A thin wisp of smoke curled upward, twisting into the pale, bone-cold sky. The fire crackled with quiet confidence beneath the rocky ridge, a sharp contrast to the deep silence of the mountains around them. The faint scent of seared meat mingled with the scent of snow, smoke, and blood.
Kael chewed slowly on a strip of freshly cooked meat, savoring its warmth even as his body ached from the ordeal. Across the fire, Lethan sat with his back straight against a slab of stone, his gray eyes reflecting the firelight. His posture was relaxed, his breathing even, and for the first time since Kael had seen him, there was an ease in his manner, as if the earlier tension had drained away, leaving only calm in its place.
"You seem different now," Kael said, breaking the silence. His voice was low, still scratchy with exhaustion. "More… alive."
Lethan gave a faint smile. He tore a bite from his own strip of meat, chewing thoughtfully before speaking. "I feel different. Cleaner, in a way."
"That's nice to hear." Kael said, returning a gentle smile of his own.
They didn't say much after that, focused entirely on the sizzling meat crackling over the fire. Exhaustion still clung to both of them like a second skin. Kael couldn't move much at all, his leg stiff and bound with a crude bandage Lethan had tied there.
That left most of the work to Lethan.
Not that there was much left to do. He had found a hiding spot under a thick, rocky ridge, a perfect shelter from the wind and snow that had begun to sweep across the mountains. After ensuring Kael was safe and mostly hidden, he'd vanished into the night.
Kael had been surprised when Lethan returned not even forty minutes later, carrying a gray-furred mountain goat slung over his shoulder. It wasn't just the speed of the hunt that had startled Kael, it was the fact that it was still night, the weather had turned worse, and Lethan had managed it all while dressed in little more than a pair of ragged, ill-fitting pants he'd scavenged from the ruins. His shredded cloak was tied loosely around his waist, adding a rough silhouette to his already gaunt frame.
Even bare-chested in the snow, with the icy wind tugging at his white hair, Lethan had returned without so much as a shiver.
Kael found himself glancing at him again now, wondering what exactly had changed in the man. He'd seemed... not just alive, but strangely comfortable.
"So…" Kael began, dragging his gaze away from the fire and back to Lethan, "what exactly happened down there, in the ruin?"
Lethan's hands stilled for a moment, a sliver of amusement flickering in his gray eyes. He finished chewing his mouthful of meat before answering, his voice calm, almost casual.
"Well, it was a tough fight between that party and the beast."
Kael arched a brow. "Did they kill it?"
A flicker of a smile tugged at the corner of Lethan's lips, sharp and faintly smug. "No. I did."
Kael blinked, stunned. "You— what?"
"I killed it," Lethan said, as though it were obvious. He shrugged a shoulder, utterly nonchalant. "It was in the way."
Kael blinked rapidly. "So… why didn't you kill it while it was chasing us?!"
Lethan chewed on his meat thoughtfully, then tilted his head as if considering. "Couldn't."
"Couldn't?" Kael echoed, his brow furrowing.
"Something in the ruin changed," Lethan said simply, his tone matter-of-fact. "Something in me snapped back into place. I remembered how to use this echo of mine."
Kael stared at him, his expression twisted somewhere between disbelief and exasperation. "You're saying you remembered mid-fight how to use your powers, and just decided to take down that abomination after that?"
Lethan gave a one-shouldered shrug, as if it were no big deal. "More or less."
Kael covered his face with one hand, muffling a groan. "On the altar of the Nine Saints, you're unbelievable."
Lethan's smirk widened just slightly.
Kael dropped his hand and shook his head. "Okay, fine. So you killed it. But what about the Iron Ledger? How did we even manage to slip away?"
Lethan's smile faded into something cooler, more calculating. "Oh, them? They retreated. The fight was too devastating."
Kael squinted, skeptical. "They just left?"
"They sustained too many injuries," Lethan said, tone light but with an undertone of certainty. "Didn't want to push any further and risk more losses. Besides…" He leaned back against the rocky wall, his gray eyes reflecting the firelight. "I might've given them the impression that pressing forward would be… unwise."
Kael let out a low whistle, shaking his head. "That's... lucky."
"Still," he said after a moment, "we can't stay here forever. The Iron Ledger might regroup, and their power doesn't amount to only the six that entered the ruin."
Lethan nodded, his expression turning serious. "You have a plan?"
Kael pressed his lips together, tightening his mouth before speaking. "Hargrave. It's the nearest city. South of here. We can reach it in two days if the weather sides with us."
