The air inside the cave was a tomb's breath—cold, thick, unmoving.
Frost clung to every surface, painting the rock walls with thin veins of pale blue light. The sound of dripping water was muffled beneath layers of ice, like a heartbeat that had long stopped echoing. Kael stood still, one hand on his sword, his other steadying the barely conscious hunter beside him. The man's breath came out in shallow clouds. His left leg was twisted, the armor cracked and blackened by frostbite.
Kael's eyes didn't leave the figure standing before them.
A child—or what had once worn the shape of one. Barefoot, hair white as snowfall, eyes the color of frozen glass. Its skin shimmered faintly, faint veins of blue pulsing beneath the surface like rivers of liquid ice. It regarded Kael not as prey, but as one might look upon an insect—curious, detached, almost gentle.
"You love the warm," the thing said. Its voice was neither male nor female, but layered, hollow, as if several voices whispered together through an empty well. "It's a strange thing to see. The warmth that kills you, yet you cling to it."
Kael tightened his grip on his sword hilt. The air around the creature distorted faintly, flakes of frost swirling around its feet. "You're talking an awful lot for something that hides in the dark."
A faint smile curved the Wendigo's lips. "Talking is the only thing left when you've eaten everything else."
Kael exhaled slowly. His breath turned white and brittle. He could feel the weight of the monster's presence pressing down on him, the kind of suffocating dread that made your instincts scream to run. But he didn't move. The Alpha hunter, still on the ground, stirred weakly.
"Don't… fight it…" the man rasped. "You can't. That thing—killed three of us before we even saw it move…"
"I figured," Kael said quietly. "But it's not leaving this cave while you're still breathing."
The Wendigo tilted its head, studying him with something like amusement. Then its expression softened—almost pitying. "You don't understand. You were never meant to live long enough to fight me. Your kind were born to die. To feed the frost and the silence."
The Wendigo blinked once. Then it moved.
It didn't rush—it simply appeared, crossing the distance between them in a blur of pale limbs. Kael barely twisted aside as claws struck the ground where he'd stood, gouging a crater in solid stone. He slashed low, aiming for its ribs. The blade connected—but the sound wasn't flesh being cut, it was steel striking ice. The sword's edge scraped across its body, leaving only a faint scar of frost.
The Wendigo looked down at the mark, almost bemused. Then it lashed out with a tail—Kael hadn't even seen it form, the appendage sprouting from its back like liquid shadow turning solid. It hit him square across the chest, throwing him into a wall of ice. The impact knocked the air from his lungs, and he dropped to a knee, coughing white vapor.
"Fast," he muttered, wiping the blood from his lip. "But predictable."
The Wendigo chuckled softly. "Bravery is such a fragile thing."
Kael surged forward again, sliding across the frost, his boots scraping against the ground for control. His blade flashed in short, efficient arcs—each strike aimed at joints, tendons, soft tissue that might still exist beneath that crystalline shell. The creature danced around them effortlessly, its movements both human and utterly alien. It moved like liquid given muscle, flowing around his attacks, occasionally batting aside his sword with claw or tail.
Kael ducked under a sweeping claw and countered with a rising slash that carved across its chest. Again, frost bled out instead of blood. The wound sealed itself in seconds.
"Damn it," Kael hissed, leaping back.
The Alpha hunter fired a runic flare from his wrist. The shot struck the Wendigo's shoulder, exploding in a burst of blue light. The creature recoiled slightly—more in surprise than pain—and turned its eyes toward the fallen man.
"Move!" Kael shouted, charging again.
The Wendigo's tails lashed out simultaneously, cutting through the air with shrieking speed. Kael blocked one, sidestepped the second, then rolled beneath the third strike that followed like a whip. His boots hit the ice, sliding him forward. He thrust, catching the creature in the thigh. A crack split up its leg—but instead of slowing, it leaned into the wound, slamming its forehead against Kael's.
The impact sent a jolt through him, his vision flashing white. He stumbled back, dazed, as the Wendigo's face came close enough for him to see the faint remnants of humanity in it—something young, something lost.
