The third day arrived with a silence so profound it felt like a physical weight. There was no wind to rattle the pine needles, no distant rumble of shifting ice from the peaks above. The world had turned into a tomb of white glass, holding its breath as if waiting for the final spark in the ravine to gutter out.
Inside the hollowed-out log, Kael woke to the suffocating smell of his own fever. The "fire-rash" had spread, a map of angry red welts climbing up his neck and across his left cheek. The skin there was hot and dry to the touch, crackling like old parchment when he moved his jaw. His left side remained a dead, heavy anchor, but as he shifted his weight to crawl, a sharp, cold tingle—distinct from the frost—raced down his spine.
The blue serpent mark didn't just itch; it pulsed with a slow, rhythmic throb.
Kael emerged from the log, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. His joints felt as though they had been fused with lead during the night. He looked toward the riverbank where he had eaten the evening before.
The snow there was a mess of disturbed powder; large, four-toed prints had circled the remains of his fire, pacing with a heavy, rhythmic hunger. The mountain-cat had been there. It hadn't been deterred by the fire; it had simply been frustrated by the boy's sudden disappearance into the earth.
He needed to move. Staying in one place was no longer a survival strategy; it was an invitation.
He began to climb a low ridge, heading west toward the setting sun. The incline was shallow, a mere slope to any healthy traveler, but for Kael, it was a vertical cliff. He used his right hand to grip the exposed, frozen roots of ancient cedars, pulling his limp left half up the slope inch by agonizing inch.
Midway up the ridge, his endurance buckled. His right foot slid on a patch of black ice hidden beneath the powder, and he tumbled into a shallow gully filled with waist-deep slush. As he struggled to right himself, his left hand—the dead one—sank deep into a pocket of half-melted snow at the bottom of the drift.
The reaction was instantaneous and violent.
The blue serpent mark on his spine didn't just pulse; it flared. Kael gasped as a sudden suction sensation traveled from his left fingertips, surged up his arm, and slammed into his vertebrae. It wasn't bending—there was no movement of the element. It was a vacuum. The slush beneath his hand didn't melt; it seemed to thin, the very essence of the moisture being pulled into the dormant coil along his spine.
Kael ripped his hand back, his heart hammering against his cracked ribs. He stared at his left palm. For the first time since the fall, the pale, sickly blue color of the skin had receded, replaced by a faint, healthy pink. The fingers twitched—a small, microscopic movement—before gravity claimed them again and they went still.
He didn't understand the mechanics of it. He only knew that the cold in his spine felt slightly less like a cage and more like a reservoir that had just received its first drop of rain.
He reached the top of the ridge by noon. From there, the landscape shifted. The dense, suffocating pine forests gave way to jagged basalt pillars—the "teeth" of the Wani range. Between these pillars lay narrow, wind-swept canyons where the snow was thin and the stone was scorched by ancient volcanic vents.
Hunger returned, more insistent and hollower than before. The hare was gone, reduced to a few greasy bones he had sucked dry in the log. He scanned the rocks, his eyes fever-bright.
He spotted a pika—a small, round-eared rodent—darting between the basalt cracks. It was fast, a blur of grey fur far beyond the reach of a broken boy. Kael knew he couldn't chase it. He had to hunt like a Thorne: with patience and a hidden strike.
He found a narrow crevice where the pika had disappeared and sat down, leaning his back against the sun-warmed stone. He waited. He kept his right hand hidden in the folds of his tunic, nursing a tiny, guttering spark of heat between his fingers to keep the joints from seizing.
He sat for hours as the sun moved across the sky, turning the basalt from grey to a deep, bruised purple. His legs went numb, and the fire-rash on his face throbbed with every heartbeat. Finally, the pika emerged. It sniffed the air, whiskers twitching. It was five feet away.
Kael didn't move his arm. He didn't want to telegraph the strike. He closed his eyes and felt the heat in his chest—the jagged, lopsided Fire that was his only remaining companion. He didn't try to punch it out with a soldier's flare. He simply opened his palm and let the pressure vent through a single point.
A concentrated needle of flame shot from his fingers. It wasn't a roar; it was a hiss of pure, white-hot intent. The pika didn't even have time to squeak.
Kael's hand shook as he reached for the small, charred body. The effort had cost him dearly. The fire-rash on his neck felt like it was peeling away, and a sudden, sharp cough brought up a spray of dark fluid. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, staring at the stain.
Everything has weight. He ate the pika raw. He didn't have the energy to build a fire, and the meat was still warm from the strike. It was barely a mouthful, but it was enough to stop the tremor in his hands.
As the light failed, he found a shallow cave behind a basalt pillar. He squeezed inside, his left shoulder screaming as it scraped against the rock. He lay there in the dark, listening to the mountain breathe. Far above, he heard the scream of a hawk-eagle, a lonely, piercing sound that seemed to echo the void in his own chest.
He thought of the way the blue mark had reacted to the slush. He thought of the pink returning to his fingers. He looked at his left hand in the gloom, watching for a sign, a ripple, anything.
The mark remained silent.
He closed his eyes, his head resting on the hard stone. He was three days into a month of winter. He was a boy who could kill a rodent with a finger but couldn't walk ten feet without gasping for air. The mountain didn't care. It just waited for the fire to go out.