The moment feet found purchase, Cale collapsed.
His knees buckled. He slid down the sharp face of the black monolith. His sword slipped from numb fingers, hitting the stone with a sharp ring. He sat in the dirt, chest heaving, drawing ragged gasps of stagnant air.
At the edge of the faint orange light, Revenant shifted. The thing stood by Cale's side like a guard. It had been there from the beginning of their unplanned trip to the void. Hunting, guarding, dragging Cale through the black sand when legs failed.
Val knelt, hands hovering. Ruined clothes filled the dim light. Where to touch without causing more pain?
"Holy shit, Cale," Val said, pulling her hands back. "You look like absolute hell."
"Still breathing, damn it," Cale rasped. He let his head thud against the cold stone, eyes shut tight. "Took two full days to track your stupid scent. Lost too much blood. My mauri hit bottom twice. It was a complete disaster."
She looked at the gash across his ribs, the torn sleeves, the raw skin. The wound closed with painful slowness.
"You are a complete idiot, but you found me," she muttered.
"Revenant found you," Cale spoke weakly. "I just crawled behind the bastard."
The three golden eyes stared in the dark. "Modest fool. He wanted to walk right into a Spine Bound Hound pack. I had to turn him around three times."
Val looked from the monster to Cale. "Seriously, what the hell is that thing, Cale? Really. Do not give me some vague garbage."
Quiet filled the rock split. Cale swallowed.
"It is a part of me," he said softly. "No contract, no ritual, none of that crap. In the past, I killed an ogre, a cyclops, and a shadow beast. For some reason my system did not absorb the cores. They just melted together inside my soul sea. Revenant grew out of that mess."
Val stared at him. "Cores? That makes zero sense. The system does not even allow that."
Cale opened tired eyes. "My system is broken, Val. It has traits it should not normally have. Things I cannot fix. Do not look at me like that, I do not get it either. Every time the rules seem clear, the whole thing changes."
She sat back on her heels, pulling her knees to her chest.
"So a talking nightmare lives in your shadow and you cannot control it."
"I can control it. Mostly. It does what I say when it matters."
A long breath cleared the tightness in her shoulders. "Fine. We will deal with your existential crisis later." Her gaze fixed on the orange flame of her cloak. "Why the hell did you run off after the tournament? You completely ghosted."
Cale went still. Gray light grew heavy. Revenant stepped back, melting into Cale's shadow to leave them alone.
"Because I am a coward," his voice was close to a whisper. "I could not look you in the eyes. I threw the match away, Val. Handed it to Vorian. I made your team win, and the lie stuck."
"Why?"
Cale looked at his bloody hands. "The system set a brutal penalty after the fight with Cumen. It completely stopped me from upgrading. To fix that, I had to forfeit the final match. I only found out at the last second." He grimaced. "I did not care about the penalty. I just feared what you would see. A freak with a monster he cannot rule."
Silence stretched in the twilight.
"You are a massive idiot," Val said, hitting his shoulder. "Seriously, screw you."
A tired smile touched his lips. "I get that a lot." A pause. "Actually, I do not."
"You should have told me instead of acting like a bastard."
"I just told you now, did I not?"
Val gripped his torn sleeve. "Come on, Cale. Do not pull that shit. You do not get to jump into danger while I sit on the sidelines like an idiot. We are a team."
Cale looked at her dirty hand, then at her tired eyes. The fake tension cracked, leaving just the solid ground of their partnership.
"I won't," he murmured.
"Promise me."
"I promise."
A low voice rumbled from the dark corner of Cale's shadow. "He said those exact words to me before. He broke the promise within four hours."
Val glared at the dark corner. "Shut the hell up, shadow. Nobody asked you."
"I do not give comfort," Revenant said. "My job is to keep his heart beating. Now that includes yours too. What a pain."
Val snorted. The heavy air cleared. She leaned back against the rock, her shoulder resting against his in the dark.
They sat in the gray dusk. Quiet returned, less hostile this time. Power inched back into Cale, and the spark of the cloak kept the cold away.
Val froze. Hair stood up on her arms. "Cale, hold on. Do you feel that?"
Cale stopped breathing.
Weight pressed down from the gray waste. No anger came from it, just a massive weight watching them from far away and right behind them. The air grew thick like the moment before lightning strikes.
Golden eyes snapped open in the dark.
"Something old walks outside," the shadow whispered. "It has followed you since you fell in. I cannot see its shape, but it is big."
Cale gripped his sword hilt, knuckles white. The orange light of the cloak brightened, throwing long shadows on the stone.
The thing lingered, patient, watching in the dark. Then the pressure melted away into nothing.
Neither relaxed. They stayed frozen in the crevice, weapons ready, staring at the gray sky, scared shitless of what might be lurking in the dark.