The serpent's body was cooling when the bill came due.
Brandon's sleeve was knotted high on his arm, but beneath it the skin had turned the color of old copper. Every few breaths his fingers curled on their own, as if some distant hand were tugging his strings. Frostwing stood sentinel with her good wing mantled, exhaling thin winter across puddled venom until it thickened into dull, harmless jelly. Villagers moved carefully around them—cloths, water, a chipped bowl of bitter tea whose steam smelled of bark and stubbornness.
The koi floated in his travel bowl because he could not stand. Ice Scale Spikes had stripped him bare; when he tried to flick a fin, muscle answered with a judder and then a blank. So he counted Brandon's breaths. Eight slow. One fast clutch. Eight again. The rhythm was wrong. Rhythms are signatures. Signatures don't lie.
A woman with ash in her hair and blood on her apron knelt beside Brandon. She caught the koi watching. Her voice was scraped thin by grief, but it still found sentences.
"The serpent," she said. "It's the gatekeeper of the Peak. Keeps to the high path. Hunts what hunts the mountain. Leaves us alone. Always has." She swallowed. "Last night it came down. It… changed. It killed whoever it found."
Frostwing lowered her head until the curve of her beak almost touched the woman's shoulder. The gesture is the same in bird and human: I heard you.
Brandon's jaw flexed. "Gatekeeper means… something opened the gate." He tried to push himself onto an elbow. Failed. Tried again. The koi felt pride like a knife—stupid, useful pride.
The woman glanced at Emerald Peak where cloud sat like a stolen crown. "Sometimes the lake sings," she whispered. "Last night it screamed."
The koi filed the words away and turned inward, where action still lived.
[Status: Brandon]
[Venom class: ophidian neurotoxin]
[Human lethality: ≈ 1 hour untreated]
[Elapsed: 17 minutes]
[Neuromuscular integrity: degrading]
One hour.
Villagers did what villagers could: water, pressure, warmth. Not enough.
Another Tamer. He tried the words. They tasted like rot. Brandon had believed a ridiculous voice in a dream and caught a prophecy like an apple. He had made a field out of certainty and let others walk it. Another Tamer might be stronger. None would believe like this.
He pressed his mind against the System like a hand on a locked door. A cure. Give me a cure.
[Query: Antivenin]
[Database: incomplete]
[Counteragents: venom-specific; unavailable]
[General aids: cold, pressure, delayed spread]
[Outcome: poor]
Don't give me poor. Give me a path.
Silence. Then:
[Persistence detected]
[Knowledge expansion: authorized]
[Cross-domain search: flora / ethnobotany]
[Candidate: located]
The koi's heart thudded so hard the bowl quivered.
[Possible counteragent: Hibiscus var. aroma glacialis ("Aroma Hibiscus")]
— Habitat: Aroma Forest (1.7 km NE of village)
— Part used: pistil nectar & calyx sap (fresh)
— Mechanism: binds venom proteins; slows neural docking; supports clearance
— Prep: cold macerate; administer in staged sips
— Seasonality: late thaw （current season: early dry）
— Availability: rare （off-season）
[Time to location (ground): 50–70 min]
[Time to location (air): 10–12 min]
[Brandon projected tolerance: 40–45 min]
[Probability of success: 7%]
Seven percent. Numbers are for people with options. He had none.
[Warning: Brandon vitality weak. May not last 1 hour even with care.]
"I heard you," the koi snapped. No satisfaction in raising his voice at the System. "I heard you, and I am going anyway."
Frostwing's pupils were huge in the firelight. Her broken wing trembled once, almost invisibly.
Brandon's lips moved. The ash-haired woman bent close, lifting his head to a folded cloth. "Stay," she told him. "Stay."
The koi brushed Brandon's thinning field with Sense. It was stretched, fragile—holding anyway.
Brandon turned his head toward the koi, jaw locked, breath shaky. He got the words out anyway:
"Go. Take… my luck."
Something in the bond pressed warm and steady, like a hand on the back. The koi wanted to call it cringe. He wanted to kiss it.
He pushed the System again. Map. Risks. Costs.
[Route hazards: Aroma Forest volatile terpenes → sensory overload risk]
[Navigation: follow cold pockets; avoid warm plumes]
[Harvest: off-season blossoms fragile; nectar loss likely]
[Adjunct: cold bowl film may reduce loss]
[Host integrity ↓ after combat; flight transfer stability uncertain]
He stared at his reflection in the bowl—cracked plates, ragged edges, a red gleam that wasn't pride. He had pieces left to spend. He would spend them.
The woman caught his glance toward the forest. "You can't," she whispered. "Your bird's wing—"
Frostwing exhaled, lifted the broken primary a finger's breadth, then lowered it. Pride is a tool, not a map.
The koi bowed his head. Not yes. Not no. Just we.
[Objective: locate Aroma Hibiscus]
[Constraint: ≈ 10 minutes out; ≈ 10 back]
[Margin: thin]
[Proceed?]
The koi remembered nets, hooks, miracles; remembered being caught on purpose by a man who did not doubt. He had not come this far to learn resignation. He did not belong to luck. Luck belonged to him when he chose enough times in a row.
He pressed back, hard. Proceed.
Brandon's field did not flicker. Frostwing's good wing opened, trembling but ready.
The minute was shrinking.
They went before it vanished.