Page 7 of Bound By the Beast Man
CORVAK
F or days, I have walked, and for days, the Prazh Mountains have tested me.
This is a harsh and unforgiving wilderness, a landscape of jagged rock that tears at my boots and a biting wind that finds every gap in my damaged armor.
The initial exhaustion from the shipwreck has settled into a deep, gnawing ache in my bones, a constant companion to the hunger that claws at my belly.
On Osiris, I am a master of the wild, but this world is alien.
Its plants are strange, its animals cunning and unfamiliar, their scents all wrong on the cold air.
The struggle is constant, a grinding battle for every foot of elevation, for every mouthful of water.
Still, I endure. My warrior’s discipline is a shield against the despair that whispers at the edges of my mind in the dead of night.
I hunt, using skills honed over a century of service.
I manage to track and kill a small, furred creature with wicked-looking incisors, its meat tough and gamy but enough to quell the worst of the hunger pains.
I find streams of ice-cold water that flow down from the snow-dusted peaks and follow them, knowing they are my best chance of finding a more hospitable valley, perhaps even a settlement.
Every step is a calculation of risk, every shadow a potential threat.
At night, I find what shelter I can in shallow caves or under the dense boughs of ancient pines whose needles are as sharp as daggers.
I do not allow myself the luxury of a fire, knowing its light and smoke would be a beacon in this dark land.
Sleep is a shallow, restless thing, filled with images of the storm, of the malevolent eyes in the clouds, and of the faces of my lost brothers.
The vow we made on the ship is a burning coal in my gut, the words a constant mantra that drives me onward.
“To meet in Rach,” I whispered to the uncaring wind.
It is that promise, that sacred duty, that forces my stiff, cold muscles to move each morning, to continue this seemingly hopeless journey.
I am pushing through a dense forest of pines, the air growing still and heavy around me.
The wind, which has been my constant, howling companion on the high ridges, dies away completely.
In the sudden, profound silence, I hear it.
At first, it is so faint I mistake it for the blood rushing in my own ears.
It is a low, rhythmic sound, a melodic chanting that seems to come from everywhere at once, a vibration that I feel in the soles of my boots before I truly hear it with my ears.
The sound is hypnotic, pulling at my senses in a way that is both alluring and deeply unsettling.
My every instinct, honed by decades of battle and survival, screams of danger.
This is unnatural magic; I can smell it on the air, a scent like ozone and old secrets.
Yet, a deeper curiosity, an inexplicable pull from a place I do not recognize, urges me forward.
I abandon the direct path and begin to move with a predator’s caution, using the thick trunks of the pines and the deep, eternal shadows they cast for cover.
My movements are silent, my senses on high alert, scanning the woods for any sign of a sentry or a trap.
The chanting grows louder, clearer. I can distinguish a chorus of female voices now, their words in a language I have never heard.
The harmony is perfect, yet it holds a discordant note of cruelty.
The thrum of magic in the air becomes a palpable pressure, a weight on my skin that makes it tingle.
I am close now. I know that whatever lies ahead is a power I do not understand, and that walking toward it may be the last mistake I ever make.
But I cannot turn back. Something is pulling me forward, and I am powerless to resist.
I come to the edge of a clearing and halt, my body pressed flat against the rough bark of a gnarled, ancient tree.
I peer around the trunk, my breath catching in my throat.
The sight before me is from some dark legend, a scene of terrible, sacrilegious beauty.
The clearing is a perfect circle, ringed with massive, moss-covered standing stones that lean like the tired, ancient bones of the earth itself.
The air within the circle is still, the ground bare of any life.
In the exact center, an ornate glass coffin floats a few feet above the ground.
Faint, blue runes are carved into its surface, and they pulse with a soft, ethereal light, casting strange shadows on the ground below.
A circle of women surrounds the coffin, their heads bowed, their voices rising and falling with the strange, mesmerizing chant.
They are impossibly beautiful, with faces that could have been carved by a master sculptor, but their beauty is edged with a sharp, predatory aura.
These are the Purna, the cruel witches from the Minotaur’s darkest tales.
My gaze is drawn past them, through the enchanted glass of the coffin, to what lies within.
It is a woman. She has skin as pale as fresh snow and long, dark hair that spills around her like a river of shadow.
Her features are delicate, her face serene in its unnatural slumber, like a princess from a storybook trapped in an enchanted sleep.
She is a vision of fragile, human beauty, a stark and jarring contrast to the monstrous power that surrounds her.
As I stare at her, a profound, primal feeling grips me. It is a jolt of recognition that goes deeper than memory, a connection that bypasses logic and reason entirely.
It is a roar in my blood, a silent recognition from a version of myself I never knew existed, an unshakeable certainty that changes everything.
My mission, my brothers, my very world suddenly shifts and reorients around the sleeping woman in the glass coffin.
I do not know her name. I do not know her story.
But I know she is mine.