The fire had nearly died during the night.Beneath a blanket of ash, a few coals still glowed—slow, stubborn. Like him.
He opened his eyes without moving.What woke him wasn't the cold. It was the hunger.
"Yeah, yeah… I hear you."
He threw off the fur covering and sat up. Cold bit into his legs immediately.Dim morning light filtered through the seams in the wooden walls, painting silver lines on the floor. The house creaked gently, breathing with the wind.
He crossed the room barefoot and knelt by the hearth.Under the stones, the fire still lingered. He pushed aside the ash with a stick, added two pieces of dry wood, then leaned in and blew.
One long, quiet breath.
The flame caught.
Slow.
Alive.
"Back from the dead."
He walked to the table, lifted a cloth.Underneath, clean cuts of meat sat on a frozen wooden slab.He picked three thick ribs, streaked with pale fat, and brought them to the fire.
From a jar nearby, he took a pinch of dried herbs—bitter, dark green, almost medicinal—and sprinkled them over the meat.
"You're gonna taste a lot better than you smelled."
He set a small iron grill over the flame and laid the ribs down.The moment the meat hit the metal, it hissed softly—like the fire was waking up too.
The scent filled the room almost instantly.
Fat began to melt and drip into the coals. The fire cracked in response, sending up sparks.The smell was heavy—salt, smoke, and wild game—cut by the sharp bite of dried herbs.Not pleasant. Not refined. But real.
He crouched beside it, watching the edges brown, the fat bubble, the flesh pull tight and glisten.He flipped each rib with practiced hands.
"At least you're not trying to bite me now."
When the sear was just right, he lifted the meat off the flame and onto a stone plate.Steam curled upward, catching the morning light like smoke in a dream.
He paused.
Not for a blessing. Not for ritual. Just out of habit. A quiet second to honor the fact that he was still here to eat.
Then he bit into the first rib.
The meat cracked, releasing a gush of heat and juice.His eyes fluttered closed for a heartbeat.
"Fuck…"A sigh, almost a laugh. "That's good."
He ate slowly. Each bite reminded him that life, for now, continued.When he finished, he cleaned his fingers with a piece of stale bread, took a gulp of cold water, and let silence settle again.
Then he stood.
"Alright. Time to be social. Scary thought."
He dressed—pulling on a thick tunic, a lined vest, his heavy fur-lined coat. He slid on his gloves, looped a scarf around his neck, and opened the door.
The sea wind slapped him in the face like a rude welcome.He drew a sharp breath. The air smelled of salt, smoke, metal—and fish.
Ahead, the coast stretched wide and grey. And the village… was already alive.
Voices. Laughter. Shouting.The clanging of hammers. The snap of sails.Boots on planks. Dogs barking. The shriek of gulls overhead.
And the smells.Fresh fish. Burnt oil. Grilled meat. Leather. Wet rope. Bread.
He walked down the slope that led to the market.
Vendors were setting up under tarps and open stalls. Tables piled with rough goods: metal tools, salted meat, bundles of herbs, dyed cloth, polished bones, tanned pelts.
Some people ignored him.Some glanced his way, then quickly looked elsewhere.
One man scowled.A woman averted her eyes.Two children stopped playing as he passed.
He didn't flinch. He didn't speed up.
And then came the whispers.
"You don't belong here.""Freak.""Go back to wherever you came from."
He kept walking.His eyes wandered—not to their faces, but to their hands. The way a smith held a blade. The way a hunter packed snares. The way a mother cleaned a child's face.
It all felt… like a life that wasn't his.
His hair didn't help. That ashen silver, almost unnatural.It marked him even before he spoke.He wasn't one of them. He never would be.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, just loud enough for himself."Bad for the view. I get it."
He turned toward the center of the village.
The house stood out even from afar.
Well-built, wide, with clean lines and polished wood.Stone foundations. A real roof. Guards stationed at the entrance, wrapped in thick leathers and fur. Two torches flanked the door, burning despite the daylight.
He approached.The guards exchanged a glance. One gave a slow nod.They let him through.
Inside, the air was warmer.It smelled of smoke, herbs, and old wood.
Heavy fur curtains muffled the wind.Near the fire sat an old woman, wrapped in a dark shawl, her hair snow-white, eyes a soft green.
She smiled when she saw him.
"I had a feeling you'd show up today."
He nodded.
"I felt something," he said.
"Something?"
He touched his chest.
"Warmth. Here. After the hunt."
She studied him a moment.Her fingers moved to a pendant of carved bone at her neck.
"Are you certain?"
"Yes.""It wasn't just hunger?" she said, smiling gently.
"I already ate."
She chuckled softly. Then her voice deepened.
"What you felt… isn't quite it. Not yet. Spiritual energy doesn't bloom like a fever. It builds. Slowly. Painfully."
