attacker.

…

He listened, his decayed ears acuter than wolves’. Ringed eyes cut through darkness, and smell was a vulture for blood.

Once danger was confirmed nonexistent, Madakai returned to the task at hand. His frustration was set to zero once again.

That had not been the first fit of the night. It was not going to be the last.

He sustained the rationalization that whatever setback caused by Dalavut had not been that disastrous.

Marek no longer held the sword, and he and his pet thought the vampire defeated, reduced to an unpleasant memory and nothing more.

All the time in the World was at the vampire’s disposal, finally free of the shackles that forced him to follow the lives of the eccentric duo.

Digging the sword was the only thing left, however tedious the task was. He just needed to claim it before a problematic monster caught him off guard.

… Dadless…

Such tedious were the duties of a champion.

Both a sword and a shovel at the service of greater powers.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The thud of boot sole against worked wood was a sound Marek did not expect to hear until after the journey was over.

Neither did he expect to find an abandoned residence next to where the World loses all warmth, let alone one deep into the biggest glacial wall of Gebaten.

Past the figment-hidden door, a living room had been discovered, one dimly illuminated by a source not derived from fire or celestial light and large enough to match the size of an inn’s lobby.

A _u-_shaped hardwood table rested in the center, its surface filled with countless receptacles, many of them felled and in bad shape, a few even shattered and sprayed on the floor.

Tall shelves stood in rows by the walls, each holding all sorts of items. Prints and pages were among the most common elements, blending with the intrusive snow as if part of a unique ecosystem.

Dereliction was evident, but for an abode isolated from civilization, it was well kept. Shoots! It even had a woolen seat, although judging by the cuts it bore, it looked like a wildcat had used it as a bed.

The entire place gave off a scent of bitterness and preservatives, as if a spice market had been there.

“... A laboratory of some sort…” Marek let out under his breath, most of it taken by the sight around him. “Deranged wizards. Moving into the arse of the World to practice their art in secrecy.”

“‘Labratory’…” Sigrid clunkily echoed, her features still giving away an air of wonder and nostalgia.

“Be watchful. I’d wager my ax this place houses at least one booby trap. Wizards spare no effort in— hey!”

A feathery form moving past the corner of his eye told Marek Sigrid was not listening.

“I used to see a place like this in my dreams…” She stretched both arms. One hand slid along the table, the other glided past the shelves. “But it has been no dream… It was — is — real.”

“Seolvor’s sake, Sig… Did you forget the spiders?”

“Too small for spiders…” She said as if she were assuring herself, too busy taking nosefuls of the air. “Even the smell of smashed roots and oiled flowers matches that of my dreams…”

Marek blinked in bafflement; then he shook his head and broke the stillness.

“We never learn, do we?”

Grumbling, Marek walked past the table, pacing parallel to Sigrid, every step measured with precise caution, ax-holding arm tense with anticipation.

First, eyes rolled to his left.

Strange lamps on the walls, shining faintly not with fire but with an amethyst-like gem. Marek knew about these gemstones, but could not push himself to remember their name.

On the shelves’ levels, books and empty spaces sit filled with frost and dust. Ore samples and herbal tests also shared space, and so did animal remains, a sight that varied from bone structures to fleshy parts preserved in vessels like pickles.

That explained the place’s fragrance.

So far so good — no burst of magical missiles in sight.

Eyes then rolled to his right.

Another clutter of research equipment and alambique-like apparatuses; also, a lot of pages, on and below the table, as numerous as dry leaves one could find on a cabin retreat’s porch during fall.

Half of the paper sheets were in bad condition, but others were still readable. Anatomical plates showcased all manner of northern beasts: wargs, fake wyverns, trolls, and… spiders! At least someone did his homework before leaving. A shame it never shared such crucial information.

Wherever his eyesight latched on, Marek saw scratch marks, as if a broom of knives had swiped through. Wooden surfaces and edges, the flood itself, across plates; even footstools had suffered the onslaught of these thin, superficial marks.

His survey ended short when he reached his side’s farthest corner. Against his predictions, everything looked safe. He would still be wary of opening a drawer, though.

When he turned to check on Sigrid, she was crouching low and brisking the torn seat; one of her fingers traced the length of its many rips, and the other hand tested what was left of its softness.

“I also remember this seat…” She hooted as she touched the wool, every noise laced with reminiscence. “I used to fit in my dreams. I’ve grown a bit…”

Marek watched Sigrid bonding with her past with a mix of empathy.

