The ground writhed beneath them as if the bones of the world had been broken and never set right again.
What began as a wide plateau, scarred and split, gradually narrowed into ridges that twisted like the spines of beasts half-buried in stone. The path curved relentlessly, forcing every step to veer against the body's instinct to walk straight. It bent them into its rhythm, as if the land itself demanded submission.
The three warriors ahead seemed untroubled. Their boots struck the rock with certainty, never hesitating at a jagged slope, never wavering at the black hollows that yawned on either side of the path. They walked as though the terrain itself acknowledged them, yielding its treachery to their sure-footedness.
El Como did not have that grace. Each turn jarred his balance. Every loose stone threatened to betray him. He stumbled more than once, the soles of his boots scraping against the knife-edged ridges. Each slip was a reminder of his weakness. Each awkward sound felt like a shout against the silence the warriors carried like a cloak.
Then, without a word, they shifted their formation.
The scarred man with the square jaw and hollow eyes advanced ahead, his back rigid, his gaze fixed on the path. The bull-shouldered one—Bulteik, though El Como did not know the name—dropped back, his steps heavy as iron. Darr, the lean and serpent-fast, moved to El Como's side for only a few heartbeats before sliding behind him.
It happened so naturally that El Como did not realize it until too late. He was in the center now. Surrounded.
A prisoner's place.
The knowledge gnawed at him, worse than hunger. He kept his head low, trying to will himself into silence, but the formation alone spoke louder than any words. They had no intention of letting him wander, no trust in his pace or path. He was a burden carried, not a companion.
The silence thickened with each curve of the path.
His thoughts turned inward, grinding as relentlessly as the land beneath his feet. Code 8.
The phrase rattled in his mind like chains shaken in the dark. He could still hear Bulteik's voice speaking it, rough as gravel yet carrying the weight of law. Law not of men, but something older. Something primal.
What have I broken? What is Code 8?
The words clawed at him. He tried to give them shape: a commandment, perhaps, an ancient decree, a punishment. The sound of it tasted of ritual, of stone carved in blood, of whispered threats spoken before firelight in ages long gone.
And he, El Como, had shattered it without even knowing how.
He felt it in the way their eyes lingered on him when they thought he could not see. He felt it in the air that bent too heavy around him. They had seen something in him, something wrong, and now he walked with the sense of a man dragged toward judgment.
The haze that had first lifted him into the air had thinned but not vanished. It trailed from their armor still, like smoke leashed to their will. Now and then it curled around his ankles, subtle, a whisper of restraint. He wondered if it waited for him to try and flee, to coil tighter until he was strangled mid-step.
He kept walking. He kept silent.
But silence bred madness. His thoughts turned in circles until his body itched with restless heat.
His hand twitched. He did not mean it. But something deep in him stirred, some instinct as nameless as hunger. Slowly, almost without intention, he raised his hand before his chest. His thumb rotated, twisting as though it sought to draw a shape in the air.
The world changed.
At first it was a shimmer at the edge of his vision, a pressure behind his eyes. Then heat surged, flooding his skull, as though embers had been pressed into his sockets.
The ridges around him bled red. Shadows sharpened into lines that pulsed with hidden patterns. The warriors before him glowed faintly, their armor radiating an aura that was not light but presence, vast and terrible. For a heartbeat, he felt as though he were not walking behind them but glimpsing the truth of them—creatures of gravity and command, whose very existence bent the world around them.
And then the heat tore through him like a whip.
His knees buckled. The vision shattered. He collapsed hard, stone gouging his palms, his chest heaving for air that would not come. His throat tasted of iron. Sweat ran down his back like icy rivulets.
The surge abandoned him as swiftly as it had come, leaving only emptiness, a hollow where something immense had tried to awaken.
Steel sang.
The sound was thin and deadly, a whisper as a blade left its sheath.
El Como lifted his head.
Darr stood behind him, his sword already drawn, its point leveled between El Como's eyes. The man had not moved like flesh and bone but like lightning striking from a black sky—instant, inevitable.
The blade hovered a hair from his brow, close enough that the faint sting of its cold tip brushed his skin.
Darr's eyes were narrow slits, his face carved in cruelty. "You," he spat, his voice as harsh as gravel dragged across steel. "What did you attempt?"
El Como's throat seized. He tried to speak, but only a ragged cough came. His breath tore against the dryness of his chest. He raised a hand weakly, palm open, as though to show surrender.
Darr pressed the sword closer, so that it threatened to pierce with the slightest breath.
"Answer," Darr growled. "Or bleed where you kneel."
The words struck like hammer blows.
El Como's mind reeled. Should I lie? Should I claim ignorance? But the truth was he did not know what had happened. He had seen the world ignite, felt something vast coil within him, but he could not name it. He could not master it. It had slipped through him like sand through fingers.
The silence that followed was worse than the threat.
The other two had stopped. The scarred man ahead stood with his back straight, unmoving, yet El Como felt his eyes burning into him even without turning. Bulteik loomed behind, massive, immovable, his gauntlets clenched as though eager to crush.
The air was thick, every breath like swallowing stone dust. The haze curled, responding to their tension, as if waiting to constrict.
El Como's heart pounded so hard he thought they must hear it. He dared not move. He dared not breathe too deep.
Darr's sword did not waver. His gaze cut into El Como as if he sought to peel back his flesh and glimpse whatever truth had flickered beneath.
"What," Darr hissed, "do you carry inside you?"
El Como's lips trembled. He found no words. Only fear.
The silence stretched, and in that silence he knew: if he did not answer, if he did not explain, then the blade would finish what his fall had begun.