Averik stopped his finger before the trigger broke. Caedren had already stepped forward, hands open and low, while the revolver stayed level with the wounded Breaker’s forehead.
Averik didn’t lower it. "What?"
Wind drove loose snow across the wrecked road behind Caedren. The young man on the ground shuddered, and the young woman beside him tightened her grip on his shoulder.
Caedren kept his hands open. "Averik, there’s an isolation room at the camp. If you can stabilize him, maybe he can at least survive in there."
Averik glanced past him. The storm had swallowed most of the eastward road and turned the sky toward Vardel into a dark smear. "Are there any other rooms?"
Caedren hesitated at the question. "Yeah. We’ve got two other rooms to rest in."
That settled the part Averik cared about. He eased the hammer down, holstered the revolver, and looked at the Breaker breathing through clenched teeth. "All right. I’ll give you a chance."
He raised his palm toward the young breaker. The cyan rime crawling away from the wound answered as soon as Averik pressed his Corruption Authority into it. The bear had left the young man’s Essence circulation stumbling over itself; every attempt his Tier 5 body made to close the wound failed before the repair could take hold.
Averik pinned invasive Corruption, this time he found the pressure faster. He squeezed its spread inward instead of fighting the man’s whole body. The shivering eased. Cyan veins that had been creeping farther under the skin stopped.
He could have ended there. Instead, while Caedren and the others watched the visible rime recede, Averik slipped a thin thread of his own Corruption Essence into the mass he had just stabilized and folded it into the pressure he was already holding. The Breaker gave no sign that he noticed. The strand remained perceptible to him. If he later chose to push the man’s corruption toward Frost Zombie, he already had a grip buried inside.
The Breaker sucked in a ragged breath. His eyes were wet from pain, but when he tried to turn his face away and failed, his mouth worked before any words came out. "I’m sorry... I didn’t mean it like that. Since I was little, I only wanted to become strong, join a frontline unit, help fight for land that isn’t frozen... find some hope."
A tear slipped toward his ear. Averik lowered his hand. "Keep it to yourself."
The young man went quiet. Averik had already moved on. "Caedren, get ready first. Go to the crawler."
He looked to Bram next. "Come with me."
Bram’s brow creased, but he fell in behind him. Evelyn moved to Averik’s side with her spear, Snow beside her, the Rimeback Greatbear still held the place Averik had ordered it to keep. One intent through the bond brought the huge Frost Beast around, and its weight punched deep prints into the snow as it followed them toward the corpse field.
Behind them, Caedren, Tovan, and the young woman stayed with the wounded Breaker and began moving him toward the crawler.
Averik didn’t look back.
The feeding ground smelled worse now that the fighting had stopped. Blue blood had frozen in dark streaks between cracked pavement. Burned fur, opened carcasses, smoke, and Corruption sat under the wind, while the bodies from the earlier clash lay where they had fallen.
Averik opened Spirit Sight and found two souls still clinging to separate Frost Zombie corpses, ragged at the edges, their shapes smearing into the Corruption around the dead flesh. He lifted a hand. Four narrow Frost spears condensed above him, two angled toward each lingering spirit, and Soul Affinity sank through the ice until the pressure behind them sharpened. Bram’s attention snapped upward as Averik sent them down.
SHHK!
The first pair crossed through one spirit and tore its shape apart. The other soul twisted toward the corpse beneath it, but the remaining spears struck before it could settle. Under Spirit Sight, both remnants broke down until there was nothing left to cling to the bodies.
Averik closed the sight and turned to the Greatbear. "Pile them together."
The Greatbear lowered its head and started dragging bodies together. Its paws were large enough to pin a Frost Zombie torso flat while its jaws dragged another corpse across the road. It ripped a dead Sleetusk free where a tusk had jammed under broken pavement, stone cracking under the pull, then shoved the carcass against the others. Snow kept clear of the pile and watched the surrounding road instead.
Bram followed the growing heap with his eyes. "What are you going to do?"
Averik waited until the last Rimejackal had been dragged in. "All right. Now use your fire to burn these corpses."
Bram gave him a sideways look. "You dragged me back here to make me a furnace?"
Averik looked at him.
Bram watched him for a beat, then raised one hand. Fire rolled from his palm into dead fur and caught quickly. The surface blackened first, smoke tearing sideways in the wind, then Bram pushed the flames deeper through the heap.
Averik watched the Corruption packed into the corpses react to the heat.
’This whole area’s thick with Corruption Essence. All along the road... maybe the Corruption Essence outside the walls really is denser everywhere. I’ve been absorbing Corruption Essence nonstop since I left the fortress. Yeah, maybe my absorption capacity still isn’t that large. Well, it’s like endless Essence for me. Haha.’
