In the cold, deep silence of the night, Poyraz lay with his eyes fixed on the dark shadows of the wooden beams on the ceiling, trying to quiet his mind.
The sorrowful description Hak had heard from Miren echoed in his mind:
"Reveries are the echoes of imaginings, of dreams, and of history."
Poyraz rolled this sentence quietly between his lips. In return, he'd passed Togan's definition of magic on to Hak.
"Magic is imitating kor…"
As the moonlight seeping through the window left a cold, silvery stain on the floor of the room, he realized sleep wasn't going to come to him.
He got up from his bed with a creak and went over to the window, to that alien sky. He reached one hand out into the night and opened his palm to the emptiness.
He tried to wake the Yelvi inside his head; a feeble warmth, like an ember about to die out, stirred in his mind.
He tried to channel it through his body; the Yelvi resisted, leaving a faint pain in its wake, but advanced all the same.
When it reached his torso he tried to turn the Yelvi into various shapes—first a square, then a triangle, then another triangle…
The Yelvi went on taking countless shapes for a while longer. Finally he tried to channel the energy to his arms and from there to his hands. But nothing happened.
All that remained of the energy in his arms was a familiar, intense ache.
'I'm making a mistake somewhere again,' he sighed and gave up. He had no Yelvi left now.
The energy he'd accumulated through the day had run out on a single failure.
In the deep silence of the night he went on watching outside. A few minutes later he decided to sleep.
Just as he was about to leave the window and head for his bed, rappings began to echo off the cold walls of the surrounding houses.
"Tap… Tap… Tap!"
Then a neighing followed it.
A neighing… but a strange one. As if whatever made the sound were struggling to breathe.
Poyraz scanned outside as far as the window allowed; but he could make out neither a horse nor a dark shape. He was certain there was someone—or something—out there, somewhere in that darkness.
Just then, a woman's desperate scream shattered the night like glass:
"HELP! MASTER! HELP US!" It was a woman's voice.
Then murmurs rose through the stone houses of the village.
When Poyraz turned around, he saw that Tunay and Hak had already woken and were looking at him with an alert wariness.
Not a single word passed between them; they only exchanged glances and, with the same silent resolve, headed for the door.
When the first light of morning fell on the Ruined Lands, Poyraz was still sleepless.
Every time Miren's bloodied, crimson-dyed body came before his eyes, a cold shiver ran down his spine.
Hearing the breath of death this close had broken something inside him. Thankfully the old woman was still breathing; Selis—the woman with the baby—had healed her a little with her tın that carried a healing effect, and Yalaz had made her drink a potion.
"Haaah," Poyraz sighed deeply.
He felt like an empty husk tossed about in the wind. He wanted to get away from this blood- and corpse-smelling land as soon as possible and return to Earth.
But then he stopped and thought.
'Then again, what would I even do on Earth? There too I was a nobody.'
He couldn't be sure whether he missed Earth; the only thing he knew was that this new world felt more alive to him.
More real…
When the sun had climbed high and reached his face through the window, he got up from his bed with sleepless eyes.
He saw Tunay sitting on the bed across from him. As he sat, he had one hand open, looking at his palm.
Small beams of lightning came out of Tunay's hands, vanished a few centimeters on, and came back again. The very fine sparks made sounds, so faint that he hadn't heard them while lying down and only noticed now that he focused.
In a flat voice, Poyraz said, "You did it."
Tunay's answer was just as calm. "Yeah."
Tunay brought his hand close to Poyraz. When Poyraz touched the currents he felt a pain as if little needles were pricking his hand.
"Right now it's good for nothing but a bit of a sting." Tunay touched it himself too.
"Ahh!" He pulled his hand back at once, then with a smile, "Maybe it could be used as torture."
Poyraz raised one eyebrow and looked at Tunay.
Noticing Poyraz's strange look, Tunay went on. "Couldn't it?"
A single sentence came out of Poyraz's mouth. "You think?"
As the two of them left the house with calm steps, a thought crossed his mind.
'While I couldn't manage it, someone already has…'
As Poyraz walked along he noticed the deep silence in the village. The village, which would normally be bustling at this midday hour, had fallen into a deathly silence after the old woman's wounding.
When they reached the inn they saw Aylin, Tekin, Sevda, and Hazar. The four were talking quietly while eating.
Tunay and Poyraz greeted them and sat at the table to the side.
He noticed there was a change in the inn today.
Mira and Erya, who normally ran the inn, were gone; in their place, Veda and Duru were in the kitchen.
A few minutes later Esen came over to them and brought their food.
When Poyraz saw Esen's face, his heart sank.
The always-cheerful girl's eyes were red and even faintly bruised. Her usually tidy hair was disheveled, and her hands trembled slightly.
He wanted to ask, but couldn't.
He wanted to comfort her, but couldn't.
He knew anything he said would be meaningless.
He chose to turn to his food too; after all, the food would be eaten one way or another.
As he ate with Tunay, he asked.
"How did the Erk training go?"
Tunay waited until he'd finished the bite in his mouth.
"Ordinary. The old man had us run at first, then taught us to use Erk."
