When the wind and snow at last fell silent, the ground was no longer white.
Kael walked back toward the Vanguard's position. Or what was left of it.
Fifty men had marched out this morning.
He counted the living.
Three.
Himself. Griggs. And another man about his size—older by many years—lying in the snow with one arm gone, his face already turning grey.
The veterans were gone. The men who had said little, who had taken the forward positions without comment, leaving the smaller bodies to the rear. Whatever their reasons, the result was the same. They had met the charge first—and the snow was littered with what remained.
Griggs sat on a rock, staring at nothing. His helmet was gone. His face was splattered with blood that wasn't his.
When Kael approached, Griggs flinched. He looked up, his eyes wide and hollow. He looked at Kael's face, then at the shotgun resting in the crook of Kael's arm.
The "Runt" was gone.
"You…" Griggs breathed. He swallowed, shifting back a step. "You're still standing."
Kael moved and sat down beside him.
"You are too," he answered.
"I shouldn't be," Griggs muttered. His eyes drifted over the bodies scattered across the field. Men he had cursed, men he had shared bread with, men whose voices he could still hear in his head. "Looks like it's just us left, kid. "
He drew a breath that shook despite himself. "Guess that makes us the veterans now."
A laugh tore out of him—short, uneven, edged with something too close to grief to sit comfortably.
Kael sat with him in silence. The weight settled into his shoulders as the surge ebbed, leaving behind the deep, honest ache of strain and impact. His arms trembled faintly, muscles spent, body reminding him of every weakness it still carried.
A shadow fell over them.
Captain Valen rode up and dismounted, his boots grinding red into the snow. He stood over Kael, iron and fresh blood cutting sharp through the cold air.
Valen looked at the dead Vanguard. He looked at Griggs. Finally, he looked at Kael.
His eyes lingered on the shotgun.
"Come with me."
Kael followed. They walked past the broken line and away from the men, boots cutting tracks through the snow until the noise of the battlefield thinned behind them.
Valen stopped. He turned.
"Dwarven?"
Kael hesitated for a fraction of a second, then answered. "I don't know. I found it."
Valen hummed, a sound of thoughtful appraisal.
He stepped closer, his eyes flicking once to the weapon in Kael's hands. Then he held out his hand.
"Give it to me."
Kael passed the weapon over without a word. Valen took it, weighed it once in his palm
"Good." Valen straightened. "You're done with the Vanguard."
He gestured toward the main camp.
"Get your wounds treated. Eat. Then return and wait for orders. I'll send for you when I'm ready."
Valen remounted and rode off, the Black Reaper returning to his command.
[The Medical Tent]
Pain spread and deepened, layering itself through his body.
Kael sat on the edge of the cot, hands braced on his knees to keep them steady. The sensation went beyond bruised muscle or the cut along his cheek.
His body carried the weight of exhaustion, dense and unresponsive, while his thoughts remained sharp, watching from a step ahead of the flesh that refused to keep up.
Kael closed his eyes, breath steady, trying to understand the sensation.
A simple thought surfaced, unfinished and uncertain.
Too much? Or was his body simply too weak to keep up with so much Aether?
Then another followed, quieter and almost careless.
Kael called the panel up.
[World: Western Era — World Fragment]
[Identity: EL LOBO — Kael]
[Aether: 15.5]
[Abilities Available for Exchange:]
Close Combat — Dagger (Mastery) | Cost: 1 Aether
Marksmanship — Firearms (Grandmaster) | Cost: 2 Aether (Exchanged)
Horsemanship — Horse (Mastery) | Cost: 1 Aether
Other — Knowledge | Cost: 1 Aether
The choices were made in silence. One after another, the remaining entries dimmed and vanished.
Three points of Aether were spent.
[Abilities Available for Exchange:]
Close Combat — Dagger (Mastery) | Cost: 1 Aether (Exchanged)
Marksmanship — Firearms (Grandmaster) | Cost: 2 Aether (Exchanged)
Horsemanship — Horse (Mastery) | Cost: 1 Aether (Exchanged)
Other — Knowledge | Cost: 1 Aether (Exchanged)
[Aether: 12.5]
Kael's body reacted before his thoughts could catch up. Fine adjustments rippled through muscle and tendon—too small to see, too precise to be accidental.
Fingers settled into new balances. Wrists aligned. The angle of his shoulders shifted by fractions, like years of repetition.
His hands no longer rested idly. They knew where to go. Throat. Jaw hinge. Eye socket. The spaces between bones, the points where force ended a fight quickly and without noise.
Movements that once required thought now existed as reflex, etched directly into muscle and nerve—habits forged by long use, forced into place all at once.
Techniques without context, names without memories, sequences of motion that had never been practiced yet were already familiar—foreign knowledge sitting cleanly in his thoughts, as if it had always been there.
The heaviness vanished.
One moment it was there, dragging at every joint and breath—and the next, it was simply gone.
In its absence, he felt something else settle in its place. A faint fullness in muscle and bone, like flesh that had been worked, fed, and allowed to recover all at once.
He couldn't be sure. He only knew his body felt… sustained.
The tent flap opened.
"Kael," a soldier grunted, not stepping inside. "The Captain wants you."