A faint smile touched his mouth. He watched the smoke peel away in the wind. "Even dead, these corpses still leave behind incredibly dense Corruption Essence. For me, there are two kinds of Corruption Essence."
Bram turned from the flames. "Two? How many kinds of this Essence are there, exactly?"
Averik watched the burning bodies. "Yeah. It’s actually the same thing. The difference is only in its nature, and for all of you, both are still equally dangerous."
Bram looked back at the smoke, where a blue-gray stain still mixed with the darker plume. "Still means we have to avoid all of it."
Averik watched the fire work for another moment."Can you make your fire bigger? Hotter?"
"I’ll try." Bram widened his stance and fed more Essence through his hand. Flames climbed higher, curled around the sides of the heap, and pushed against the wind hard enough to melt the nearest crust of snow. The increase was obvious. It still wasn’t enough.
Averik’s voice cut through the roar. "Harder. Have you never trained? Is this all you can do? Feel your Essence. Feel your fire. Feel it. Make it denser. Focus... Fine, let’s do this..."
Bram’s jaw tightened. Before he could answer, Averik pulled the heavy revolver free and pressed its barrel to Bram’s temple. The flames wavered once. "If these corpses aren’t clean in ten seconds, I’ll shoot you in the head. You know what I can do, don’t you? Don’t make me wait."
Bram’s eyes cut sideways without moving his head. Sweat appeared at his temple despite the cold. "You’re fucking serious."
Averik cocked the hammer. Bram’s stare hardened, but he didn’t test him. "Start. Evelyn, count."
Evelyn shifted her spear and kept the road in the edge of her attention while she watched Bram. "One."
Bram dragged in a breath and drove more Essence into the flames. "Two." Instead of feeding only the surface, he used Conduit to carry fire through gaps in the corpse pile, and buried sections that had been smoking began to burn. At "Three," a heavy WHUMP! rolled out of the heap, heat spilling across the pavement as nearby snow hissed into water.
"Four." Bram’s shoulders locked. He caught the force he had already built with Resonator and kept it from scattering into the wind. "Five." The color at the center shifted, dirty orange bleaching toward a cleaner yellow-white as the burn intensified. At "Six," bone cracked and a larger carcass folded inward under its own weight.
"Seven." Averik kept the revolver against Bram’s head and felt the concentrated hostile Corruption essence finally spreads and merges with the surrounding Corruption Essence. At "Eight," Bram gave a raw shout and forced the fire tighter. The heap collapsed toward its center.
"Nine." The last heavy knot of hostile residue broke with it.
Averik lowered the gun. Bram stayed bent forward for a moment, breathing hard while fire rolled over charred bone and dark slag. There was nothing left here worth waiting for.
He uncocked the revolver. "Very good. Sometimes people need a little push to make them try harder."
Bram wiped his forehead with the back of his glove. "Of course. Better than ending up a corpse like them. And Averik... even if you look cruel, you still seem like your father."
Averik stared at him.
Bram’s mouth twitched once.
Averik holstered the revolver. "Let’s go back."
They left the burned remains behind and headed up-route. The Greatbear followed for a short distance, its bulk forcing Bram to keep more space than usual between himself and the road edge.
The Greatbear followed at first, enormous paws crushing through the road’s broken edge. They had gone only partway toward the crawler when Averik sent another command through the bond. ’Go back. Your territory.’
The Greatbear stopped, looked toward him once, then turned west and began walking away through the blowing snow.
Bram watched it go. "You’re sending it away?"
Averik kept walking. "What? You want me to bring it to the camp or the fortress? Hah?"
Bram looked from Averik to the fully corrupted giant disappearing down-route. "Hehe, no."
They kept moving. The Greatbear’s frost-ridged back faded into the storm behind them until even its tracks began filling.
After a while Bram spoke again, quieter this time. "Averik, can you see spirits, souls, things like that?"
Averik kept his pace. "You could say that. Why?"
Bram rubbed at his beard. "No. It’s just... I used to know someone who had an ability like yours... Ah, no. Forget it."
Averik turned his head enough to catch Bram’s expression, but the older man had already fixed his eyes on the road. Averik faced forward and kept walking.
The crawler emerged through the storm sometime after midday. Caedren and Tovan had lined one side of the rear section with the pale containment sheet from the crawler’s contamination kit, keeping the wounded Breaker away from the ordinary seats and floor.
The Breaker’s eyes opened as Averik climbed aboard. The cyan around his wound hadn’t advanced, and his breathing no longer hitched with every jolt of the crawler.
Tovan shut the rear hatch after Bram entered and turned the crawler east.
