The darkness of the cave swallowed Ahayue whole.
His body trembled violently, each wound screaming for rest. His legs barely carried him as he stumbled deeper, away from the storm's howl. Snow melted on the floor and pooled in thin rivulets, but deeper still, there was warmth. Strange warmth, as though the mountain itself hid a heart of fire.
And there—flickering—was light.
Not torchlight. Not flame. It shimmered pale and soft, like the glow of moonlight trapped in water. Ahayue blinked, his vision swimming. Perhaps he was delirious, perhaps death had finally come with gentle hands.
Then a voice broke the silence.
"Why do you still cling to breath?"
Ahayue froze, blood pounding in his ears. The voice was neither old nor young, neither close nor far. It was inside the stone, inside his bones.
He turned his head.
Out of the shadows came a figure.
At first she was bent with age, hair long and silver, face lined with centuries. She walked with the patience of the earth itself, her hands trailing sparks of pale light. Then, before his eyes, her form rippled—youth restored, skin smooth, hair dark as midnight, eyes sharp and bright as stars.
Ahayue's breath caught. She seemed to flicker between ages with every step, neither wholly maiden nor crone, but something both and neither.
She smiled softly, though sorrow haunted the curve of her lips.
"Ahayue."
He staggered back. "How—how do you know my name?"
The woman's voice was calm, echoing faintly as though two tones spoke at once. "The curse calls to itself. It sings in your blood. And I… I have heard that song for more than two centuries."
The Witch Revealed
She came closer, kneeling beside him. Her hands brushed his face—warm, impossibly warm against the frost still clinging to him.
"I am Andalusia," she said. "Witch, exile, survivor. Like you, marked. Like you, cursed."
Her eyes shifted then—one moment youthful, glowing with vigor; the next, clouded, old, heavy with grief. Ahayue stared, half-terrified, half in awe.
"You…" His voice cracked. "You live with this? For so long?"
Her smile was soft, bitter at its edges. "Live? If you can call it that. The curse does not kill me, boy. It steals my years, then gives them back, twisted, broken. Some days I am twenty, some days two hundred. I have watched lovers wither, friends return to dust. And still I walk."
Her hand trembled briefly, not with weakness, but with the weight of memory.
Ahayue felt a knot tighten in his chest. For the first time, he saw what his future might become if he failed to find a cure. Endless survival, endless loss.
The Healing
Andalusia laid her hands over his wounds. Soft light bled from her palms, sinking into his flesh. It was not fire, not warmth exactly, but a deep, humming energy that resonated with his bones.
"Rest now," she whispered.
Ahayue tried to protest, but exhaustion dragged him under. His body went limp, his mind falling into dream.
Visions in Sleep
He dreamed.
He saw Andalusia walking through centuries. First as a maiden with fire in her step, wielding blades against men who called her monster. Then as a woman wrapped in shadows, whispering words to heal the dying, cursing kings who tried to chain her. Then as an old crone, weeping over graves that stretched like rivers.
Again and again, her face changed, but always her eyes—bright, haunted, unyielding—remained the same.
In the last vision, she stood alone on a mountaintop, reaching for the sky. Lightning struck her, split her body open, yet still she rose, laughing and crying at once.
Ahayue jolted awake, gasping.
A Maternal Bond
He lay on a bed of furs, his wounds bound with herbs that smelled sharp and bitter. A small fire glowed nearby—no ordinary fire, but pale and blue, casting strange shadows.
Andalusia sat beside him, grinding roots with steady hands. Today she looked neither maiden nor crone, but something in between, her age shifting subtly with each breath.
"You dreamt of me," she said softly, without turning.
Ahayue swallowed. "I saw… your life. Your pain."
Her eyes lifted to him, shimmering. "Yes. The curse makes memory bleed. It wanted you to see."
There was silence between them, filled only by the crackle of her strange fire. Then Andalusia reached out, brushing a lock of hair from his face with a tenderness he had not felt since childhood.
"You are young. Too young to carry such weight. Yet you endured the jungle, the shadows, the mountain, and the storm. You have the will to live. That is rare."
Her voice broke, just slightly. "Once, I had a son. He, too, bore this curse. But he did not survive his sixteenth year."
Ahayue's heart clenched. "I… I am sorry."
She smiled sadly. "Do not be. The curse is crueler than sorrow. And now, perhaps, I see in you what I once saw in him."
Lessons in Shadows
For days, Andalusia tended his wounds and taught him in fragments.
She showed him how to read the winds in the mountains, how to tell when avalanches stalked above. She whispered names of herbs that grew under the snow, roots that bled warmth when chewed.
And she spoke of the curse.
"It is not a wound that heals," she said one night as the blue fire flickered between them. "It is a chain. A tether to something far older, deeper than you or I. Every cursed soul is a link. That is why I knew your name before you spoke it. The chain binds us together, across time and distance."
Ahayue frowned. "Can it be broken?"
Her gaze grew far away. "Perhaps. But breaking chains shakes the world. Mountains may fall. Seas may rise. I cannot tell if such a cure would be salvation—or ruin."
The Offer
On the fifth night, when Ahayue could finally walk again, Andalusia led him to the cave's mouth. The storm had passed; the peaks shone silver beneath a hard, cold moon.
She stood tall, her form briefly youthful, then briefly ancient, as if her very being flickered in rhythm with the stars.
"You have a choice, Ahayue," she said. "Stay here. I will teach you what I know—how to bend the curse, how to turn pain into strength. You may learn to survive as I have."
Her eyes glistened with grief. "But you will also learn to watch the years steal everything you love."
Ahayue swallowed, torn. "And if I leave?"
Her voice dropped, soft as wind through dead leaves. "Then you walk toward answers I cannot give. Toward a cure I could never find. The path will be cruel. But it will be yours."
She reached out, cupping his cheek. For a moment, she looked only maternal, her eyes tender, aching with love for a boy who was not hers.
"Whatever you choose, Ahayue," she whispered, "remember—you are not alone anymore."
Closing
Ahayue gazed at her, heart pounding. For the first time since leaving his tribe, he felt warmth not only in his flesh but in his spirit. Someone understood. Someone bore the same mark.
But even as he drew comfort from her presence, the flicker of her shifting form was a warning. This was what awaited him if he lingered too long under the curse. Survival without end. Life without peace.
Andalusia's words lingered like fire in his chest: "Break the chain, and the world itself will tremble."
As the moon bathed the peaks in silver light, Ahayue knew that his journey had only just begun.