The warmth hit him first.
Not the vague, flickering warmth of a dying fire or body heat pressed against frigid metal. This was real—thick, almost suffocating, like a heavy blanket wrapped around raw skin. It confused him. Made his brain slow, sluggish.
Then came the sounds.
A fire crackling, distant and steady. The soft clink of ceramic. A scraping noise, slow and deliberate, like something being ground. No wind. No howling. No screaming.
Nikolai's eyes opened.
The world swam. Blurred shadows resolved into wooden beams, shelves stacked with odd jars, a cluttered table lit by oil lamp. He was lying on a cot, rough but dry, covered in patched blankets. The pain came next, an avalanche of sensation. Every muscle ached. His fingers throbbed with open cracks, his knees burned where skin had peeled away. Thirst clawed at his throat.
He tried to sit up. Failed. Groaned.
"You're awake."
A voice. Calm. Measured. Female.
He turned his head slowly. She sat beside the fire, dark hair cascading past her shoulders in loose waves. Her face was striking—smooth and unlined, with long eyelashes that cast shadows beneath her blue eyes. Just an unsettling clarity, like she saw everything and judged none of it. Her skin was pale, her figure curvy beneath layered fabric, the kind of shape that drew attention even when hidden. But nothing about her posture invited closeness. She radiated stillness, like a pool of water moments before a stone breaks the surface.
"Where... am I?" His voice was sandpaper.
"Safe. For now."
That answer made him tense. He tried to push himself up again. Managed a half-sit, breathing hard.
She didn't move to help. Just watched.
The silence stretched. The fire crackled.
He scanned the room with effort. Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling. Glass containers held pale liquids, dark powders. A bone-handled knife rested on a worn cutting board. The smell of smoke and something floral hung in the air—lavender, maybe. But underneath, something else. Coppery.
The floor beneath the cot was made of dark wood, creaking faintly under shifting weight. Strange carvings traced the corners—symbols he didn't recognize, but that made his stomach twist with something between nausea and familiarity.
His gaze snapped back to her. She hadn't blinked.
"Who are you?"
A pause.
Then, with a calm that felt rehearsed:
"Wanda."
The name didn't sound strange. But it felt wrong. Like calling a storm by a first name.
He let the words slip out, rough and uncertain. "The Witch?"
She inclined her head slightly, as if the term amused her. "You crossed the Frozen River for me. Most don't."
He swallowed. Tried to remember the end of the crossing. The ice. The hallucinations. The figure on the far shore—her. Then—darkness.
"How long?"
"Two days. You were barely alive."
"And now?"
"You're less barely."
Her tone didn't change, but something flickered behind her eyes.
She rose with fluid grace and moved to a shelf. Took down a jar, uncorked it, poured a thick liquid into a cup. Returned and held it out.
He stared.
"It's not poison," she said. "You'd know by now if I wanted you dead."
He took it with shaking hands. Drank. It was bitter, thick as sap. But warmth spread down his chest.
It tasted of something familiar—smoke, maybe. Or roots. There was a whisper in the back of his skull, something like a memory trying to re-emerge and failing.
"You came with purpose," she said. Not a question.
He nodded slowly.
His throat rasped. "You know what I want?"
Wanda didn't answer. She returned to the fire, stirring something in a blackened pot with a carved wooden spoon. The scent that rose—iron, herbs, and something sharp—made the room spin for a second.
"Most come looking for salvation," she said at last. "Or vengeance. Or to undo something that can't be undone."
Nikolai's hands curled in the blankets.
"I came because there was nothing else," he said. "Because I want to live. That's it."
"That's rare," she murmured. "Wanting life without demanding more of it."
He didn't speak at first. His fingers clenched the blanket tighter, breath uneven.
"I've seen what passes for dying out there," he said finally. "Starving in heat-shriveled towns where the sun cracks your skin. Freezing in sinkholes deep in the north. Bleeding out in alleys with nothing but rusted rebar and your own regrets. I've watched people vanish under collapsed ruins or waste away from old wounds that never heal. My parents..." He stopped. Swallowed. "No one should end like that."
She watched him. Silent.
"I want to keep going," he said. "Not for some grand reason. Not revenge or glory. I just—want to keep walking. Past the rot. Past the screaming. Until there's no more dark left to crawl through."
The fire crackled.
"I don't want to break," he added, voice low. "Not like the rest of them. I want to outlast this place. Outlast the fear." He paused, breath hitching. "I'm tired of being the rat hiding in the walls. Always listening. Always waiting for the teeth in the dark. I want... to walk through the shadows without looking back. To not be the prey anymore. Ever."
Wanda said nothing at first. The air between them thickened, heavy with the weight of what he'd asked—what he hadn't dared name aloud.
Then, without a word of reassurance or refusal, she simply turned away. Back to her cauldron.
Nikolai lay back, muscles screaming. The warmth was a strange comfort, dulling the worst of the ache but leaving the deeper exhaustion untouched. What now? Her silence hung heavy. Had she even truly heard him? Or just dismissed another fool crossing the ice? He stared at the ceiling, weariness pulling at him, and only then did the fractured images from his river-dreams return—fingers tapping on glass. The scent of ash that had once promised roasted meat.
She hadn't asked his name.
He wasn't sure that mattered.
Not here. Not to her.