Chapter Text
That night Tomas meditates under a moonless sky.
He can’t sleep. He’s going to regret it in the morning, but the people in the village weigh heavily on him. Distant relatives. Those who didn’t make it. He has no photos of his father and his memory of the man is cloudy with age, but that woman- whose name he hadn’t even bothered to learn- she had recognized him.
He knows all of the stories of the dangerous spirits who haunt these hills, about the dead men who walk with no graves and destroy those who look upon them. He wonders how long the villagers would have let him stay, and if he had stayed, might he too become man once again?
Despite his fatigue he’d hiked for hours without rest to get away from that question. It’s safer to sleep during the day anyway. At night he can move through the forest as a shadow. There are only a few short hours left until the sun peaks through the canopy, he only needs to push a little further until he finds shelter, and then he can try again to sleep.
Despite his ill ease he finds himself wishing he stayed a little longer in the village. If only he had gotten a few hours of sleep by the fire, gotten a chance to rest, he might be able to banish the empty feeling keeping him awake.
Around him, the air grows cold and the trail disappears. Snow covers these mountains year round, only thawing for a few weeks at the bottom of the valley. Warmth did not last here, made to bow under the oppressive weight of ancient glaciers.
The cold is a familiar enemy. The elders liked to say that the Lin Kuei are born from the ice. That ice cannot kill them for their bones are made from it and their blood runs cold. It was those same elders that sneered when he shivered, called him warmblood under their breath, and as they got bolder, to his face. As a boy, Kuai Liang always offered him warmth, told him to huddle close, and the jeers stopped while he was in earshot. Until one day when Tomas had pushed him away. Understanding, Kuai Liang never offered it again.
He cannot light a fire, lest he give away his position to the ghosts he knows haunt this mountain, so he huddles between two trees, so at least the wind cannot cut him too. Meditations are as elusive as sleep. Frost sneaks under his cloak and claws at his skin. He can’t focus. Around him, the wind makes the trees shudder and rattle like dry bones.
When Kuai Liang had left for his own trial, he’d been gone for six days. It was as if some terrible fate had befallen him. No one would speak of it, his own mother had gone about her life as though he had never existed at all. Bi-Han looked away when Tomas had asked if he would ever return.
Tomas remembered how Kuai Liang had looked when he’d come back. Triumphant, but under that, lost. People had come to their home to offer their congratulations. He accepted with a bright smile that looked painted on. Tomas had gone to him late that first night, forced to wait until all their elders had had a chance to congratulate him. In the quiet of his room Kuai Liang had wrapped one arm around his shoulders and pulled Tomas into a weak hug. They’d sat there in silence, letting Kuai Liang lean heavily on him. He’d looked so proud in front of the others, but now he just looked exhausted, too tired, even for words.
Bi-Han’s trials are harder to recall. He remembered the limp, though. The way Bi-Han hadn’t been able to walk properly for what seemed like ages afterwards. Tomas had spent the following weeks helping him in and out of his boots. He wished the man had stayed around long enough for Tomas to say his goodbyes. In some ways he wasn’t surprised Bi-Han made no effort to see him off. Of them all, it was Bi-Han who was a man made of ice, like the clan he was born to inherit. Though Tomas always knew that about his brother, out here, alone and cold, it stung all the worse.
He hears the telltale creak of ashwood straining.
There is just enough time to turn his head before a heavy, steel-tipped arrow sinks into the wood next to his ear. He’s on his feet and gone before he even has time to fully register it.
But, he does not flee.
He knows these forests and he fears no man nor beast within them. Light is a crutch he doesn’t need. He sprints up the mountain, weaves between trees he’s never seen before and leaps across a blind trench. All of it without making a sound. In the distance he can hear someone chasing him. They are quiet but he is quieter. Whoever follows him is clever. From the sound of their footsteps he can tell they don’t hear him, but rather they know him. They pursue him not where he is, but where they know him to go.
