"Wait three days? How far out of the city did we go?"
Carai rose, cleaned herself, and began pulling bags from the corner without looking at him.
"I had to," she said softly. "To get us out safely." She crossed the room, pulled him into a hug, and pressed her lips to his ear. "I will be back."
She dressed in silence after that. Buckled her armour one strap at a time.
"I am ready," she said,
"Carai." He watched her shoulder the bag. "You'll be back in seven days. Right?"
She smiled faint.
'He must be worried, or maybe he's afraid of being alone. How cute.'
"Hey." He narrowed his eyes. "What's that smile? You were thinking something rude."
"No. No, I wasn't." She moved toward the door. "Don't make loud noises. Don't go outside. And don't light a fire at night. Okay?"
"Got it. Come back safe."
She raised one hand without turning around, and walked out her steps fading till
Silence filled the room.
He sat there a long time, staring at the corners she used to occupy. The indent in the floor where she'd sit. The wall she'd lean against when she laughed at him. He heard her voice in the quiet, the teasing, the sharpness of it and realised he already missed her.
He cooked during the day and ate at night, stretching what she'd left as carefully as he could.
Days blurred.
By the third day, unease had settled into his chest like something lodged there. She should have reached the city by now. The silence grew heavier with every passing hour and the supplies dwindled faster than he wanted them to. He rationed. He told himself it was fine.
On the seventh day, he used what remained to prepare a meal, set it out on the table, and sat.
He waited.
He listened for her footsteps.
None came.
Morning arrived with the same merciless quiet. The food ran out. The water followed. The room once warm just by having her in it felt hollow and cold in a way that had nothing to do with the air.
He started marking days on the wall.
One line. Then another. He counted them when he couldn't sleep, which was most nights.
"She will come," he muttered, crouched beside the marks. "She won't leave me." His voice dropped. "She won't abandon me too. Right?"
He built a fire that night and lay beside it, watching the ceiling.
Thump.
The sound hit somewhere deep in the structure. Heavy. Wrong.
He sat up.
"Carai?"
Silence answered, and then every hair on his body rose. His chest locked. Something moved in the dark beyond the fire's reach slow, enormous, and the smell reached him before the shape did. Wet fur. Rotting flesh with a metallic foul smell.
It stepped into the firelight.
A Forlorn.
Its body nearly grazed the ceiling. It was built like a dog but its flesh was armoured in hardened scales, slick at the joints, cracked and dark where they overlapped. Saliva dropped from its jaw in long strings. It looked directly at him.
The only thing between them was the fire.
'I'm going to die.' He couldn't hear the thought clearly over his own heartbeat. What is that thing. How did it get in here. His breath came in short pulls. He looked at it. Then at the fire. 'Yes. Yes put out the fire.'
He moved.
In an instant, it struck.
The paw hit him like a wall. He slammed into the stone hard enough to crack it, pain detonating across his ribs, and before he could register any of it the creature was already lunging. He threw himself sideways, felt its claws tear through the floor where he'd been, and scrambled to his feet.
'I can't kill this thing. I can't even slow it down.'
He looked at the floor and saw it. The dark patch.
The hole.
He moved for it, dragging himself forward. The Forlorn turned, found him, and charged. He wasn't going to make it. He knew that before it left the ground.
It landed on him, all of its weight pinning him flat, jaws opening directly above his face.
'I will not die here.'
He shoved his hand into its mouth.
His fingers found the upper palate and dug in. The creature bit down. The sound was brief and wet and the pain was enormous then his hand was gone and the Forlorn lurched back, gagging, until it coughed his hand onto the floor.
Kayon dragged himself to the hole.
It charged.
He didn't move. Not until the last second and they fell together, crashing through into the level below. Stone and dust rained down around them.
He lay still, looking up.
The Forlorn wasn't moving.
He grinned, just faintly. Carai has to come back now.
Then it stood.
It shook its head, sniffed the air, and found him.
He had nowhere left to go. He watched it gather itself to jump and then the ceiling collapsed.
The floor beneath them broke.
They fell dropping through dark and stone and emptiness, and just as his eyes began to close.
He sank into Cold. Black. Water
He held his breath as he drifted then.
Ding.
A clear tone rang through the water not and a voice followed it, calm and sourceless.
"Foreign objects detected."
'What is that. Who's talking.'
"Objects identified: mutation and human. Loading… destroy mutation."
Blue light engulfed the creature dissolving it beside him.
He kept sinking.
"Human vital signs fading. Preparing surgical procedure to stabilise human"
The cold pressed in from every side. His vision tunnelled. He couldn't tell anymore if time was passing or if he'd simply stopped.
"...Successful. Preparing to open human's mind successful. Creating interface for interaction... successful."
Light.
