GASP.
Kael jerked upright, his body arching off the freezing stone. A ragged, desperate breath tore through his throat, echoing in the darkness.
His hands flew to his forehead.
He pressed hard, both palms moving over his brow and down his face, fingers digging into skin again and again, checking, searching.
He expected the wet collapse of a skull, the heat of shattered bone, the hole Morgan's rifle should have torn through him, and his hands kept moving, over his temples and cheeks, over his face, as if touch alone could tell him whether he was still whole.
Nothing. Just cold, clammy skin. Sweat.
He scrambled backward, boots scraping against the rough floor until his back hit the solid stone wall.
"Hah... Hah..."
He stared into the darkness. There was no light at all, only a thin wash of moonlight, and his heartbeat struck hard against his ribs, loud enough that he could feel it in his chest.
No desert. No fire. No smell of smoke, ash, or blood.
Just the smell of damp straw, sharp rot, and stagnant air.
The Hole.
He was back.
Kael lifted his right hand. He brought it close to his face in the dim light filtering from the grate high above.
In the dream—in that hellish canyon. The shot had blown his hand open, flesh forced outward by the impact, the fingers flared apart like a ruptured bloom, the shape of a hand still there, but torn wide by the bullet.
Now, it was whole.
He flexed his fingers. They were stiff, blue-tipped from the cold, and trembling uncontrollably, but they moved. He clenched his fist, feeling the tension, the reality of the bone and tendon beneath the skin.
He ripped his thin tunic open. He ran his hands over his chest. No buckshot wounds. No broken ribs from the wagon wheel.
He reached over his shoulder.
His fingers traced the thick, jagged ridge of scar tissue running down his spine—the old marks from the whip, years ago. The map of his life in this world.
The scars are back.
The realization hit him like a physical weight. The perfect, strong body of "El Lobo" was gone. He was back in his own skin. Thin. Starved. Freezing.
"Still alive, " he rasped. His voice was a wreck, dry and hoarse.
The cold bit into him immediately. The damp straw beneath him leeched the heat from his bones. His limbs felt heavy, his blood sluggish.
I should be dead, he thought. I closed my eyes to die.
It had been nothing more than a brief illusion, already thinning, already pulling away. Still, it had been real in every way that mattered. A trial, perhaps—Voros's doing—and whether it had satisfied him was not for the dream to say.
A faint white light pulsed at the center of his vision. It wasn't a hallucination. In the absolute darkness of the shaft, it was painfully bright, cutting cleanly through the black.
[World: Western Era — World Fragment]
[Identity: EL LOBO — Kael]
[Aether: 5.9]
[Abilities Available for Exchange:]
Close Combat — Dagger (Mastery) | Cost: 1 Aether
Marksmanship — Firearms (Grandmaster) | Cost: 3 Aether
Horsemanship — Horse (Mastery) | Cost: 1 Aether
Other — Knowledge | Cost: 1 Aether
[Items Available for Exchange:]
Revolver — Colt | Cost: 0.5 Aether
Ammunition — .45 (10 rounds) | Cost: 0.5 Aether
Knife — Standard | Cost: 0.5 Aether
Shotgun — Double-barrel | Cost: 1 Aether
Ammunition — Buckshot (10 shells) | Cost: 0.5 Aether
Kael stared at the number. 5.9
So I killed twenty-nine men, and one madman. And all of it together was worth only a little more than a single dying knight.
But as the text dissolved, he felt it.
A warmth bloomed in his chest, then spread with his blood, a slow, deliberate flow. It reached places that had been numb for hours—the soles of his feet tingling as sensation crept back in—enough to carry him through the cold of the night.
Voros had given him a way to grow stronger, measured in how many he killed, and how quickly.
Great Voros, he thought. Lord of slaughter. I will spill blood in your name.
...
Hours bled into one another until the darkness finally turned to grey.
CLANG.
The sound of metal striking stone echoed down the shaft.
Kael looked up. The heavy iron grate was being dragged aside. Snow and pale morning light flooded the hole, blinding after the long darkness.
A face appeared at the rim. A guard, wrapped in fur and steel. He peered down, expecting to see a curled, frozen corpse.
He saw Kael looking back at him.
The guard stiffened. He pulled back, turning his head to shout to someone unseen.
"He's awake."
"Bullshit," a second voice replied. "If he's still breathing, then he's crippled. The cold would've taken his hands and feet."
"Look for yourself."
The second guard appeared. He squinted down into the shaft, meeting Kael's steady gaze. The disbelief on his face was plain.
"Well, I'll be damned," the man muttered. "Drop the rope."
A knotted rope was tossed down. It hit the straw with a dull thud.
"Climb," the guard ordered. "If you can move."
Kael stood up. His joints popped, stiff and sore, but they worked. He grabbed the rope. His muscles—the thin, starved muscles of a servant—strained, but the Aether gave him just enough strength to haul himself up.
Hand over hand. Up the slick stone walls.
He crested the rim and collapsed onto the snow-covered cobblestones of the courtyard. The cold wind hit him instantly, stripping away the lingering warmth of the shaft, but he didn't shiver.
Two guards grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet.
They didn't drag him this time. They walked him.
Captain Valen was in his office, tightening the straps of his gauntlets. When they entered, he raised his head and turned toward them.
He looked at Kael, at the thin tunic and bare arms. They should have been blackened, swollen from the cold. They weren't.
Valen's eyebrows rose slightly.
"I expected to be burying you this morning," Valen said, his expression unchanged.
Kael stood there, swaying slightly, his chin held up.
Valen stepped closer. He examined Kael's face for shaking, slackness, anything that would mark a night spent in the Hole.
He didn't find it.
Instead, he found a pair of eyes that were too calm. Too cold.
Yesterday, Kael had looked like someone who followed orders. Today, he looked like someone who had seen death often enough that it no longer moved him.
"That's unexpected," Valen said. "Do you have unusual blood? Barbarian stock, perhaps."
"No." Kael answered without hesitation. "The barbarians killed my parents. I'm human. Pure."
Valen nodded to himself, a decision made.
"I don't waste resources," Valen announced to the room. "A man who refuses to freeze is a resource.""
Valen signaled to a sergeant standing by the barracks.
"Put him in the Vanguard."
The sergeant paused, glancing at Kael's slight frame. "The Vanguard, sir? He's barely got meat on his bones. The first charge will break him."
"If the cold didn't break him, the charge might not either," Valen said indifferently. He turned away, dismissing the matter. "Get him armor that fits. Give him a spear. We march in two days."
He glanced back at Kael one last time.
"Don't disappoint me, boy. You're part of the Death Charge now. Try to take a few of them with you before you die."
Kael watched Valen walk away.
The Vanguard.
The suicide squad. The first wave thrown against the enemy walls to soak up arrows and tire out the defenders. Fodder.
A death sentence by another name.
But he wasn't afraid.
Death meant nothing to him. Voros was with him, and that was enough.