He would lie to himself if he denied any wonder aroused by her enigmatic past.

What was Sigrid? It was what he asked himself last night. It was wheeling in his mind right now, and with what he had witnessed, that philosophical idea had done nothing but swell.

Nevertheless, a hunch in his guts told him that such a discovery would not be as insightful as it would be controversial.

Movement arose in the furthest corner of his vision, and just then did Marek notice a worn curtain swaying quietly where a door should have been.

One room remained unchecked.

“Curtain…” The piece of cloth absorbed the entirety of the chimera’s attention, each soft waver of the fabrics an inviting hand gesture.

“I wonder…” She padded forward. “What other things I can—”

“Sigrid, wait.” Marek scooted right in the middle of Sigrid’s way. “I… I don’t think it’s wise to walk past those curtains.”

“Why?” Her head cocked ever so slightly. “I told you there are no spiders.”

“It’s not spiders that I’m worried about.” Marek paused to lick his lips. The ridge over his eyes looked stressed, as if supporting a mask of lead.

“I’m glad you have reconnected with a fragment of your past you weren’t aware of. The jolt of nostalgia might come as insightful, maybe even warmth, but… What would it be the same with hindsight in the middle?”

“What?” She hooted. “I don’t understand…”

Yeah. Me neither. “I mean… What if you found something… unpleasant?”

“My dream-memory things show nothing unpleasant. Please, Marc. Let me in. I cannot explain why, but this is important to me.”

I figured out that much.

Marek held the stare, a source that projected his inability to foresee what would happen, resisting the itch crawling down his nape.

There was a desire to prevent whatever was about to unfold, one that could not match the yearning for unearthing what lay behind the fabrics. That sharp, moon-like look embedded in a whitish mask was proof enough that any attempt to delay the inevitable was doomed to a failure.

At last, a cough-sigh signaled his surrender.

“Very well. Let’s peek in—”_ —For good or ill._

Marek shifted his weight backward and gave Sigrid space to move freely. There was no hesitation in her motions, and the scaly arm stretched to touch the cedar-colored curtains, taking one by the edge and unwillingly making dust and snow waft around.

The moment Marek finished blinking away the particles from his retinas, the mantle of linen lay drawn aside, revealing another sector of the mysterious shack.

For a fraction of a second, Marek observed how Sigrid’s pupils grew in diameter only for them to shrink anew, how the sway of her tail fell quiet before retaking its tempo, and how a ripple of bristliness traveled across her tuft.

She might have peeked first, but Marek was determined not to let her face whatever lay ahead alone. If the past was to be undusted, they would do so together.

Thus, with the inner side of his cheek between his teeth, the man approached the curtain, caught it by the edge, and pulled it apart so he could peer inside.

There were no gem lamps present — the only illumination available was that which seeped through the gaps and tears in the curtain. Still, he could observe that the floor was a mess, just like the rest of the abode.

But as his vision ventured deeper, he caught sight of shrublike elements, dozens of twigs scattered near the end, right below a hump of sticks.

A structure made of hundreds and hundreds of branch strands, arranged into a circle the size of a wishing fountain, covered by a layer of softer cover.

A nest, no doubt.

And on the top, two peculiar adornments: cyan husks reminiscent of porcelain shards and balls of fuzz bearing fawn and snow colors.

Finally, the pressure of uncertainty bent his brows and raised his chin.

The linen crumpled under his grip, and his mouth jacked up and fell a couple of times before settling up in a tight grimace.

Such was the revelation that the man ignored Sigrid crouching past his side until she was one arm away from the nest.

“A nest… I once had a nest of my own…” Her arm stretched forward, her demeanor clearly hesitant but beguiled.

Contact happened, followed by the crunching of sticks.

“It’s birch… And some kind of straw.” The talon crumpled the sticks, testing their form. “It never occurred to me to create a nest with these things.”

Marek swallowed a wad of saliva, built obliviously until then, and stepped forward.

When he stopped by her left, Sigrid’s attention had already changed — now the immature feathers were calling for her interest.

“These used to be mine,” she took a sample between her nails. “There was barely any white on it. I was more muddish back then, even more so than my summer coat. So small. So delicate. So coote.”

After taking in the quill sample’s scent, focus shifted again — shell fragments now inviting her to grab them, which was what the chimera just did after hopping into the nest.

