The Kingdom of Morteluna, outskirts of the capital Sellaphun, the village of Villcormor.
***
As Ignavius headed into the forest, his attention was caught by the sound of mud slapping behind him, forcing him to look back. Right by the palisade walls, he saw Lucius, who had fallen backwards into the mud. Realizing that Lucius had intended to follow him but had probably tripped, Ignavius sighed irritably.
"Damn you, nephew... Lucius, I told you to go back where you were going!"
But despite Ignavius's command, Lucius's body didn't even stir, which began to worry Ignavius. Dropping Edric and Thomas's bodies and hiding them behind a bush, he quickly approached Lucius, only to freeze in shock at what he saw. Lucius's face was literally burnt, the skin around his eyes charred and smoking. A strong smell of cooked flesh emanated from him, making Ignavius retch from the memories associated with that smell.
"Lucius!" a strangled cry escaped Ignavius's lips. "Goddammit..." The smell. The smell of burnt meat. A gag reflex twisted his stomach, kicking out old demons. "Not now. Not now, damn it!" He lunged forward, his hands reaching for his nephew on their own. "Valeria... Oh, no. She... Can't. She can't see this. Where? To whom?.." In his mind, overcoming the nausea, a single image flashed. The shed. The pale-faced man with bandaged fingers. It would have to do.
To avoid being seen by anyone, Ignavius entered the shed on the edge of the village through the window, instead of the front door. Inside, working by candlelight, sat a fair-haired middle-aged man, his fingers bandaged. Suddenly, due to Ignavius, the window creaked under his weight, attracting the man's attention. In an instant, he grabbed a knife lying on the table and spun around, only to see Ignavius before him.
"Goddammit, Asa! Why grab the knife right away?!" Ignavius snapped, seeing the knife in Lucius's father's hands.
"Ignavius? What do you want here? If you've come to beg for booze again, you can fuck right off immediately."
"I'm not in the mood for booze right now. I need help. To be more precise, your son needs it."
At these words, Asa's eyes widened, and his hands gripped the knife handle tighter.
"Lucius?" Asa asked worriedly, then became enraged. "Ignavius, you piece of shit, if you've done something to my son, I'll slit your throat right here!"
Before Asa could say anything else, Ignavius pulled the unconscious Lucius through the window. The condition of his face sent an icy chill down Asa's spine. He dropped the knife and rushed to his son, examining him with trembling hands. However, he could hear his faint breathing, which made him sigh with relief.
"Oh gods... Ignavius, what's wrong with Lucius? His face is burned... No, the burnt part is literally charred! What happened to him?!"
"Listen, I know we're not on the best terms, but I have no idea what happened to him!" Ignavius replied and took a step back, then sighed to calm down. "The only thing I know is that he needs your help now, and that Valeria can't see him. She has bad associations with fires and burns... She won't be able to handle this sight."
These words from Ignavius, spoken with such hypocritical concern for Valeria and indifference towards Asa, infuriated him. He hugged Lucius tighter, his whole body trembling with emotion, tears streaming from his eyes.
"You... scum!" his voice cracked into a wheeze. "And what makes... what makes you think I can handle this?" he shouted, baring his teeth. "I'm his father, damn it! It's hard for me too, seeing Lucius like this!"
"Asa, stop."
"Don't interrupt me, you bastard! I work myself to exhaustion, I treat these scum who come to my shed in terrible condition, and I barely see my family! I'm tired, I'm running out of strength..." Asa said weakly. His tears streamed down his cheeks, washing away the worn makeup. "I can understand that Valeria is your sister, and you worry about her more than anyone else, but if you don't know how to choose the right words, you'd better keep your mouth shut."
"Asa, you're a healer. And that's what Lucius needs right now. So pull yourself together. You can cry another time."
"Soulless creature..." Groaning, Asa lifted Lucius and laid him on the cot. Then the medical examination began. "Eyeballs completely burnt. Nothing left of the eyelids. Eye sockets charred so badly you can see the bone. The surrounding area is also charred. Even cheeks and nose are affected. My boy, what happened to you..." he muttered, before turning to Ignavius with a determined look. "So you want to see a healer in action? Fine. The moonshine and clean cloth, now."