He took a sip of the bitter juice in front of him and went on.
"Not much different from Yelvi. The only difference is what you do after you channel the energy into your torso. When doing magic, instead of the shapes we trace in the body with Yelvi, with Erk you just spread it directly to wherever you want."
He caught his breath.
"To an arm, a leg, a shoulder, or anywhere."
"Sounds easy."
"Easy, but because of the resistance, spreading it is as hard and painful as turning it."
"It can't be that bad," said Poyraz, then went on.
"Is there a difference between accumulating Erk and Yelvi? Did you learn a new breathing technique?"
"No. Remember I said I feel two warmths in my body while doing the breathing technique?"
"Yeah?"
"It seems the breathing techniques let you accumulate whichever energy you have an affinity for."
"So the warmth in your belly was Yelvi?"
"Yes. Yelvi in the head, Erk in the belly, Sezi in the spine, it turns out."
"Strange," was all Poyraz could say.
Various theories crossed his mind.
'Can someone use two energies—even three—at the same time? Are there people with an affinity for all three?'
As ideas kept spinning, he spoke.
"So since you accumulate both energies, you're a lucky bastard. You're collecting twice the energy I am."
Tunay shook his head.
"It doesn't work like that."
Poyraz frowned. "What do you mean?"
"The breathing technique draws in whichever you have an affinity for… and I have two."
He paused briefly.
"But the speed doesn't increase. On the contrary, it drops."
"Drops?"
"Yeah. Because I'm pulling both at once, each fills up more slowly."
Poyraz thought.
"So, the same speed as someone pulling a single energy…"
"The same speed." Tunay shrugged. "It just accumulates in two separate places."
Tunay went quiet for a moment. His gaze drifted briefly into the void.
"If there were a better breathing technique…" he murmured. "Maybe it'd speed up."
"What do you mean?"
Tunay cast a quick glance around, then leaned forward a little.
"Listen carefully," he said in a low voice. "I barely pried this information out of the old man."
Poyraz had leaned in despite himself.
"The technique we use…" Tunay paused briefly, as if weighing his words.
"The Deep Breath of the Cold Steppe."
Poyraz nodded.
"It's only for Sparks."
His brows slowly knit. "What does that mean?"
"It means…" Tunay tapped the table lightly with his fingers.
"The Purified and the Corebearers can't use it."
Poyraz's gaze hardened.
"So they use something else."
"Yes."
Tunay leaned back slightly.
"Togan… Garrun… Miren… they all use breathing techniques different from ours."
There was a brief silence.
"And probably…" Tunay's voice dropped even lower,
"far more efficient than ours."
Poyraz jumped in at once.
"Well then that's normal. Maybe we can't use their techniques either."
Tunay shook his head.
"We can use them."
Poyraz stopped.
"What do you mean?"
"It's not about not being able to use them," Tunay said calmly.
"It's that they haven't been given to us."
He frowned slightly.
"Who'd give their best techniques to men they've just met?"
Poyraz's eyes narrowed.
"So they're hiding them."
"They're not hiding them." Tunay shrugged.
"They're guarding them."
There was a brief silence.
"Togan… Garrun… Miren… the old man…" he went on.
"They all have techniques of their own."
Poyraz curled his lip.
"And they gave us the simplest one."
"The safest one," said Tunay.
A moment passed.
"For now."
As the two of them talked, they'd long since finished their food; time had moved on, and the four at the next table had already left their seats.
Poyraz got up from the table.
"There's nothing to be done. They're right. I wouldn't give them away either." He looked at Tunay and went on.
"Forget the breathing techniques. If we don't want a scolding from Togan, we'd better make it to training."
The two of them left the inn with quick steps and headed for the house they used as a classroom.
Poyraz noticed that the silence in the village had eased a little; life had slowly begun to flow again.
'People get used to things fast. To death, to disaster, to pain…
Just like we got used to this world.
But this world… was not a place to get used to.'
Outside, as the hot light of the Sun and the two bright stars warmed the boundless steppes of the Ruined Lands with a fierce heat; below, in the heart of a deep darkness, a shadow appeared.
That peaceful refuge, where golden light once filtered through the stones in its ceiling and danced on the moss-covered rocks, was now unrecognizable.
The fresh smell of earth on the walls had given way to the soured sharpness of spilled wine and a metallic smell of blood hanging in the air. The heaps of rotted flesh and wood piled in the corners had trapped the cave's natural coolness in a suffocating, damp crimson.
One of the cave's countless arms opening into the darkness was clearly different from the others. The end of this arm was sealed with the flowing colors of an unreal, jelly-like, fluid rainbow; this was one of those countless mysterious gateways linking the cave to the sheer mountains of the Ruined Lands.
The Shadow, faithful to its task, slipped out of this shimmering jelly with slow and certain steps.
As its dark body passed through those jelly-like colors, it grew even denser; it had darkened still further, with its presence, a cave where light already couldn't breathe.
The faithful Shadow advanced with certain steps down its silent arm.
With every step, the silence it loved gave way to cries of agony, groans, and screams.