The wind was a blade of ice against Erika's exposed skin, but the chill in his veins ran far deeper. Pinned to the ground like a trussed animal, he was utterly helpless before the four shadowy figures whose low, overlapping laughter seemed to suck the warmth from the very air.
"Who…" His voice cracked, barely a ragged whisper. "What do you want?"
Only that chilling, multi-toned laughter answered, echoing in the desolate silence.
One of the cloaked figures moved. His boots crunched deliberately on the dry grass, each step a tolling bell in Erika's ears. Then, a hard-soled boot pressed against the side of his face, grinding his cheek brutally into the cold, gritty soil. The bite of dirt and stone against his skin was nothing compared to the wave of humiliating terror that followed.
"Loren…" Erika thrashed his head weakly, his words choked by the pressure and the dirt filling his mouth. He grasped at his only lifeline. "Loren de Witt… he was with me. If you want a ransom… or leverage… I'm nothing without him. You need him…"
He was throwing out the only name that carried any weight, a desperate, pathetic attempt to prove he had some tangential worth.
The figures remained unmoved. The boot on his head pressed down harder, sending black spots dancing behind his eyes.
Then, another one knelt. Erika caught a faint scent from the black robes—dust, and something else, cold and metallic. A gloved hand, rough and impersonal, clamped around his bound wrists.
His heart gave a violent lurch.
He felt it—the cold, sharp point of a blade resting lightly against his wrist.
"No… please…" he whimpered, his entire body tensing for the searing, agonizing pain.
But the blade didn't plunge. Instead, it began to move with excruciating slowness, tracing a light, precise line.
A distinct sensation of skin parting.
He could feel it—the warmth of liquid welling from the cut, a sticky, slow-trickling sensation that spoke of life seeping away. The sheer power of suggestion and raw, primal terror amplified the feeling until he was absolutely certain his wrist was bleeding, his vitality dripping away into the dirt.
"Ah—!" A short, sharp cry escaped his lips. His body grew freezing cold, trembling violently under the weight of phantom blood loss.
Help… someone, help!
He screamed the words in his mind, throwing all his fractured will into the Mind-voice, desperately trying to project to any Cleric who might be within range. It was his last, desperate hope.
But a profound despair washed over him. He couldn't focus. The mental faculties he could usually muster were frozen solid, locked away behind a thick, syrupy barrier in his mind. Was it the lingering poison of the Whispering Gate? Or was this sheer, mind-numbing terror itself the most potent shackle?
No response… The Mind-voice… it's not working.
The realization was the final stone sealing his tomb.
The four figures remained silent sentinels, their low, infernal snickers seeming to drink in his futile struggle. Just as Erika's mind was about to shatter completely, one of them spoke. The voice was distorted, raspy, like grinding stones.
"He offers nothing."
Another voice, sharper, surgical, followed, driving the words deep into Erika's heart.
"A dead end."
Nothing? A dead end? The clinical assessment forced a sliver of clarity through his blinding fear. This wasn't a simple robbery or execution. They wanted something from him?
He forced himself to think through the violent tremors wracking his body. I'm a nobody. A borderland novice. The only unusual things about me are this primitive Mark… and my connection to Instructor Wolfgang. But if Wolfgang wanted me dead, why this elaborate scheme outside the Sanctum?
Could it be… Loren's enemies?
It was the most plausible theory. A fragile lifeline. If they wanted information, he still had value. He swallowed, his throat thick with the taste of grave dirt.
"I… I don't know what you want," he managed to choke out, acutely aware of the boot on his head and the phantom flow of blood at his wrist. "Until I see Loren… until I know he's safe… I know nothing. I will say nothing."
A brief silence fell over the wilderness. Only the moaning wind answered.
Then, the raspy voice spoke again. There was no anger, only a chilling amusement.
"The young lord was… highly cooperative. To save his own skin, he sang. Told us everything about your little outing, and a few Sanctum secrets he probably shouldn't have." The boot ground deeper into Erika's cheek. "You are merely leftover entertainment. A disposable cross-reference."
Disposable. The term shattered Erika's last flicker of hope. Loren had broken? Then what value did he, a mere add-on, possibly have?
"However," the raspy voice shifted, adopting a tone of calculated negotiation. "If you can prove more useful than that whelp. If you can provide information of actual value. About your Instructor, for instance. Cleric Wolfgang. Tell us his methods. His current investigations. His… vulnerabilities. Speak, and we might just be merciful enough to let you and your friend Loren share a proper grave."
Instructor Wolfgang!
The name hit Erika like a physical blow.
Images flashed unbidden through his panicked mind. Wolfgang demonstrating the Mind-Blade with absolute control. The cruel, yet precisely calibrated running tasks. The fathomless depth in his eyes. The warning over dinner: "A weak foundation renders everything else meaningless."
The man was formidable, ruthless, and inscrutable. But he was teaching him. In his own brutal, twisted way, Wolfgang had pulled Erika from the abyss and forged a path to survival. He was the only twisted semblance of an anchor Erika had in this cold, merciless city.
And himself? A refugee with a suspicious Mark. An insect waiting to be crushed.
To drag Instructor Wolfgang into this? To pull the one person who offered a shred of hope down into the darkness with him?
No. Absolutely not.
An instinctive, final refusal erupted from the ashes of his despair. He could die. He could be wiped away like a stain. But that would be a betrayal his soul could never abide.
The internal war reached its peak. Fear shrieked for surrender. The primal will to live roared at him to speak. But a bedrock of principle he hadn't even known he possessed solidified within him, hard and unyielding.
He wrenched his head up, fighting the crushing weight of the boot. With every ounce of his remaining strength, he fixed his gaze on the pitch-black void beneath those hoods. His eyes, once wide with terror, now blazed with a desperate, hopeless fire.
He stared them down. And then, he answered with action.
He shut his mouth. Tight. Clenching his jaw so hard it ached. Absolute silence was his final, feeble fortress.
"A pity." The sharp voice rendered the final verdict.
The cloaked figure holding his wrist moved. He yanked Erika's hand back, exposing his neck. Erika heard the sickening whistle of metal cutting the air.
From the corner of his eye, he saw it—a glint of cold steel in the pallid moonlight. A dagger, held in a reverse grip, plunging down toward his unprotected throat.
Time stretched thin. Erika's pupils contracted to pinpricks. The colossal shadow of death engulfed him.
It's over.
The thought was a blank slate. He squeezed his eyes shut.
But the anticipated pain never came.
The blade stopped. A hair's breadth from his skin.
The freezing metal rested gently against his Adam's apple, its chill raising every hair on his body.
Then, he heard a sigh.
It was utterly different from the distorted, villainous voices before. It was a familiar, exasperated sound, laced with something complex and utterly inscrutable.
The heavy boot lifted from his head.