His demand, no, his command hung in the silence for a second. Ignavius, who hadn't taken orders from anyone for years, was taken aback by surprise. But Asa, instead of wasting time, took a flask of water from his belt and carefully began to wash the dirt from Lucius's face, trying with trembling fingers not to touch the burn.
"What... did you just say?" asked the surprised Ignavius.
"Repeating for the specially gifted. Get your drunk ass up and bring the moonshine from the cupboard, and the clean cloth from the chest. I need to treat the burn and the cloth to bandage Lucius's face and prevent festering from infection."
Ignavius sharply turned around, ready to tell this senile alchemist to go to hell. His hands clenched into fists on their own — an old instinct. But his gaze fell on Lucius. On the charred eye sockets, uncovered. His throat tightened. He exhaled sharply, unclenched his fingers, and without looking at Asa, grumbled:
"Whatever you say. I'll get it."
The next half hour in the shed was a quiet hell. The air hummed with suppressed groans and Asa's hisses as the moonshine touched his son's charred flesh. Ignavius, clenching his teeth, handed over instruments and rags, watching as the healer's fingers, still trembling, made precise, measured movements — scraping off the cinders, washing the wounds, applying the moonshine-soaked cloth. The smell of burning and stale alcohol again rose in his throat, but now he had to swallow it down.
Soon, Asa's shed plunged into complete silence, the only sound being the street noise outside the walls. Lucius, now with his eyes completely wrapped in bandages, still lay unconscious on the cot. Beside him lay the sleeping Asa, hugging him tightly. Despite being asleep, his whole body trembled.
"What am I going to do with all this?" muttered Ignavius, sitting on a chair, contemplating the scene before him. "Shit, shit, shit... Sister... She'll find out. She'll find out and go crazy. She'll see him... and remember the fires. Then she'll hate my fucking guts. Fucking hate me! For not protecting him. Or kill me on the spot. And she'd be right, bitch. Asa... that silent bastard... looks at me like I'm to blame for everything. Maybe I am?"
Tired of thinking, Ignavius rose from the chair and approached the deeply sleeping Asa. Ignavius looked closely at his son-in-law's face. A strip of clean skin, wiped by tears, revealed the bruises of fatigue under his eyes. So that's how you hide it from them... Something acrid and prickly rose in Ignavius's throat. Not gloating. Something strange, almost like respect. This quiet alchemist had worn a mask for years so his family wouldn't see him slowly burning out. Just like himself. But his thoughts were interrupted by a sound. A dull, wet thump, coming from Lucius's chest. Not like a heartbeat. As if something large and fragile inside had broken and collapsed. At that same second, Lucius's mouth opened silently, and his body, which had been tense even if unconscious, went limp, as if its core had been pulled out.
***
The Dream Realm. The No-Man's Forests.
"Such... a feeling of lightness," the thought crossed my mind before I opened my eyes. This was a completely unfamiliar forest to me.
Before I could see anything, I came to my senses. With a sharp movement, I grabbed my face, frantically feeling it. I remembered clearly. The fire. The pain came after the fire. The smell of my own burning flesh was clearly imprinted in my memory. But for some reason, my face was unharmed.
"What... the hell?" Air stuck in my throat. I ran my fingers over the skin of my eyelids, over the bridge of my nose. No scars, no pain. Only the memory of it, phantom-like, burning my soul. "I... can see?" The word slipped out as a whisper, then burst out as a cry. "I can see! Damn it, I can see!" Hysterical laughter rose in my throat. Was this a dream? Delirium? Or... something otherworldly? "A dream? This is fucking insane! Eyes don't burn like that... They don't fucking burn! And those... those bastards. Their blood. I... I killed them. Killed them dead! Uncle... the bodies... Mom..."
The moment I closed my eyelids, disgusting images from my memory flashed in an instant. The smirking faces of Edric and Thomas, which minutes later were covered in blood. Uncle Ignavius's worried face. And finally, the bright light in my eyes, after which I passed out and ended up here. A feeling of nausea filled me, but no matter how much I gagged, nothing but wheezes and groans came from my mouth.