No. Not they. She.
He slides under a fallen log. It’s a terrible hiding place, too obvious, too exposed. He’s too smart to hide in a place like this, so he knows she’ll never find him here. A moment later, Sektor leaps over him in a single swift movement, inches away from where he lays, and doesn’t break stride as she races further up the mountain.
He waits, listening for any sign that she’s caught onto the trick and is doubling back. The forest goes quiet again as her footsteps vanish in the distance.
In hindsight it was obvious who had been following him. Sektor was a cruel teacher who would have no qualms against maiming a student. There is no doubt she moved with every intention to kill. His breath is steady, unafraid because a threat known is no threat at all.
He slips out from under the log. She will not catch him. Sektor isn’t a fool. She will figure out eventually that he is behind her, but it is already too late.
He moves silently over the ground, quieter than a memory. Shadows watch him now, entertained by the little fox playing clever games with a wolf.
The elders were liars. He’s always known it. There was only a single man made of ice- everyone else shivered all the same. There was no ancient blood magic that made his clan strong, just the indomitable will of men unafraid to face the cold.
As he climbs the snow grows deeper and the winds more intense, but still no sign of Sektor. Spectres gossip in the trees. They reach for him, and call for him, and chuckle when he ignores them. His exhaustion is forgotten, beaten down by years of training. The body is weak compared to the mind. Tomas pushes upward. There was no choice.
It’s too late to turn back now, it’s too late to rest. It’s been hours since he last caught sight or sound of Sektor. The wind laughs openly now. It jeers at him, taunts him, urges him on. It snarls at him with threats of what it will do should he stop. He has followed her right into the storm. Was this her true intention all along? The slope in front of him is a sheet of white, the wind so intense now that he cannot tell where the ground ends and the sky starts. Even in the dark the pristine snow is so bright it looks to be glowing.
Tomas wedges himself into outcropping of stones. He needs to rest. There is no hope for sleep up here, but he tries regardless because exhaustion is just as much a killer as Sektor.
But he has gotten the attention of the wind, and they are relentless in their taunts. Neither truly awake nor truly asleep, fatigue paints his dreams with strange memories. Kuai Liang sits atop one of the boulders, looking down at him curiously. He says something, but the words are swallowed by the frozen wind. Tomas blinks up at him, asks him to repeat himself. A grins, bright and crooked cuts across his face, an expression he hides from most of the world these days. Tomas still can’t hear him but the expression alone makes him chuckle. It’s absurd and entirely unserious, like an unsaid joke they’re both in on.
And then his eyes flick up to look at something just beyond Tomas’s shoulder and it’s the only warning he gets before Sektor is on him. It’s a blur, a flash of red on white before a sharp pain pierces his side. His feet get tangled underneath him, made clumsy by sleep and cold. His head smacks into the stone behind him and a heavy weight settles on top of his ribs.
She laughs. It’s a wicked, malicious sound.
He reaches for his knife, but his hand only falls on an empty sheath. The blade hangs like a tiger’s claw over his face. Its razor sharp point presses into his lower eyelid. A bead of blood wells up under it, and his vision blurs.
Smoke chokes him as he vanishes. His magic is sloppy and uncontrolled. It burns his nose and flips his stomach. He can't hold the form for long, and rematerializes on the other side of her, stumbling and grabbing a tree to stop himself from falling. His stomach rebels and he vomits.
He needs to stop, take a second to steady himself and control his magic before it makes him sick again. But there is no time, and Sektor is already up again and reaching for him. The knife sinks into his cloak, and catches in the thick material before it can flay the skin from his back. He’s out of the cloak and running again before she can free the knife.
Her laugh echoes from somewhere behind him. It bounces off the trees, distorted by the wind, into an angry, snarling sound. Black soot bubbles from his lips when he trips. The sound of her is all around him, the crunch of her boots, her breathing- her laugh mixes with the jeers of vengeful revenants. It's too loud, it shouldn't be possible. It sounds as if it's right behind him. It sounds like something ripped from a grave.