"Why do you fight the cold?" it whispered. "It's mercy. It forgets."
The Wendigo caught the blade mid-strike. Ice bloomed from its palm, crawling up the steel like frost devouring flame. Kael twisted away just before it reached his hilt, kicking off the creature's chest to gain distance.
The Alpha hunter coughed blood, his voice hoarse. "We can't win this inside! It's too tight—he controls the space!"
Kael nodded once. His eyes flicked around the cave. Cracks in the ceiling. Frost veins pulsing faintly where light broke through. The place was brittle from centuries of freezing and thawing. He reached into his belt and pulled free two rune tags.
"Then let's make our own space."
He pressed the tags to the wall and activated them. The symbols glowed blue for an instant, then detonated in a thunderous crack that split the cavern apart. A wall of rock and ice collapsed between Kael and the Wendigo, sending shards scattering like shrapnel. The shockwave knocked the Alpha hunter flat, and Kael barely managed to catch him before the ceiling started to crumble.
But before the dust could settle, the Wendigo stepped through the debris, completely untouched—cracks across its body glowing faintly as they healed.
Kael grimaced. "Figures."
The Wendigo's voice came through the haze, calm and cold. "Do you see now? You're fragile. Your strength is an echo, fading with each heartbeat."
Kael didn't answer. He slung the Alpha hunter's arm over his shoulder and dragged him toward the tunnel leading to the exit. Every step was agony—the freezing air bit through his coat, the floor slick with melting frost. Behind them, the creature followed slowly, deliberately, like a predator savoring the chase.
Kael whispered to the man beside him, "Stay awake."
The hunter groaned. "You're insane."
"Not yet," Kael muttered.
They reached the mouth of the cave—where the wind screamed through like a living thing. Kael turned, sword raised again. The Wendigo stopped several meters away, standing in the half-light of the broken chamber. Its expression had changed. The faint curiosity was gone, replaced by something older, deeper—a kind of divine disappointment.
"I wanted to see," it said softly. "If any of you could still look at death and not beg. You disappoint me."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Then stop talking and finish it."
The Wendigo smiled—a beautiful, terrible smile. Ice cracked and shifted across its shoulders as new appendages grew: a pair of tails, long and sinuous, gleaming like glass under moonlight. Spines erupted along its back, shimmering in the half-light. The air pressure changed. The ground itself seemed to tremble as it crouched low, hands touching the frozen earth.
"Your death," it whispered, "will be slow enough to remember."
Then it moved.
Kael barely had time to react before the creature blurred forward. He swung, meeting its claws mid-strike—the impact sent a shock through his arms that nearly dislocated his shoulders. He parried one strike, then another, but the third came from behind—the Wendigo's tail wrapped around his torso and hurled him across the chamber. He hit the wall, rolled, and came up bleeding.
He couldn't outfight it. He could only survive.
Kael spat blood into the snow and tightened his grip on the sword. "Outside," he muttered. "It's faster than me here. I need air. Space."
The Wendigo came again. Kael ducked beneath a swipe and sprinted toward the exit, throwing a rune over his shoulder. The explosion hit the creature dead-on, sending shards of ice and debris flying—but as he glanced back, he saw it already regenerating, its movement unbroken.
The cave entrance yawned ahead, a mouth of white light and snow. Kael dove through just as a wall of ice spikes erupted behind him. The blast threw him forward into the snow outside, the cold air burning his lungs. He rolled, came up on one knee, and raised his sword.
Inside, the Wendigo roared. The sound wasn't human—it wasn't even beastly. It was the voice of the storm itself, angry that something dared resist it.
Kael looked up, chest heaving. His sword trembled faintly in his grip—not from fear, but from the sheer cold leeching through the steel.
The Alpha hunter's voice came weakly from inside. "Kael… run…"
Kael didn't move. His gaze fixed on the shadows inside the cave.
A shape emerged—lithe, terrible, and unbroken. The Wendigo stepped into the open air, snow hissing under its claws, spines glinting like knives.
Kael exhaled once, steam curling from his mouth.
He raised his sword again.