The world returned in fragments.
Nikolai stirred on the cold stone, consciousness clawing its way back through layers of pain and darkness. For a moment, he lay still, disoriented, the memory of the fight and Wanda's flight tangled with fevered flashes of something deeper—fractured visions burned into his skull.
His body ached in ways he couldn't name. The wounds from the battle throbbed, but—strangely—some of the cuts had already begun to seal. The worst of the bleeding had slowed, impossible for how little time could have passed.
He blinked, forcing blurred vision into focus.
The chamber was dim, the ritual fire burned low, casting the glyphs along the walls into grotesque, writhing shapes. The scent of blood, smoke, and burnt herbs was thick enough to choke on.
He pushed himself upright, every muscle screaming rebellion. His hands were torn and bloodied, but the skin beneath the grime looked wrong—denser, unnaturally tough. His nails, once cracked and ragged, had hardened into vicious points.
The hunger gnawed at him—worse than before, a savage void hollowing him out from within. It wasn't hunger for bread or meat. It was something deeper, something ancient, clawing and whispering inside him. It tasted of ash and dust and aching need, of something he could not name but would eventually have to feed.
He bared his teeth and forced it down.
Wanda.
Her face—those blue eyes, the flash of fear—burned in his mind. She had tried to end him after gifting him this curse. Had seen what he could become and fled.
Good.
Let her run.
He would find her again. He would finish what had begun.
A shuddering breath escaped him as he rose to his feet. His balance wavered; the world tilted, but he caught himself against the altar. The stone was slick with blood—his blood. He stared at it, feeling no kinship, no horror. As if the man who had bled that much was already dead.
Something fundamental had twisted. He could feel it in every nerve. Every breath. Every heartbeat.
The glyphs pulsed faintly, reacting to him, alive in a way that made his stomach turn. Their sickly light throbbed like a second pulse inside the walls.
He tore his gaze away.
There was nothing left here. Only the rot of betrayal.
Staggering, he picked through the wreckage. Shattered tools, broken bowls, splintered wood. He found a heavy, worn cloak—Wanda's. He wrapped it around his battered frame without hesitation. It smelled of old smoke, crushed herbs, and something colder, sharper—like ancient regret woven into the fabric.
No food. No supplies. No weapons.
Only himself.
It would be enough.
He limped toward the broken door, each step grinding agony through his bones. His legs buckled once, slamming his shoulder into the stone wall hard enough to jar his teeth. Good. The pain was a tether. A reminder he still had a body to command.
The night greeted him like a blow to the senses.
He paused at the threshold, staring out into the frozen expanse. The sky was a bruised black, with a few cruel stars knifing through the clouds. The air was raw, a thousand scents hitting him at once—sap thick enough to clog his throat, the iron tang of distant water, the rot of unseen carcasses.
A twig snapped somewhere to his left, the sound so sharp it lanced straight into his skull like a gunshot.
He staggered a few steps from the doorway, every nerve on fire. The cabin loomed behind him, a dark wound against the trees, and he knew with absolute certainty he could not stay.
Somewhere out there, Wanda moved.
Somewhere out there, the Eye still watched.
He took a few more stumbling steps, boots crunching over brittle grass and earth crusted with frost. Each motion felt wrong—not from weakness, but because the world itself pressed against his nerves, too sharp, too immediate. Every tree, every patch of moss, every rock underfoot whispered its existence to his altered senses.
The old world was gone. Whatever he had become now belonged to this harsher, hungrier place.
His vision swam again, black seeping in at the edges, but he refused to fall. Step by brutal step, he dragged his broken body forward.
Above him, beyond the bruised night, the Eye watched.
Not merciful.
Not distant.
Claiming.
Its presence settled over him like a mantle of cold iron.
He was not chosen.
He was taken.
The hunger stirred in response, no longer something foreign but something that belonged. That would grow.
The first step into the dark was the hardest.
He took it anyway.