The camp slept. Not the peaceful, restorative sleep of the safe, but the deep, comatose slumber of the utterly spent. Bodies were curled around the dying embers of the fire, breaths misting in the frigid air. Only two figures were awake.
Eva sat with her back to the cliff face, her eyes scanning the treeline out of habit, the hum of Wolfen's blood a constant, low-level reminder that her body was no longer entirely her own. Her gaze eventually settled on him. He hadn't moved to sleep. He was simply sitting at the base of a gnarled pine, his posture perfectly upright, his eyes open and fixed on nothing.
After an hour of this unnerving stillness, she finally spoke, her voice a soft intrusion on the night. "Why don't you sleep?"
Wolfen didn't turn his head. "I can't," he said, the words casual, flat. A simple statement of fact, like saying the sky was dark or the air was cold. It wasn't a complaint, just the reality of his existence.
A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the crackle of a final log giving way and the distant rush of the river. Then, in one fluid, silent motion, Wolfen stood. He brushed a stray pine needle from his leg and started to walk, not deeper into the camp, but away from it, toward the consuming darkness of the forest.
"Where are you going?" Eva asked, a thread of alarm in her voice. Despite everything, his presence was a perverse form of security.
He paused but didn't look back. "I have no business here."
"The hell you don't," Eva countered, her voice hardening as she stood up. "We need you. You saw what's out there. You know what the Architects are capable of. We can't do this alone."
Wolfen half-turned, his profile etched in the faint starlight. "That is both true and not true."
Eva frowned, crossing her arms against the cold. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"You don't need me," he explained, his tone that of a lecturer stating the obvious, "because you have Maya." He gestured with his chin toward the huddled form of the girl, who slept fitfully, a contained storm even in repose. "And you need me," he continued, "because you have Maya. Do you understand the difference?"
The logic was cold, circular, and irrefutable. Maya was their ultimate weapon, a shield and a sword. But she was also their greatest liability, an unstable element that could turn on them at any moment. They needed Wolfen not to protect them from the world, but to control the monster they traveled with.
Eva's shoulders slumped. She did understand.
Wolfen watched her comprehension dawn. "Hmm. Let's make a deal, then," he said, as if proposing a trade of scraps, not futures. "I will remain with you, if and only if you help me. And in return, I will help you find your sister."
Eva's breath hitched. "How do you know about—"
He cut her off with a sharp gesture. "And," he continued, his voice dropping, "you help me find my sister."
The world seemed to tilt. His sister? The concept was so alien, so human, that it didn't seem possible attached to him. The bringer of balance had a family? A past? A personal, driving need? It was the first truly human thing she had ever heard from him, and it made him infinitely more dangerous.
The silence this time was charged. The offer hung between them. His protection, his power, in exchange for her loyalty in a quest she didn't understand. But the prize was Alina. Her Alina.
After a long moment, Eva gave a single, sharp nod. "Agreed."
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Wolfen's lips. He didn't offer a handshake; such gestures were beneath their new compact. He simply turned and began to walk away again into the dark.
"Wait! You're leaving now?" Eva called out, confused.
His voice floated back, already being swallowed by the trees. "You hybrids don't need much food. But I'm a human. And I'm starving."
And then he was gone, leaving Eva alone with the sleeping camp, a newly forged pact, and the chilling realization that Wolfen Welfric, for all his god-like power, still defined himself by the most basic, mortal of needs.