“This is… this is an eggshell. I came from an _egg. _Imbi has been right all along.” There was genuineness mixed with her words. Had that been a mystery that confounded her for so long?

She flipped the piece to examine it from another angle. “The surface… It looks wrinkly, like a troll’s elbow. Strange-strangy…”

Sigrid lost herself in the vestiges of her past, seeing an owlette in the texture of broken eggshells and interwoven twigs. Marek, on the other hand, chose to see what Sigrid had omitted out of eagerness — the rest of the room.

Most distinctions it once retained from the previous room had been eroded by time. Nonetheless, with only two desks with vast space left unoccupied, he deduced this place was less about experimentation and more about observation.

Dully hidden by shadows, the walls and even the ceiling had patterns carved in certain places. Those were magic sigils — spells fed by instruction and given written form. Marek could not decipher their former functions, and every single one of them had their magic reserves long drained.

“Marc…” His sight rolled back to Sigrid; she kept the coriander shard in her hands. “Do you… think I was separated from wherever I belonged and brought here?”

“That’s… It’s complicated.”

“And this place—” her eyes abandoned the eggshell and checked out the surroundings. “—No other hooman shack I’ve seen looks like this. So many books. So many… weird stuff.”

Before Marek could speak his mind, Sigrid pointed her sight toward his. “You called it labratory, right? What’s that?”

“Laboratory. A building intended for research and experimentation. Many arts are practiced within these facilities, and this one practiced wizardry, or so it seems.”

“Research. Experimentation. Wizardly. Complex, complex,” she thoughtfully glanced at the eggshell before resuming eye contact. “Whoever owned this place must have researched me, practiced experimentation and wizardry on me.

“What could a wizard desire to do with me? Imbi told me about these witches and their nasty rituals… Was I going to be sacrificed to bring demons? Or perhaps, to feed cold ones?”

“...” Marek’s mouth was a flat line.

“Marc.” Sigrid crept in Marek’s direction. “You know wizards more than anybody else. One raised you as his youngling. What did the wizard want? Can you understand all this place? Discover where I come from?”

“I… don’t know if I should, Sig.”

Silvery eyes blinked in bafflement. “W-why?”

Indeed. Why?

Did not Sigrid have the right to know her very origin? Not even that — his thoughts had not matured past the caterpillar that was a hypothesis, one merely constructed by borrowing Aurelio’s past teachings.

There was no way to prove what he had theorized.

Yet, were his ideas to become voice, could he disprove them? So far, the gears of his mind had failed in accomplishing such a task.

“Marc…” Too lost in thought was he that his eyes failed to pick up Sigrid rising tall before him. The moonshine of her orbs shone like the flames of a phare over his head, the two beaming with conficted emotions.

“What do you know? Tell me, please.”

One of them, he could tell, was apprehension.

His neutral expression melted before her plea. He then lowered his head and, after letting out two coughs so they would not interrupt him later on, he bent low and sat on the nest’s edge.

“Here,” the twigs popped as his palm patted his side. “I need you to listen.”

Sigrid caught the gesture and lowered herself, sitting on her butt with legs crossed in a v.

Before letting the next chapter unfold, a tongue traced Marek’s dry lips. “... I developed a theory… About this place… About you.”

“And what do you think it is?"

Breathe in. Breathe out.

“In my years under the tutelage of a spellcaster, I learned that not every occultist is satisfied with just learning more spells. Several settle for a greater goal; they desire to contribute with something more tangible than mere recipes and rituals.”

Semi-slouched, he cast a sideglance at Sigrid. She looked no different than that one time he was naked in the wild.

“Beyond a controlled environment, beyond a library, laboratories are workshops. In a workshop, artists paint paintings. Carpenters carve furniture. Tailors weave dresses. For occultists, these places aren’t that different, though they found little utility in such things.

“Rather, they spent resources to create life. The motive is not always the same. They might be looking for helpers, minions, slaves, or even sentient weapons. Purpose is as variable as their form. In general, they go by the name of homunculi.”

“Hoomonk— culy?”

He tilted straight. “This is a mere theory of mine, Sig, and I want to let you know that whatever mage had inhabited this place had nothing to do with what you are.”

“I… don’t understand.” Sigrid’s unnaturally stiff posture told Marek that she managed to savor a hint of truth between the recipe of words he had tossed her.

