The Volgari wind howled against my ears, pelting ice against my cheeks. Dragomir’s grip had gone slack, his frame heavy and inert. He was slipping, and every ragged gasp he pulled into his lungs sent a fresh pang of ice through my own. Milena’s scream, already distant, was the only thing cutting through the white noise of my panic.
“Borscht!” I snapped, shoving Dragomir’s arm over my shoulder, forcing his dead weight upright. “Track it. Now!”
The six-legged ferret, normally prone to sulking, took one look at my face and scrambled, a blur of rust-colored fur, toward the splintered hole Milena had vanished through. His segmented tail twitched, a tiny compass pointing into the encroaching gloom.
“Hold on, Rostova,” I grunted, practically dragging Dragomir. His skin burned against mine, a furnace of fever. The shared pain of his poisoned state bit into my own ribs, but the thought of Milena getting devoured drove my boots forward.
We stumbled into the frozen woods, Borscht a tiny, frantic guide. The beast left a trail, not of footprints in the snow, but of absolute silence. No crunch of ice, no rustle of dried leaves, just an unnatural stillness that sucked the sound from the air, leaving behind an echoing void. This wasn’t just a monster; it was a wound in reality.
Borscht led us deeper, past skeletal trees coated in rime, until the ground sloped sharply downward. A dark fissure opened in the earth, belching cold, stale air that smelled of ozone and damp stone. A maintenance tunnel, one of the countless arteries that tapped into the fortress's deep core-network.
The tunnel was a cramped, winding affair, carved roughly from the frigid rock. Glowing runes, ancient wards against rock-slides and frost-mites, flickered erratically, casting dancing shadows that played tricks on my eyes. Dragomir leaned heavily against me, his steps faltering, his heavy cloak brushing against my leg like a shroud.
“Cold,” he mumbled, his voice hoarse, his breath pluming in the frigid air. “So cold.”
I bit back a retort, focusing on the rhythmic clang of our boots on the metallic grate underfoot. The air grew thicker, charged with arcane static. We were nearing the core-network, an arterial web of pipe-lines that harvested magic from slain beasts and channeled it into Koldan’s defenses.
Borscht skittered to a halt, pointing a claw at a massive, circular chamber ahead. A low, guttural hum vibrated through the rock. The chamber was a maelstrom of light, with thick glass pipelines the size of tree trunks crisscrossing the ceiling, plunging into a central obsidian pillar that throbbed with captured beast-magic. And there, wrapped in tendrils of swirling darkness, was Milena.
She hung suspended, her head lolling, her sniper rifle a useless ornament at her feet. The beast pulsed around her, a formless mass of ink and despair, its tendrils sinking into the conduits, siphoning the liquid brilliance directly from the city’s lifeline. It grew, expanding, its shadowy form absorbing the ambient light, making the runes around us flicker and die.
Dragomir, despite his weakened state, drew his blade. It pulsed with a faint, angry glow, a mirror of his own fading shadow-magic. He lunged, a roar tearing from his raw throat, but the beast melted away, becoming one with the encroaching darkness. His blade passed through empty air, clanking uselessly against the obsidian pillar.
“It’s incorporeal,” I breathed, a horrible realization dawning. “You can’t hit it.”
The beast solidified for a moment, forming a mocking, eyeless face from the shadows, before dissolving again. It was playing with us, savoring the stolen power, letting us watch as it drained the city dry.
Dragomir staggered, clutching his ribs, his face ash-pale.
“I have an idea,” I said, steadying my breathing. “It needs an anchor. A physical form to truly absorb the core’s power. It’s using Milena, but not fully. Not yet.”
Dragomir’s gaze, though clouded by fever, sharpened, fixing on my face. “What are you thinking, Zivana?” he managed, his voice a ragged whisper.
“It infected me before,” I said, extending my arm, the same arm that had been pierced in the cavern. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer of dark energy still clung to it, a scar of the beast’s previous touch. “I’m bait. I can draw it out. Anchor it. Give you something to hit.”
He recoiled, staring at me in raw horror. “No. I won’t let it–”
“You have to,” I cut him off, my voice firm. “It’s the only way. For Milena. For Koldan. For us.” I looked him square in the eye, pouring every ounce of my will, every fragment of my desperate trust, into that gaze. “You won’t hurt me this time. You’ll save me.”
Before he could protest further, I took a step forward, then another, intentionally exposing my arm, focusing on that tiny, dormant speck of corruption within me. It felt like walking into a freezing lake, the chill seeping into my bones. The shadow-beast, sensing my intent, detached itself from the conduits, a silent, hungry predator. It flowed toward me, a river of night, swirling around my outstretched arm.
It felt like a thousand icy needles piercing my skin, then a cold, crushing weight. The familiar sensation of the beast’s essence flooding my being, the alien thoughts and hunger blossoming in my mind. The world twisted, colors blurring, the cavern spinning. It was happening again. The possession. My past life, replaying in agonizing detail. This time, I welcomed it. I fought the urge to scream, to recoil, to pull away.
“Now!” I bellowed, the word tearing from my lungs, half mine, half the beast’s, a guttural sound I barely recognized. “Dragomir! Strike! Do it!”
He stood frozen, his blade shaking, his face a mask of agony. The ghost of my previous demise locked his shoulders tight.
No. Not this time. Not again.
I closed my eyes, focusing inward, pushing through the beast’s encroaching control. I channeled my absolute trust, my desperate need, my complete lack of fear *of him*, through the Soul-Tether, flooding his mind with it. *You won’t murder me. You will save me.* The words weren’t spoken, but *felt*, a raw, undeniable surge of conviction.
His body shuddered. A guttural roar erupted from his chest, primal and raw, a sound of agony and resolve. His blade, a living extension of his will, ignited with searing, black energy. He moved, a whirlwind of motion, plunging the crackling weapon forward, aiming for the beast, for me, for the source of it all. The blade tore through the shadows, sinking deep. I felt the searing cold of the beast’s essence, and then a shocking, agonizing tear through my own flesh as the blade, true to its mark, pierced not just the monster, but my arm, my very being, at the exact same moment. A blinding blast of black flame ripped through the cavern.