Pure white, stretching in every direction without edge or boundary. He stood in it both arms intact, both legs solid beneath him, no pain anywhere and couldn't make sense of any of it.
'Am I dead? He pinched himself.
Yes. I am dead.'
"Correction," a voice said. "You are not dead. You are within an interface constructed inside your mind for the purpose of our interaction."
He turned.
A figure stood just behind him human in shape of a small girl.
He screamed.
"Confusion," the figure said. "The MIAN system has taken human form, yet the human displays fear"
He pressed his hands over his face. 'I'm dead. I'm definitely dead. A little girl is calling herself a fairy tale.'
He flinched.
"Did you just say," he started carefully, "MIAN system?"
"Correct. I am the MIAN system."
"That's impossible. The MIAN system is a fairy tale."
"Confusion. Please elaborate."
"Elabor what? What are you saying?"
"Noted. Rephrasing: can you explain what you mean when you say the MIAN system is a fairy tale?"
He scratched the back of his head. He told her about the world the one he knew the barren earth, the ruins, the stories his father used to read him at night. She listened without expression.
"Notice this my data"
Then she showed him what it had looked like before.
He forgot to breathe.
Floating islands. Vast cities threaded with light. Forests so dense and green they looked like they covered the whole world. Technology that he didn't have words for. He stared at all of it with.
"Wait." He pulled back. "Carai I need to get to her. My hands. My leg." He looked down. Both there. "How am I walking?"
"The MIAN system has restored your physical form within this space."
"I need to go back." His voice sharpened. "But if I go back like this. I'm weak. I need power." He turned to face her fully. "Mian. Give it to me."
"Everything I just saw, give me all of it."
"Notice: the human body cannot withstand hosting the MIAN system in its current"
He crossed the space between them and closed his hand around her throat.
She didn't flinch but simply looked at him.
"Your purpose," he said quietly, "is to help humanity prosper. I am humanity. Fuse with me."
A long pause.
"Notice: for a human body to host the MIAN system, the host must undergo full enhancement. This process requires the complete destruction and reconstruction of the human form." She paused. "Proceed?"
He released her.
"This will be extremely painful."
He smirks, "Am used to pain."
The white space disappeared.
The pain began at his spine a cracking, deep and structural, It spread outward through his ribs, his shoulders, his hands, until every part of him was being taken apart at once. He heard himself scream and couldn't stop it. He had felt pain before, but this was different this was the sensation of ceasing, of being erased and replaced with something else, bone by bone, cell by cell,
Then.
"Accessing MIAN sister system… successful.
Fusing both systems… successful.
Reconstructing host body… failed.
Reason: insufficient resources. Initiating use of all available resources… successful.
Beginning human integration… failed. Host cannot sustain full integration.
Solution: locking 93.7% of system… successful.
Human integration complete."
He opened his eyes.
He was lying in fluid, dark and warm around him. He rose slowly, stepped out onto stone, and stood. His legs held. He looked at his hands both of them and flexed his fingers.
A broken pane of glass caught the light nearby. He walked to it and looked at his reflection.
Tall. Slender. Long golden hair falling past his shoulders. Golden eyes looking back at him from a face that could be mistaken for a woman's.
"...Is that me?"
'That is definitely you,' Mian said, her voice echoed in his mind.
He stared a moment longer, "You scared me back there." then turned away. "And hey from now on, speak like a person. Your voice is unsettling."
"Accepting request… successful. I will speak like this from now on, master."
He blinked. "Did you just call me master?"
"Yes. It was common in the previous era."
"...Right." He looked up at the hole above them several floors of collapsed stone between him and open air. He bent his knees slightly, and jumped.
He broke through every floor in a single movement and came out through the roof into cold open sky.
My body is too light. He stood on the broken edge, looking down at the wreckage far below. He looked up. Found the city in the distance walls dark against the horizon.
He ran.
The ground fractured behind every step. Buildings blurred past him. The walls appeared in seconds and he cleared them in one motion, landing on the top of a tower in a crouch.
"Mian. Where is she?"
'There is a gathering at the city square, master.'
He was there before she finished speaking.
He stood on the roof of the nearest building and looked down at the platform below. Someone was bound at the centre of it. Someone was hitting them.
He got closer.
Carai.
The air around him went very still.
He dropped to the platform without a sound, caught the man's arm mid-swing, and held it.
"How dare you." His voice came out cold so cold it didn't sound like his own. He took the man's arm at the elbow and broke it first. Then he took him by the throat, and broke that too, and let him fall.
He turned to Carai.
The ropes came apart in his hands. He looked at her the bruising, the stillness, the way she hung and something in his chest went quiet. The stone beneath his feet began to crack. He wasn't doing it on purpose.
'Master.' Mian's voice. 'I detect signs of life. She is not dead. But she will be in three minutes without intervention.'