Hard swallow, audible for those who bear lupine ears. “What I’m trying to say is that this place’s former owner did not only study you. He did more than experiment with you—”

Berthram once told him that Sigrid might have been a Spirit.

The first time Marek saw her, he thought she might be a spawn of a long-gone species.

After several days travelling together, Marek had begun to think Berthram and his’ theories held the same amount of truth.

“—Sigrid. This place was not only your first home—”

But there, sitting inside a well of wonders, a workshop of questions, he realized Berthram, himself, and possibly any other settler in the North had been most certainly wrong.

“—It is your birthplace. ”

He saw a ripple surging across her mane, her irises growing twofold, and her head backing imperceptibly.

“The very intent behind this facade of tables, shelves, and vessels, I believe, had been _you. _You are a living being created out of occult arts.”

He had not screamed — his voice calm and firm like wind across the prairie. Throughout the whole disclosure, he remained impassive, holding back any cough that might have destroyed his resolve.

Yet, deep inside, he felt he had burst with ire, as if any word was purposely fashioned to hurt her as it was to mock her very existence.

It was like driving Dalavut deep into her all over again, except he had full control and awareness of his actions.

When silence settled between the two, it felt like a pause after a firecracker.

Cold could not keep a sweat from breaking off his forehead. As for the monstress, without any of her animalesque demeanor or birdlike chirps, reading the air around her was next to impossible.

The silver within her orbs merely gave off quivers.

After an unnerving twinkling, her beak jacked open “... I’m created.” Eyes left Marek to see the eggshell once more.

“Created in a laboratory… By a hooman.”

Marek could do nothing but hear intently, every fold of his face wrinkled with sympathy. Why did he have to be so bad in these situations?

“I— I don’t know what to think….”

“Sigrid, I—”

“Are you saying… Am I a ‘monkculy?”

“It’s… It’s a theory. It isn’t something I can confirm, but—”

“But it’s one you believe.”

He averted his sight, suddenly ashamed. “... This place has all the earmarks of being a wildlife specialist. Bones, plates, organs in flasks. Aurelio’s teaching tells that much… Sorry.”

Another halt ghosted past the two.

“... I still don’t know what to think. Will… will anything change?”

Marek’s eyelids, until then drawn low by shame, jerked wide; then, he spun in her direction.

“No,” he moved one hand to hers. “Whether what your true origin is, nothing changes what’s between us. I— _We, _Imbi and I, will love you regardless.”

“Not that.” Almost a screech, her voice brought silence to the room for a couple of eyeblinks. “My… my creator left me on my own. I was abandoned in a place not made for me. All these instances where I battled a warg or a manticore… was that the wizard’s plan? Was I created to be their enemy?

“The hate monsters have toward me… The fear humans _have of me. That— that might be the purpose my creator had for me. Antagonize—” Her hands and shell began to quiver. “Predate—” Then, a muted _crack. “Kill.”

“No, no, Sig. Whatever he intended is not relevant. Everything you have done was because of survival.”

“It doesn’t matter… I’m a one-kind species. Not even the vixen or the cold ones are like that. Whether with humans or wildness, I fit nowhere… I was created to not fit…”

“Sigrid,” he moved his other hand on top of the other. He tried to make her look at him, but they were locked on the shard that used to be the matrix of her being. “That’s not true. You found affection with Saku, Imbi, and me. You befriended a warg, something no monster has achieved during the entirety of the Frostscape’s history.”

“...” Only her beakholes emitted sound.

“Sig, I beg you. Look at me…”

“...” She clammed up, knees clipping together and pressing against her chest, and wings closing in and over like some sort of shield.

Marek failed to keep the comfort of his hands around her talons.

Why was this task given to him? Bringing solace was not his forte. At this point, Seolvor should have known that. It was the only field of expertise where he deemed himself a failure.

His back slouched, and his lips released a deep sigh, a half-cough leaking along the way.

Hushness, that so unbearable ghost, was taking dominance. Marek could not allow that to happen, not when Sigrid needed him the most.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Earlier. When the spiders attacked, I said it aloud, didn't I? What had caused Aurelio’s death.” Askance, he noticed flinching but nothing more. “Forgive me. It had never been my intention to hide it from you. It’s just… I could not bear the shame.”

Both hands interlocked fingers and rose to hold the weight of his head by the chin.