"Fuck!.. This... This definitely wasn't a dream..." I muttered, trying to calm down, but no matter how hard I tried, the panic only intensified. "Uncle... Damn, what if he did turn me in? No, he keeps his word... Keeps it? Fuck, I'm not sure about anything!" From anger and doubt, I hit my forehead with my knee to break out of these thoughts. "This... I'm probably just dreaming! Calm down, Lucius... I can't calm down! I need to wake up!"
I didn't know what was happening to me. I didn't know what drove me. Instead of thinking, I started trying with all my might to break free from what I thought were the shackles of sleep. The skin on my knuckles peeled off, exposing the bluish flesh underneath. Blood from a split eyebrow streamed into my eye, but I didn't stop. I felt the pain of every blow and slap, and yet, I didn't wake up. Soon, I watched as the flesh on my hands knit itself back together, as if devoured by invisible worms, leaving not even a scar. This sight was even scarier than the pain. After beating myself up, I managed to let off steam and come to my senses.
I got to my feet. At that same moment, the ground under my boot gave way, emitting not a sigh, but a quiet, wet squelch, as if I had stepped on a rotting lung. I jumped back, and in that spot, an ulcer of black mud pulsed slowly. Instead, a whisper reached me. Not one, but dozens, hundreds of overlapping voices. Fragments of prayers, childish babbling, someone's death rattle, threats of death. I turned around, trying to find the source, but all around were only these ugly, gnarled trees. The trees were like twisted bodies, frozen in eternal agony. Instead of bark — cracked skin, instead of branches — bony fingers reaching towards the starless sky. A black, oily resin oozed from them, smelling of grief. Strangest of all was the light. It didn't pour from above or come from somewhere. It was everywhere, born from the void itself, and cast several contradictory shadows at once.
"This... is definitely a dream? Everything looks so real. And these voices... They're creepy. Is my imagination really so sick that I dream of something like this?.." I said, looking around.
I recoiled sharply when I felt something crunch under my foot. Bending down, I made out a lonely shard of a broken mirror. In it reflected not me, but someone else's, a crimson eye full of hatred.
"How strange. That's not my reflection. Who is that? I've never met anyone with red eyes," I thought, then picked up the shard to examine it closer. "Damn it! The shard shows nothing but this eye."
An icy aura burst from the shard and pierced straight into my brain. Not voices — an explosion. Someone else's rage, someone else's obsession, like red-hot steel. Fragments of thoughts, disconnected, rushed like a hurricane: ...retribution... my revenge... My lord... bring them... Clan court...
I wanted to throw the shard away, but it was too late. My fingers seemed glued to it, as if to red-hot metal. Someone else's hatred washed over me, washing away my own panic. My breath caught. This wasn't just anger. It was an all-consuming disease, burning the soul. A rage that had festered for years. This man... he doesn't just hunt. He is broken.
In terror, I threw the mirror fragment from my hands with all my might, trying to free myself from its influence. What was that just now? That feeling was indescribably disgusting. The emotions I just felt didn't belong to me. Before I could recover, I saw the shard, which instead of falling onto this breathing ground, hung in the air, and the eye from it was now looking directly at me.
New images flooded me. Flashes of memories that weren't mine. Burning villages, dozens of murders, the most brutal scenes that turn your stomach inside out. But what horrified me was that I began to see through someone else's eyes. Whoever it was, they were heading towards Villcormor. In the last moment, before the shard crumbled, the crimson eye met my gaze for an instant — and I thought it smiled.
---
The Kingdom of Morteluna. The road to Villcormor.
Walter froze halfway to the rickety gates. A sudden, sharp cold pierced his single eye, as if someone had poked it with a needle. He whirled around, snarling towards the empty forest. No one. But the feeling was too real, too personal. Someone else's fingers, rummaging through his rage, through his memory.
"Who...?" he hissed. The air around him thickened, and for a moment, he thought he caught in the wind not the smell of mud and smoke, but the sweetish stench of fear. Someone else's fear. But where from?
Baring his teeth, he quickened his pace. The nightmare was approaching the village, and now he had another reason to hurry.