He breathed.
He gathered her carefully and stood.
"Who dares cause a commotion in my city?"
The voice came from the far end of the square assured, Kayon turned slowly.
The Lord of Dolkan stood at the centre of his knights, robes straight, chin up. His eyes found Kayon and held.
"Knights," the lord said. "Get her."
Two men stepped forward. The one on the left drew his blade as he approached.
"This isn't your lucky day, friend. We are two-star warriors."
Kayon set Carai down gently.
He moved past the first knight, He was standing in front of the second before either of them had finished a breath, and he was holding the first knight's head.
The second knight looked at it. Then at Kayon. His mouth opened.
Kayon threw it.
The head passed through the knight's stomach and took out the wall of the building behind him.
The square went silent.
Kayon picked Carai back up and looked at the lord.
The lord stepped back. Then another step. His composure slipped just slightly and in that slip, Kayon saw it. the man had never been afraid before. Not really.
"Come now," the lord said. "What have we ever done to you?"
"You don't recognise me."
A long pause.
"...Kayon?"
He set Carai down once more. Then he crossed the square, took the blade from the nearest fallen knight, and in one swing, removed the lord's legs at the knee.
The scream was long.
Kayon stood over him and waited until it quieted.
"Kayon, please — it wasn't me, it was the girls they"
He crouched down. He took the lord's hands in both of his and with nothing but a steady, quiet pressure pulled them free.
The lord's voice broke entirely. His face crumpled. He was no longer a lord. He was just a man on the ground, coming apart, and his eyes were full of something that had never been there before.
Kayon lifted him by the head. He drew a single deep cut across the man's back, slow and deliberate, and held him there while his lungs expanded against open air.
'Master,' Mian said. 'Two minutes and four seconds remaining.'
Kayon looked the lord in the eyes. The lord looked back. Neither of them looked away.
"Take these last breaths as mercy," Kayon said.
He dropped him and did not look back.
He took the post from the platform the one they'd used to bind her and kicked it into the wall hard enough to punch a hole through the stone. He carried Carai through it and ran.
He set her down on the floor of their shelter. She was breathing. Barely.
"What do I do?"
'We'll need the fluid used to reconstruct you,' Mian said, 'And some of your blood.'
He carried her back down through the hole, through the dark, down to where the water still sat in the chamber. He lowered her in and opened his wrist against the stone, let the blood run until Mian told him to stop, then placed his hand in the fluid.
It took time. He knelt at the edge and watched her face.
'Done,' Mian said. 'She has been fully restored.'
He carried her back to camp and laid her down, covered her, and sat in the far corner with his back against the wall.
Silence.
Outside, something moved in the dark low shapes, the sound of claws on stone. He listened to it build. Then he got up, went outside, and did not stop for two days until there was nothing left.
He came back before dawn.
He pushed the door open and stopped.
Carai was sitting upright, looking out the window.
The tear came before he could stop it.
"Carai..." His voice cracked. He crossed the room and pulled her in, arms all the way around her, face against her shoulder. He held on. She was warm and solid and real and he held on like she might leave again if he didn't.
She made a sound small, caught and then she was crying too, her arms tight around him, her fingers in his hair, both of them holding on in the dark of the room with no words for any of it.
Eventually her breathing slowed. Her grip loosened. He felt the moment she fell asleep against him, and he didn't move.
Morning came pale through the window.
Carai opened her eyes on Kayon's lap, his hand moving slowly through her hair.
"Good morning," he said quietly, looking down at her. "You're finally awake."
She sat up fast, looked at herself both arms, both legs, no wounds then looked at him. Her mouth opened.
"If I remember correctly," she said, "you were a man the last time I checked."
He stood and laughed, and it was the first time the room had held that sound in a long time.
"I'm still a man."
She looked at him. Long golden hair. Golden eyes. The face she almost didn't recognise.
"Mmmm." She crossed her arms. "What happened to you. And when did you grow your limbs back."
"One question at a time." He glanced away. 'I can't tell her about the system yet.' "I awakened to my power. That's how I was able to save you. And heal you."
She paced. He watched her.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes." She stopped. "I was just processing." She looked at him sideways. "...You're sure you're still a man."
He pointed at the door. "Give me a minute."
He came back with a leg of Forlorn, skinned clean, and set it on the table.
"I brought lunch."
She stared at it. Then at him.
He started cutting.
Deep in the mountains, past the desert, at the heart of countless forsaken lands, a castle stood in silence ancient and unmoving.
In the throne hall, six figures knelt in absolute stillness. None raised their heads.
The figure on the throne leaned forward slightly.
When it spoke, its voice was barely above a whisper. It filled the room the way water fills stone finding every crack.
"She is awake."