“After the tragedy, I’ve fled like never before. Those deemed minimally friendly by me never saw me again. How could I show my face after what I had done? I went into solitude, indulging in the life of some… scoundrel. I did not want to see another blade in my life, and so I stored Iousterard and got rid of Dalavut.

“Back then, I had decided that the old me, responsible for Aurelio’s death, was a shadow that could only be killed by a self-destructive lifestyle. What remained of that man was not worth dying for the blade…”

Rekindling these memories always felt like drilling a dirk in his ribs. His recent skirmish with Dalavut had fanned the ashes, burning anew with embers of remorse. It felt like these days happened last tenday.

His cheek cooled, and he assumed a tear was running free across his skin. One hand detached from the other with the intent of cleaning the tear, but before it could brush anything clean, a velvety wisp went ahead.

His head tilted, and there he saw her, intensely staring at him, her mask drenched with sympathy.

“... Thanks.” He sent forth a clunky grin.

“... It was not your fault. You had no control back then. The nasty blade passed its hunger on to you.”

“Yes… I know better now.” He began to fidget and caress Sigrid’s remiges. “I guess my message has been clear, right? I could at least put up a fight against the blade’s domain, but you? You have not even been born.

“You don’t have to feel bad for something you had never controlled.”

Sigrid fell silent, holding her empathic stare for a few eyeblinks before focusing on the piece of egg.

“... Aren’t you disappointed in me being a ‘monkculy?”

“Well, my theory about you being related to the Spirits of folklore now lies in shambles. But, disappointed? Not a sliver of it. Actually, I’m quite impressed by the wizard’s work.”

Sigrid cocked her head, but before she could ask what he meant by that sentence, gloved hands clasped around her claws.

“I’ve seen many homunculi throughout my mercenary career. They are mindless servants, with nothing but woven commands behind their eyes. But you? Your eyes reflect a soul, Sig. And it’s the most beautiful shine I’ve seen.”

Her mane grew puffy, and her moonlike eyes sparked wide.

“Were my theory to become true, that means you’re a masterwork of magic, Sigrid. No one short of divine influence could create something like you.”

The fondness of his words finally bent whatever distressed her into submission. When her beak shut, her eyes smiled.

“... You’re always so amazing, Marc.” She closed the distance and ran her beak across the man’s mouth corner. “Thank you again. I know it was difficult for you to say all this.”

Oh, how well she knows me. “Seolvor gives no break to his greatest champions.”

Her head shifted until it now rested on the man’s shoulder. “He will. You— we have a break right now.”

An embrace started, a test for the energies they both had left. After a twinkling melting into each other’s embrace, a yawn hummed in Marek’s ear. It was the first time Marek had heard her yawn, and the pitch was too adorable. By all purposes, she sounded like a pup.

Yawns were contagious, and instants later, Marek’s mouth was chanting with its own desire for sleeping.

“I’m sleepy…”

He nodded. “Me, too.”

“... We haven’t eaten…” She was teetering on the spot.

“I— haawh— have no hunger…”

Crnnsh.

The nest popped and rattled under the weight of a chimera flopping down on her back.

“Join meee,” she warbled before yawning her beak wide open.

“... Sure.” The only delay came from his drowsiness.

He fell sprawled on his side as mutely as possible, face and rest of his body aligned with Sigrid, the latter missing no beat in stretching one wing over her lover.

“Will you… March tomorrow?” She could not even keep her eyes open. None of them could.

“... No. Tomorrow… We rest…”

“Will you—” A low churr “—bathe? Spider blood is quite… smelly…”

“I’ll… see what I can do…”

A persecution involving manticores.

A swarm of spiders.

The machinations of a damned item.

Unearthing mysteries of the past.

All these factors caught up with the duo and were finally taking their toll.

It was not long before warrior and monstress, sharing their breath and warmth in that bed of twigs, sank into dreams.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Dawn was emerging. The Gods of the blazing sphere were back to tend their watch.

The lightbeams leaking through the glacier had passed from having cool colors to those of the morning. Harmless to everyone but the undead, which could not interpret them in other way but fire pillars.

A copious amount of ice had been shoveled and moved aside, enough to fill seven carriages. A miraculous amount for one orc, but a depressing number for one vampire.

Icy teeth had nipped at his hand, tearing his skin layer by layer until the first hints of muscle were exposed — at that rate, he would need to pause and go out to absorb blood to regrow muscle and skin tissue.

Even more delays.

Even more risks.

Never crossed his mind that, a week after returning, he would pass the next century looking for a treasure buried under a wrecked glacier.

