—THUD—THUD—THUD—
The vein drank greedily.
Each strike of Leon's chisel sent a shivering tremor through the black rock, and each tremor answered with a pulse of violet warmth that crawled up his arm and settled behind his heart like a second, чужд heartbeat. The pain in his shattered legs never faded—but it changed.
It stopped screaming.
It started teaching.
Bone grinding against bone became rhythm. Fire became memory.
He worked.
Hours dissolved into a blur of motion and sound—clang, crack, hum. Perfect shards piled in the basket beside him, each one humming faintly, vibrating like a living thing when touched. Blood dripped steadily from his nose, splashing onto the stone in dark petals that steamed before freezing.
Claire watched from her bench.
She didn't speak.
Once, she slid a bowl of gray gruel toward him with her boot. Once, she kicked snow-dust over the blood pooling beneath his face. That was all the mercy this place allowed.
The other cutters stared when they thought Leon wasn't looking.
The same look people in Aethelgard once gave frost-wraith survivors.
Envy.
Dread.
Then the mountain grew tired of waiting.
It began with a sound no chisel could make.
—SKRRRCH—
Wet.
Dragging.
Like a carcass being peeled across stone.
The rhythm of work broke instantly. Chisels froze mid-swing. Breath vanished from lungs. Torches guttered as if shrinking from what approached.
—SKRRRCH—
Closer.
Claire was moving before Leon understood.
"Down," she hissed.
She dropped flat behind her bench. Others followed, smashing their faces against the stone, pressing themselves thin, invisible. Even the blue flames dimmed, as though afraid to be seen.
The sound changed.
—TIK—TIK—TIK—
Claws.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Then it stepped into the gallery.
White fur.
Not clean—never clean—but clotted and matted, stiff with old blood and frozen gore. The creature was colossal, its hunched spine arched like a bow drawn too far. It loomed higher than two men stacked atop one another, its shoulders scraping stone.
Forelimbs longer than Leon's entire body dragged against the floor.
Claws curved, black, serrated.
Dripping viscous filth that hissed and smoked where it touched the rock.
The head—
Gods, the head—
Five eyes.
Milky.
Blind.
Three smeared across its brow, two set crookedly into the snout like afterthoughts. They rolled independently, weeping clear fluid, glowing with the dead luminescence of deep-sea horrors. No pupils. No focus. Just hunger.
The muzzle was split in a permanent rictus, rows of needle teeth overlapping like shattered glass. A black, barbed tongue slid out, tasting the air.
The blackwind Goule.
The mountain's hunger made flesh.
It did not kill to eat.
It killed because the mountain enjoyed the sound.
It paused.
One eye fixed on Leon.
Another drifted toward Claire.
The rest swept the shadows.
No one breathed.
The Goule took one step.
—KRRRACK—
Stone fractured beneath its weight.
Then it spoke.
Not with sound.
With pressure.
With cold forced into lungs.
With every unspoken nightmare Leon had ever swallowed.
Thirty-Seven.
The word detonated inside every skull at once.
Several cutters screamed despite themselves.
The Goule's head tilted.
Five eyes narrowed.
You woke something small.
Something young.
Something that should have stayed asleep.
Leon's fingers clenched around his chisel.
The shard beside him—still warm—burned against his skin as he grabbed it.
The Goule felt it.
One massive limb rose.
A claw extended.
Pointing—not at Leon—
—but at the fracture in the vein behind him.
The crack he had made.
The place where violet light leaked like an open artery.
Thief.
The word crushed Leon flat. His broken legs spasmed uselessly, nerves shrieking.
The Goule advanced.
Claire moved.
She didn't run.
She charged.
She tore a torch bracket from the wall and swung it with everything she had. Blue flame howled as iron smashed into the Goule's foreleg.
—CLANG—
The creature barely reacted.
A claw flashed.
—SCHLORK—
Claire's arm came off at the elbow.
Blood erupted—hot, arterial—spraying the wall in a red fan. Bone jutted white and slick from the stump. She stared at it, blinking, confused—
Then collapsed, screaming once before the cold stole her voice.
Chaos exploded.
Cutters scattered, shrieking.
The Goule swept sideways.
—RIIIP—
Three men were opened in a single lazy arc. Ribs burst outward. Entrails spilled steaming onto the stone. They fell apart before they hit the ground.
Another man—the one missing three fingers—threw his chisel.
It struck the Goule's shoulder.
Snapped.
The Goule exhaled.
—HAAAAAAAA—
Black frost poured from its maw.
The man froze mid-step.
Skin turned blue-black.
Eyes crystallized.
He toppled—
—and shattered into frozen chunks on impact.
Leon dragged himself backward, chain screaming. Pain roared through his legs, but terror drowned it out. His spine pressed against the pulsing vein.
The Goule turned.
Five eyes locked on the shard in his fist.
Give.
Leon shook his head.
The Goule lunged.
Leon screamed and slammed the shard into the fracture behind him—burying it to the wrist.
The mountain answered.
—BOOOOOOM—
Violet light erupted like a geyser.
It slammed into the Goule mid-leap, hurling it across the gallery. Stone exploded. Fur tore free. The creature hit the wall hard enough to crater it.
It howled.
Not pain.
Rage.
The vein split wider.
Light poured out.
Shards rained from the ceiling.
The air screamed with ozone and burning blood.
The Goule rose.
White fur sloughed away in wet sheets, revealing black muscle twitching beneath. One milky eye had burst, fluid streaming down its snout.
Four eyes fixed on Leon.
You will feed longer for this.
Then it turned.
And vanished into the tunnel.
—SKRRRCH—SKRRRCH—
Silence crashed down.
Smoke curled from corpses.
Blood pooled and froze in grotesque patterns.
Claire lay motionless.
Eyes open.
Staring at nothing.
Leon tore his arm free from the vein. Skin hung in strips. Flesh was burned raw. The shard was gone—swallowed whole.
The fracture was larger now.
Wide enough for a man's arm.
Deep enough to hide sins.
From within came a new sound.
Not whispers.
Laughter.
Soft.
Slow.
Satisfied.
Leon stared into the darkness.
The mountain wasn't done breaking him.
It had begun to sharpen him.