Lethan tilted his head slightly. "Hargrave?"
"Big city. Walled. Plenty of places to disappear if you know where to look. I… know a few places. And a few people who might help." He exhaled softly before continuing. "Hargrave's also where the Teryn household holds power. I used to work for them. And then I didn't."
For a brief moment, the weight of those words lingered in the air between them, heavy with the unsaid. The fire crackled, the snow whispered, and the night stretched on, waiting.
Finally, Kael leaned back, his breath coming out in a long, thin plume. "We'll move at dawn. hopefully they lose our track."
* * * * *
Dawn broke with a reluctant glow, staining the snow-bound mountains in muted gold and gray. The storm had calmed, leaving the world eerily still save for the occasional hiss of snow slipping from a heavy branch or the distant creak of ice settling in the rocks.
Lethan and Kael made slow progress, southward, their breath rising in pale clouds as they moved down a narrow slope lined with ice-rimed evergreens. Kael was limping due to his wound but as long as he walked slowly it was merely an inconvinience.
The air was sharp enough to make Kael's teeth ache with each inhale, but Lethan walked as if the cold were no more than a mild inconvenience. Bare-chested save for the ragged cloak tied around his waist, his skin had flushed slightly pink from exertion, but he showed no signs of shivering.
Kael grumbled quietly as he tightened his cloak around his shoulders. "Aren't you cold?"
"Not really," he replied. "It's like my body… adjusts itself. I think my Echo protects me from the cold."
Kael shot him a sidelong glance. "Right. So apart from keeping yourself toasty, what else are you hiding in that freakshow of an echo? Or is that it?"
His voice carried a hint of dry humor, the man couldn't contain himself from speaking out of his mind. His legs ached from the slow descent through the snow-covered pass, and his mind was stretched thin by cold.
As the weather settled down, Kael couldn't help but wonder who he had really saved. He certainly didn't regret it but the white haired man was veiled by too many mysteries which he himself didn't have an answer to.
Lethan stopped at the edge of a narrow ledge where the rock jutted out over a slope of snow-dusted trees below. He crouched, drawing a finger across his own arm. The cut was shallow, a thin line of crimson welling up.
Kael's expression tightened. "The hell are you doing?"
"Showing you," Lethan said simply.
The blood pooled on his skin, and Lethan's gray eyes flickered, not entirely crimson now but tainted faintly with red nuances. He extended his hand toward the ledge.
The blood lifted, stretching from the cut like liquid iron drawn by a magnet. It coiled, thickening into a thin lance that shimmered faintly in the pale light of the sun.
Kael's breath caught as he watched the thread of blood extend farther, growing taut as it lashed toward a rock nearby. It struck with a wet, solid snap, slicing a shallow line into the stone.
"The blood I control is stronger the fresher it is," Lethan explained, standing. "Dried blood's useless. It loses cohesion. But new blood—" he flexed his hand, and the line of blood snapped back to his palm like a whip, leaving only a faint smear on the rock. "—new blood's like a tether. Strong, fluid. The more of it, the stronger I can make it. Distance is a limit too, though. I can't pull it from too far, maybe a few meters at best."
Kael's gaze narrowed. "So you need to see it to control it."
Lethan nodded, wiping the blood absently on the snow to clean his hand. "Exactly. If I can't see it, it's out of my reach. That's why I started with my own."
"You're insane," Kael muttered, but his voice lacked real bite.
Lethan's lips curled into a faint, almost bitter smile as he crouched, ducking under a low arch of frostbitten tree roots. "Well. I've thought about it, a lot of times I won't have access to fresh blood other than mine. In a way that is the drawback of my ability, for how deadly it is to my enemies it is to me as well."
Kael hesitated for a moment before following, ducking his head as he passed beneath the icy arch. The gravity of Lethan's words lingered in the thin, cold air.
For a few steps, neither spoke, the only sounds the soft crunch of snow beneath their boots and the faint whistle of wind threading between the rocks.
The trail widened as they emerged onto a narrow plateau that overlooked the descending slopes of the mountain. Light spilled in muted colors over the frost-streaked landscape. The wind had eased, leaving the air still, almost reverent in its silence.
Kael straightened, his breath misting as he spoke. "The city's still a ways off, but if we keep moving, we should make it to Hargrave before the next storm hits."
Lethan gave a slow nod, his gray eyes reflecting a flicker of the rising light.
And with that, they continued their descent, the frost crunching beneath their feet, their breath coiling into the dawn air.