Few times did the prospect of immortality seem wearisome, but that morning, sempiternity was both a shackle and a pikeaxe.

Dadless…

The rumble of rolling ice became continuous, a clear substitute for the hum of blood that his ears used to have millennia ago.

By the sound alone, he could determine size, mass, shape, how far it went, and how deep it fell. No chunk moved without sneaking past the awareness of his senses.

It was the only way to tell metal apart from ice.

Mrrrm-ssshh.

His hand stopped on the fly, dropping frozen while his nails grazed ice.

A new pitch, one he could not ascertain its features except by one: its underice origin.

Shhrrr-mmrr.

Nail touched ice no more. The chunks moved further from him, sinking away, as if the very core were sipping the debris from the depths.

Still, no reaction.

Utter expectancy held the vampire in place, rings glued to the crater, deeper by the seconds.

Hrrsh.

Everything stopped. The hole enlarged no more.

But the air of anticipation remained dense, and his golden gaze intense.

One pebble rolled by the distance, and the irises flickered like fire.

A surge of motion erupted.

Literally.

Madakai had been one hair away from being caught in a burst of snow and shards as the cavity exploded.

The evasion sent him seven yards from where he was digging, stooped on one knee, and with his sole hand anchored to the floor.

Skreee!

A stridulation rose and, when the screen of snow dissipated, so did two long appendages.

Vermin-like.

Spiky.

Wretched.

Sch-shree!

The comeling saved itself the theatrics of its arrival, and within seconds, was present in all its wounded glory.

Two legs short, with another three twisted in unnatural ways. Its own ichor permeated it like perfume, and all manner of shards were embedded into its exoskeleton. Its fangs were veteran weapons, free of all damage and slick with noxious substance.

However bruised the humongous spider stood, its might was not to be taken lightly. By all means, encountering a beast like that was nothing short of ill-omened.

But for Madakai, the whole experience was a reality apart from common sense.

He froze, but not because of the arachnid.

His very senses captured, but not out of wariness.

The spider had become a background element — the object of his entrancement was what rested atop the creature, like a crown of obsidian fuming with bloodmist.

Belagged so early, Madakai?

His mutilated face twitched in an attempt to smile. The vermin crawled closer, eager to punish a scapegoat, each movement the flash of a nightmare.

Yet, he kept smiling.

Thought thee patience.

But besee thee.

Astonishing.

What hath been of thine timeless patience?

Why so desperate?

A castigation of some manner.

So it had been that. It all clicked.

The way he lost connection with Dalavut was not because of an external factor.

The sword had simply chosen to ignore him out of childish punishment. Dalavut wanted Madakai to feel what the sword felt — helpless, disquieted, and alone.

Such demeanor would earn the disdain of the vampire lieutenant, as he himself had punished underlings precisely because of such dirty tricks, but did he lose anything besides time?

The treasure he had been coveting since his awakening now lay in front of him, a crown waiting to be claimed by an heir. What was there to stop him?

Shrk-shree.

Oh, silly him — he almost forgot the spider.

Well, the hard part was done. What was a banged-up spider compared to the sellsword and his pet?

The gap between the two shrank, and the queen drove one leg forward. Broken as it was, the attack might as well be a whip with the blur it left in its wake; the speed was nothing the vampire had not dealt with before, and his own swiftness pushed him several feet away.

Warmth — The harmful kind. Madakai had just stopped into a lightray, and his back was scorched with a line of burnt flesh.

The environment served the broken queen. Be cautious. No time for mistakes.

Leg strikes blared by his side, blowing arcs of ice particles each time they failed, and given their opponent, misses abounded.

Madakai spent more time avoiding the avalanches and flying debris than the legs themselves. He ducked, evaded, and sidestepped dozens of times, but delivered no counterattack of his own, preferring to await the right moment to strike back.

Be cautious. No time for mis—

Playing patient? Bore me not.

Hasten.

Lapse of thought, a focus broken — a leg swing landed on Madakai’s thigh, taking a chunk of his flesh and clothes and dashing him across the rugged terrain. Inhuman reaction prevented further damage after he turned the throw into a safety roll, but whatever his progression to gain the upper hand lay undone.

Cocky piece of metal. Was it aware that the vampire’s failure meant centuries of solitude?

No patience. Thou art immortal.

Use immortality.

Really? Pushing him into recklessness? When time favored him?

