The waterfall wasn't just noise anymore; it was a physical hammer pounding against my skull. Saraounia was facedown in the muck, her fingers clawing at the moss as if the island itself was trying to drag her under.
"A rift?" I ground out. My voice felt like it had been dragged over gravel. "I killed a snake, Sara. It was meat and scales, not a tear in the fabric of the universe."
She looked up, her eyes shot through with broken capillaries.
"You didn't see your face, outlander. When you stood over it... the air went stagnant. Sick. It wasn't just strength. It was a hole. A hunger that didn't belong here. You cracked the door, and now the island is trying to vomit up the poison you let in."
A greasy chill slid down my spine. She had a point. During the fight, there'd been that black spot. Not a blackout, but an absence. Like "Raymond" had stepped aside to let something far more efficient take the wheel. A door without a lock. Great.
I found Xavier back at the village square, looking like a caged animal while a pack of local kids took turns yanking on his boot laces.
"Get the plumbing sorted?" I asked, wiping grime from my forehead.
"Grand. Nearly got trampled by a judgmental goat," he grunted, shoving a kid away. "What about your girl? She looked like she'd just seen her own funeral."
I stared at my hands. They were steady, but the skin felt tight, like my bones had grown a fraction too long for my body.
"She says I woke something up. Some kind of ancestral echo I should've left buried. Apparently, I'm either a god or the plague. Haven't decided yet."
Xavier let out a sharp, jagged laugh.
"Right. So Monsieur 'Sensei' is doing mystical soul-searching with the locals now? Give me a break."
I grabbed him by the collar, my eyes locking onto his. The laugh died in his throat instantly.
"Drop the act, Xav. If you want to stay alive on this rock, lose the sarcasm. Let's just say my family tree has roots in a mass grave.
We've got work to do. We build this pump, or we die of thirst along with the rest of them."
The next three days were a fever dream of sawdust and sour sweat. We had nothing—no workshop, just rusted adzes and cedar that felt like iron under a sun that wanted to bake our brains inside our skulls.
The villagers watched us in a wall of silence. Kids with bloated bellies and the eyes of old men waited for a miracle or a catastrophe.
"Hold the damn axis steady!" I spat.
My palms were a mess of splinters and resin-soaked hemp. The Archimedes' screw was taking shape—an ugly, scarred spiral of raw wood, but it was solid. Every time I wiped the salt from my eyes, I felt Boyka. He was lurking in the shadows of the longhouse, his hatred heavier than the humidity.
Finally, we jammed the monstrosity onto its stone cradle. I grabbed the crank. My shoulders screamed like I'd poured molten lead into the joints.
Creeeeeak. Grind.
Nothing. Just the wood groaning. Then a wet, gurgling sound. Suddenly, a thick, silver tongue of water vomited from the top of the screw, flooding the parched trench.
The silence that followed was more violent than a scream. Then the dam broke. High-pitched shrieks of joy, sobbing. They threw themselves into the mud to lap at the water like thirsty dogs.
The village healer, a man who looked like a walking prune, shuffled up to me. He shoved a clay vial into my hand.
"For the fevers, outlander," he grunted. His eyes were dark slits. "And for whatever is scratching at the inside of your ribs. You're a strange kind of demon."
The peace was short-lived. Boyka didn't like miracles he couldn't break.
That evening, the air during training was thick with ozone. Xavier was trying to teach the recruits how not to impale themselves on their own blades.
"Movement is life!" he shouted, gasping for air. "If you stop, you're just a side of beef!"
"Is that so?"
Boyka stepped into the circle. A mountain of corded muscle and pure, distilled malice. No warning. He charged like a bull.
Xavier went to draw, but Boyka was a blur. His hand slammed down on the pommel of Xavier's sword, pinning the blade in its sheath. Xavier, operating on pure survival instinct, spat blood and spite right into Boyka's face and launched a kick at his gut.
Boyka's reflexes were subhuman. He ate the kick without flinching, caught Xavier's ankle mid-air, and sent him spinning through the sky like a sack of grain. Before Xavier could even hit the dirt, Boyka delivered a hammer-fist right into his spine.
The sound was sickening. A dull crack, like a dry oak branch snapping. Xavier hit the ground, the air whistling out of his lungs in a wet wheeze.
Boyka didn't stop. A devastating hook sent Xavier's jaw sideways, followed by a kick to the ribs that sent shards of bone tunneling into the meat.
"Your 'magic' means nothing here!" the colossus roared, standing over my friend's broken, bloody form. "Steel and blood dictate the law. Not your wooden toys."
I had to half-carry Xavier back, his arm draped over my shoulder. He was a dead weight, his face a purple ruin.
"Bastard..." he wheezed, mixing blood and spit. "I don't even... have magic... to begin with...."
"Shut up, Xav. Your ribs are playing the xylophone in your lungs. Save your breath."
We hit the thicket when the smell stopped us cold. Not the sweet rot of the jungle, but something acrid. Scorched hair and ozone.
In the clearing, the manticore was a wreck. Its wings were scorched ribbons of leather. Its flank had been plowed open by claws far too large, spilling gray, steaming guts onto the crushed grass.
It let out a rattle that made my teeth ache.
« The Abomination... » The voice in my head was a rusted razor. « It fed... it grew. It isn't a beast anymore, Raymond. It is pure hunger. »
Its golden eyes went dull. In a final spasm, it coughed up a pulsing amber sphere. A Core. I could feel the raw energy bleeding off it, a sickly heat.
« Take it... » it whispered. « Kill what you birthed. And my young... in the cave behind the veil of water... save them from the dark. Raise them to hunt the thing that... put me in this state. »
The light died. The jungle felt suddenly, terrifyingly small.
I picked up the Core. It throbbed against my palm, a heavy pulse that synced perfectly with my own heartbeat.
"Ray?" Xavier stammered, collapsing against a tree. "What was that... about a beast and a hunger?"
I didn't answer. I just stared into the trees. The shadows were stretching too long, too fast.
"Goddammit," I muttered.
It was going to be a very long night.