She rose and stepped closer, placing a frail hand on his chest.Her eyes closed. Her touch was cold, but steady.
A long pause.
Then she stepped back.
"No," she said."Not yet. You're still far from sensing it truly. Even farther from forming a core."
He said nothing. Just listened.
She looked at him with something close to kindness.
"But the fact that you're reaching for it… that means something."
He nodded slowly.
"Then I keep trying.""Yes. But remember this—feeling isn't understanding. And understanding isn't control."
He exhaled. Gave her a faint, tired smile.
"So… I'm still just a kid, huh?"
She laughed softly.
"Let's say you're learning to hear your own heartbeat. And here, in Iskarn… that's a miracle on its own."
The fire cracked.The wind moaned against the walls.
And in the quiet warmth of that room, he understood:
He hadn't even begun to fight.
****
He left the old woman's house without looking back.
No slamming doors. No final words.Anger was a luxury — and today, he was too tired to afford it.
The cold slapped his face the second he stepped outside, sharper now, like it had taken offense to his presence. Or maybe it was just that everything felt heavier after disappointment.
He paused in the middle of the road, hands in his coat pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind.His eyes rose toward the mountains on the horizon — jagged teeth of stone tearing into a grey sky that hadn't changed in weeks.Snow stretched between him and those peaks like a graveyard waiting for names.
He inhaled deeply.Ash. Burned wood. Salt.And the lingering scent of fish, always fish.
"She says I'm far away…" he muttered, and a thin smile twisted on his lips — not amused, not bitter. Just tired.
"Far from sensing my spirit. Far from forming a core. Far from... well, everything. That's good. Nice to be consistent."
He walked again, slower this time, each step sinking slightly into the frozen mud.Each crunch of his boots was another confirmation: he was still here. Still just… existing.
This village wasn't his.It had never been.He didn't need anyone to say it. He could hear it in the silence behind closed doors. In the stiffness of shoulders as he passed. In the way children were pulled aside by nervous hands.
He wasn't born here.He didn't carry their blood.His ash-grey hair and pale skin made him stand out like rot in snow.
And here, in the bitter spine of Iskarn, outsiders didn't become family.They survived, if they were lucky.Nothing more.
"Maybe if I become Awakened…" he started to think, then caught himself.
He shouldn't go there. Not yet.Not that thought. Not that dream.
But it still rose, uninvited.
The Chieftain.
He had seen him once — only once — and it was enough to scar the memory into his bones.
A beast had come from the sea that day.Not some fat-scaled eel or overgrown crab, but a monster. A dragon, almost. Thirty meters long. Covered in black salt-gleaming scales, its mouth a tomb of jagged spears.
Fifteen Awakened had faced it.Trained warriors. Tribal elites. Each with marks etched into their flesh, each carrying a sliver of power he couldn't even imagine.
And they had nearly died.Torn. Crushed. Scattered like bones in a tide.
Until he came.
The Chief didn't run. He didn't scream.He walked.A blade on his back. No armor. No entourage.
And he killed it.Just like that.With a single blow that turned the monster's scream into silence.
Not rage.Not magic.Just power.A kind that didn't need to shout to be known.
That was the moment the boy inside him broke.
And something colder, sharper, more desperate, took its place.
"If I was like that…" he whispered, "maybe they'd stop looking at me like a mistake someone forgot to bury."
He reached his cabin without realizing it.
He didn't bother taking off his coat or lighting the fire.He walked straight to the wall where his gear hung like old memories — brittle but familiar.
His bow.A short, curved blade.A pouch barely worth the name.Two arrows — one with a warped shaft, the other with a cracked fletching.
A real hunter would laugh.A real warrior wouldn't even notice him.
But that's all he had.
He strapped the gear onto his back, checked the bowstring, and stared at himself in the dull reflection of a hanging metal plate.
"You still look like a fool."
He didn't smile this time. Just turned and left.
He didn't take the path toward the docks.Didn't look at the market, didn't glance at the people, didn't breathe their world.
He went east.
To where the trees grew taller, darker.Where no trails existed.Where no children played.Where even the seasoned trackers went only in pairs, and only with a damn good reason.
The forest didn't welcome him.
The snow deepened with every step.The light dimmed, even though the sun was still somewhere above the clouds.The wind changed — no longer playful, but whispering, like something behind the trees was paying attention.
And maybe it was.
But he didn't stop.
He wanted to feel it again.That warmth. That flicker in his chest. That strange pulse that had awakened during the fight with the wolf.
That thing.
He didn't have a name for it.He didn't need one.
He just knew it was the first real sign he'd ever felt.The first proof that maybe, just maybe, there was something inside him that didn't belong to this weak, freezing body.
He had no blessings.No marks.No history.
But he had this—This hunger that bit deeper than the cold.This gnawing fire that refused to die.
Not yet.
And today...he would feed it.