Afternoon never became bright. Gray-black cloud pressed low over the return route, and sheets of blown snow erased the road faster than the tracks could cut it again. The old marker line carried them for a while. Then two poles vanished into white and Tovan slowed.
Caedren leaned forward, staring at a stretch where road, ditch, and broken pavement had merged into the same color. A muttered curse escaped him. Then Pathfinder narrowed his attention slightly left of the crawler’s nose. He pointed. "There. Hold that line until the next rise."
Tovan corrected course without wasting breath on an answer.
By the time the camp’s circular wall pushed through the storm, daylight should have been well past noon. The sky still looked closer to evening. Its crawler gate opened ahead of them, and Tovan drove both articulated sections into a yard broad enough to turn without clipping the wall before parking beside the compact house at the center.
The watchman came out under a hood, saw the lined casualty space, and stopped asking whatever had been on his tongue. Caedren and the young woman brought the Breaker straight through the house toward the isolation room, with Tovan clearing the narrow passage ahead. Fixed heat was already warming the room when the door closed behind them.
Averik watched only long enough to know where the man had been taken. "You handle him first... Where’s the washroom? And I want one room for rest."
Caedren pointed through the common room. "Washroom’s through there. Two sleeping rooms past it. Take the left one."
Averik turned to Evelyn. "Evelyn, you can wash up first."
Her tired expression softened. "Yes, Averik. I won’t be long."
They took the left sleeping room. Evelyn set her refitted spear against the wall, while Snow circled once and settled on the floor beside the bed.
The washroom was small and plain, with a heated tank feeding meltwater into a stone basin and drain. Evelyn went first; Averik washed after her. By the time he returned in clean sleep layers, smoke, frozen blood, and road grime were gone from his skin.
Evelyn was already on the bed in her own clean underlayers, silver hair loose over one shoulder with the red ends still damp. Averik lay beside her and pulled her into his arms. The camp creaked around them as wind scraped snow over the outer wall, but inside the room her body gradually lost the tension it had carried since the fight.
Averik threaded his hand into her loose hair and kissed her forehead. Evelyn tucked closer, then eventually raised her face. Her eyes were warm now instead of watchful, and she leaned toward his mouth.
A knock struck the door before their lips met.
Caedren spoke through the door. "Averik, we’ve prepared food, if you want some."
Averik answered without getting up. "Yeah."
Evelyn’s mouth tightened into a small pout. Averik slapped her ass through the thin fabric, the sharp slap pulling a startled sound from her. "All right, my beautiful wife. Get dressed."
"Mm~ Averik... I..." She lingered against him, not moving for her clothes yet.
He ran a hand over her hair. "Let’s eat first."
She held his gaze for another second, clearly wanting something else, then nodded and reached for her clothes. "All right, Averik. I’m coming."
They dressed in their outer layers and went to the common room with Snow following behind them.
The meal was hot and heavy, thick stew with meat and roots, while the shutters rattled under the storm. Caedren said the Breaker remained stable; the cyan signs hadn’t spread again, but the wound still refused to close and the man had spent the afternoon shaking through pain.
Tovan listened to the wind hit the wall and shook his head. "Road’s gone in this."
"It’ll be worse before it gets better," Caedren said.
Bram tore off another mouthful of meat. "Fine by me. I’ve had enough lessons for one day." His eyes flicked once toward Averik’s holster before he went back to eating.
Averik didn’t answer. The road could wait until morning.
By the time the bowls were empty, the last gray behind the shutters had gone black.
Snow slept on the floor when Averik and Evelyn returned to their room. Their outer layers went over the chair, leaving them in the same clean underlayers they had worn before dinner. Evelyn climbed into bed first, curled into his arms, and kissed him.
Averik kept the kiss gentle until her breathing changed. His hand slid behind her neck, drawing her closer as the other moved over her waist, her hip, then squeezed her ass through the thin cloth.
Evelyn pressed into him "Mm~," one thigh sliding over his leg.
She kissed him again, slower, then eased back only far enough to breathe, fingers resting against his chest. "Averik~ aren’t you in the mood?"
Averik slid his hand beneath the edge of her sleep shorts and began stroking her pussy. "I just don’t want them hearing your voice."
Color rose into Evelyn’s cheeks. "I can keep my voice down, Averik... I-"
"Really?" His fingers moved more deliberately before she could finish.
"Ye-... ahn~"
The sound slipped out at once. Evelyn’s thighs tightened around his hand, and she looked up at him with her face burning.
Averik smiled. "See? You moaned right away. I barely touched you."
"Mm~ Averik..." She pressed closer for more.
Averik withdrew his hand instead and smoothed the loose silver strands back from her face. "Sleep. We’re going home tomorrow."