Early brid eateth. Late brid starveth.

So that was it: Dalavut still put blame on the vampire’s lack of initiative for their past failures.

Very well — Madakai could accept the penitence.

Anything not to dig for the next generations.

The queen finally caught Madakai under the predatory gaze of her many eyes and, amid jerky movements, drove her scythe-like fangs into the vampire.

He could have sidestepped or leaped out of the way, but it was time to show the blade he had initiative.

The floor burst into a cloud of snow particles, and the nearby debris skipped in place. When the cloud fanned out, Madakai stood firm beneath the mouth of the queen. One arm held the chelicerae, forcing the curved fang away, but his handless hand had not been up to the task.

Bending past the arm, one fang found its way into his shoulder. Venom flowed like wine, a dose strong enough to kill five warhorses.

Yet, Madakai felt nothing. Whether it was blood, poison, or air made no difference — his veins were as dried as the cracks of a canyon.

His response was swift, and his hand bent the chelicerae upward so the fang pointed forward. Next, he pushed behind until the fang was no longer impaled in him. Once free, his hand twirled the scythe on its root so it pointed sideways.

The invertebrate beast screeched in agony, shaking and stumbling on the few legs left, but never stopped driving herself over Madakai, trying to use its own weight as a last resort.

The outcome was nothing short of pitiful, and Madakai, making use of his wraithlike skill to escape danger, bent low and slipped out of the spider’s reach. Sliding like a shadow, skittering like vermin, he got around the desperate onslaught until he managed to crawl up the beast’s abdomen.

Before the queen could realize, he stood at the same level as the Gift of Nedere, one movement away from reclaiming the longsword.

Take thy tree.

Thine exigencies art unwarranted.

There was no hesitation. No moment of gawking. No lapse to savor the forces of the Netherworld permeating its handle.

Amid the critter’s pain throes and erratic jerks, Madakai strode forward and coiled his thin fingers around the darkened metal.

Touching the handle was one step below ecstasy.

Like a parched man submerging his hands in spring water — the thirst was still there, but now he had all the means to satiate it.

Now, the longsword would serve its true purpose. And so it would be the spider.

The blade twisted, sank deeper, wringing the life out of the agonizing spider. Her life force was being dried and transmuted into nethereal fuel.

The blur of pain embedded in his body by silver shards seemed to ease down for the first time. There was fire on the stumps where his severed limbs used to be, and ripples of nethereal forces ran across his worn muscles.

It was ambrosial. It was vermin ooze that he was consuming, yet it felt so ambrosial.

It came in waves, invigorating surges that pushed him closer to his old self. The suffering of millennia, erased by the blood of one single monster.

But on the way the waves came, they disappeared.

When the embers of renewal died down, the spider queen lay motionless below his feet, and Dalavut held steady on his left hand, humming with malice.

He remained as wretched as before: his hand and jaw were still missing, and his body fat was as absent as his clothes.

The bane healed him a bit, as superficial injuries were gone, including the recent burn on his back, but it was evident that one wounded monster was not enough to recover his prime.

_Apaid? _ It teased.

For a feast to cheer my return, it hath felled short.

Gobble-gut.

That is rich, coming from thee.

A pulsive series of hums in his thoughts told him the weapon was having a good time.

Thy Gift provideth.

Expect, thy feast is yet to begin.

Ticks. Faint at first but growing steadily until the glacier was filled with them.

Behind the shadows, past the beams of light, from every tiny crack on the ice, vermin grouped into battalions. Ranks and ranks of many-legged soldiers boiled with resentment, all ready to avenge the fall of their mother.

These donnot fear thine presence.

Vermin fear no Nedere. Fearless. Mindless.

Fear vermin? Mind feasting upon vermin?

The horde approached, the number of shiny dots increasing twofold with each second.

… No.

Then feast.

Make us strong.

With a grotesque half-grin embedded on his face, Madakai pulled one fencing stunt before adopting a stance, one worthy of greeting a tsunami of spiders.

I have not envisioned it in any other way.

When the number of spiders rose to the point their bodies blocked the sources of light, the depths looked like a sea of glassy stars surrounding one pair of gilt rings, a curve of scarlet flaring by their side.

During the time of the Gods, the Princes of the Netherworld would feast upon the souls of insects.

What banquet lay in the store for when the Gods watched no more?

The prospect made them drool and bare their maws like hungry beasts.