Snow whipped through the ruined streets of Whitehold, carried by a wind so cold it felt sharpened. Viktor's breaths came out in ragged bursts, each exhale burning like hot iron in his throat. His boots splashed through half-frozen puddles, skidding over broken cobblestones as he ran with everything he had.
He didn't dare look back.
He could hear them.
The puppets, they didn't breathe, didn't grunt, didn't cry out...but their footsteps echoed with a dreadful, mechanical rhythm.
A scrape against stone. A dragging foot. A joint snapping into place. A hiss from a throat that no longer lived.
Viktor choked back a sob as another figure lurched out of a shattered doorway behind him. He cut sharply left, slipping through a narrow alley just as something pale clawed at the air where he had been seconds earlier.
His chest hurt. His legs trembled. His fingers were numb.
"Grandpa… where are you…" he whispered between gasps, voice trembling.
Whitehold was dying around him...buildings half-collapsed, fires sputtering in windows, the shapes of fallen men and puppets half-buried under drifting snow. The world felt like a nightmare he was trapped inside.
A shadow moved at the end of the alley. Viktor's heart lurched. He skidded to a stop, slipping slightly on the slush, his hand going instinctively to the small knife Veyl had given him.
But the shadow… stood still.
Tall. Slender. Wrapped in a long black coat that swayed gently even though the wind here was dead. The figure didn't advance. Didn't reach for him. Just stood, like he had been waiting there for hours.
Viktor ran straight into him.
He crashed into the man's chest, stumbling backwards. But before he could fall, a hand closed around his arm. Long fingers…cool but steady…caught him with a gentleness that startled him.
The figure leaned slightly down, the black hood muting most of his face. Only the outline of a sharp jaw and faint pale eyes were visible.
For a heartbeat, they simply looked at each other. It was like time has frozen.
Viktor's breath trembled. "I…I didn't see you…"
"That's alright," the man said softly, voice clear and deep. "Few do."
The calmness in the words wrapped around Viktor like warm cloth. His panic eased by a fraction.
Then the stranger's eyes flicked past Viktor's shoulder.
A puppet stepped into the alley behind him...jerking, twisted, head tilted unnaturally.
Viktor gasped and turned.
The stranger lifted one hand.
Toward a collapsed stone archway on Viktor's left, half-buried in snow. A crack beneath it opened into a dark passage.
His voice dropped, low and certain.
"Under the fallen arch. There's a stone tunnel. Follow it."
Viktor blinked, confused. "But...who are you? Why..."
The man spoke again, even softer:
"Go. Now."
Viktor followed the pointing hand for a split second...
...and when he looked back…
The man was gone.
Vanished.
No footsteps.
No sound.
Not even displaced snow.
Viktor shivered.
Something ancient curled under his skin. A strange instinct. A feeling that whoever that man was… he wasn't the enemy.
He wasn't certain why he believed that.
He just did.
Footsteps scraped behind him. The puppet lunged.
Viktor dove toward the collapsed archway.
The Stone Tunnel
The crack beneath the arch was narrow. Sharp stones scraped his coat and arm as he squeezed through, boots slipping on frozen rubble. Inside, darkness opened into a long, cold tunnel carved through old stone. The walls glistened with frost. Air hung heavy with silence.
He stumbled to a stop, panting.
Then...
Scrape.
The puppet forced its body through the gap behind him, bones cracking, neck twisting grotesquely to fit the space.
"No…" Viktor whispered, raising the knife with a trembling hand.
The puppet's jaw sagged open, teeth scraping stone as it crawled toward him.
Viktor backed up. His heel hit ice. He nearly slipped.
The puppet lunged...
A hand stretched toward him...
A blast of heat slammed down the tunnel.
A roar of fire crawled up the walls, painting the stones gold.
BOOOF!
A wall of flame engulfed the puppet, wrapping around it like a living serpent of light. The creature convulsed, limbs flailing, skin crackling, blackening, turning to ash. The smell hit Viktor a second later...burned rot and boiled flesh.
He shielded his face with both arms, squinting through the bright light.
The fire retracted with a sharp hiss.
Silence.
Viktor's heartbeat thundered in his ears.
And then…
He saw her.
Asha
A woman stepped through the smoke, lowering one hand as faint embers spiralled from her fingertips. Her presence filled the tight tunnel instantly, like warmth pushing away winter.
She was tall...almost as tall as the stranger... built strong, confident. Dark curls fell to her shoulders, dusted lightly with snow. Her cloak shifted around her legs, scorched at the edges as if she had walked through fire more than once.
But her eyes...
Deep brown, almost glowing with flecks of ember.
Warm. Steady. Soft.
She looked at Viktor with concern, not suspicion.
"You're trembling," she said gently. "Are you hurt?"
"Just… scared," Viktor whispered.
"Then you're still alive. Fear means your heart remembers how to beat."
She approached slowly...careful not to frighten him...then knelt until their eyes met.
"I saw you running. And I saw what followed." Her voice warmed. "You handled yourself well."
"I-I didn't do anything…" Viktor said, voice cracking.
"You kept moving," Asha said. "Sometimes that's everything."
She extended her hand...not grabbing him, just offering.
"Come. This tunnel connects to the lower channels. It's safer than the streets."
Viktor stared at the smouldering puppet, the heat still clinging to the air. A faint crackle echoed across the stones ... like embers shifting in a deep hearth.
He swallowed hard.
"Y-you… did that?"
Asha followed his gaze to the burnt remains, then looked back at him with a dry, almost amused tilt of her brow.
"If I didn't," she said, "then we've got much bigger problems."
The line was simple, but it struck the exact middle between humour and reassurance.
Viktor let out a weak, breathless laugh ... barely more than a shiver.
"You are right… yeah. Fair."
His hand still trembled around the dagger. She noticed.
Asha stepped closer ... slow, deliberate, letting him see her, feel her presence before she spoke again.
"Come on," she said, her voice calm, warm.
"You're safe with me."
But Viktor didn't get the chance to reply.
A sound broke through the alley... a low, chorus of scraping limbs and uneven footsteps.
Five puppets rounded the far corner, their movements stiff but accelerating, eyes dead and fixed directly on him.
Viktor froze.
Asha didn't.
Her expression didn't change ... not fear, not rush, nothing.
Just a quiet, controlled exhale.
"Stay behind me."
She raised one hand, fingers curling slightly as heat gathered around her palm.
It was a pulse, like a furnace inhaling.
The nearest puppet lurched forward...
And Asha swept her hand once, cleanly, like brushing dust from a table.
A ribbon of flame burst outward... focused, flat, and impossibly fast.
It hit the first puppet and cut straight through, shearing it at the waist.
The second and third ignited instantly, their bodies collapsing into blackened heaps before they even had time to fall properly.
The last two staggered backward, joints twitching, trying to charge again...
Asha snapped her fingers.
A second wave of fire rolled across the ground, quiet and low, like a sheet of heat sliding across the snow.
It swallowed them whole.
They dropped in silence. The alley went still again.
Asha lowered her hand, the flames dying without residue, without smoke... total control.
Viktor's breath hitched.
He wasn't staring at the fire.
He was staring at her.
She turned to him again, her voice softer now, though her eyes stayed sharp.
"See?" she said. "You're safe."
And this time, he believed it.