A wound opens up in the sky, painting the snow a deep crimson. The trees thin and die. Every breath hurts as frozen air stabs him from the inside.
He should not be running when the sun is up, he needs to sleep, but this high into the mountain there is no cover. He stops, he can't but he has to. He desperately needs to find somewhere to hide but there is nothing but stone and ice and wind around him. Without his cloak, any protection he had from the storm is gone.
Either Tomas turns around and faces Sektor, unarmed and exhausted, or he pushes forward through the blizzard and hopes he can make it to the summit before he freezes to death. It's not really a choice at all. The higher he goes the more rugged the landscape becomes. He keeps stumbling over increasingly large stones hidden under the blanket of snow.
The trail narrows into a single path. On one side, a sheer cliff of ice- the edge of a glacier perhaps- on the other, nothing. Nothing but a thundering abyss. In the storm he can’t see it, but he can feel its presence. One wrong step and he will be gone. The gail is so powerful he’s sure it will sweep him away completely if he tries to use his magic.
So he does what he must and keeps moving forward.
The decision enrages the storm. His world becomes a wall of swirling white. The wind is in his nose and in his lungs. Knives of ice slash at his face. Tears freeze on his eyelashes.The voices on the wind are drowned out by something louder, something primal and wild.
It isn't long before the snow is up to his knees and inside his boots. Snow falls faster than it melts, and his wool robes become laden with it. Something buried trips him and it takes him far far too long to get up. Tomas doesn't know how far he needs to go, or even if he is moving in the correct direction anymore. All he knows is that he cannot stop until he has found shelter.
If there is even shelter to be found.
A rogue gust of wind grabs him unexpectedly. Stronger than any human it tries to drag him over the edge of the cliff. He drops to his knees to grab anything he can, but there is nothing but slick ice and snow. He curls in on himself, giving the wind nothing to grab while it snarls in his ear. It only takes a moment for the blizzard to nearly bury him like this. Snow sneaks under his collar and into his robes. An icy hand drags down his back. He shudders, violently.
But eventually, it relents.
He tries to push himself up, but his knees don't respond. Not now, not here. Just a little further and then he can rest. There has to be somewhere safe on this mountain. His father would not have sent him up here to die.
He ignores the voice in the back of his mind that tells him otherwise. It takes every ounce of strength he has left, but he manages to pull himself onto his feet. Three steps, just enough to get him away from the edge. Just far enough so he can collapse against the cliff face. He only needs to rest here for a moment, long enough to catch his breath and keep going. His back is pressed against the wall of pure ice, and yet it doesn’t feel cold. Of course it doesn’t, it’s not possible to get any colder. Instead it feels warm, like it is not a glacier he leans against, but a person. He huddles in tighter, trying to chase that feeling. It’s an illusion, and a sign of hypothermia.
Jealousy stabs him. As a boy he’d watched in awe when Bi-Han walked across the ice with bare feet and bare skin, and when Kuai Liang waded across the river in deep winter turning the water to steam as he moved. It occurs to him that Sektor knew she never needed to catch him to kill him. Tomas would run and he would slip away, and he would sneak like a coward, until she chased him into the jaws of the one enemy he had never been able to fight. He’s nowhere near the summit, and he is moving at a snail's pace. He tries to pull his cloak tighter around him, but remembers how he’d left it behind.
Something collides with his side.
A grey figure stands above him, ice whipping ferociously around them. He squints, trying to make out the person in front of him, but it is like trying to look at the center of a hurricane. Angry wind howls at him, deafeningly loud. He peeks open an eye but his attempts only enrage the storm further. He hears them clearly now shrieking with the voices of dead Lin Kuei. Tomas should have known better. The people in the valley tried to warn him. These are not his ancestors.
The phantom reaches for him.
He gets one foot under himself and loses control of his limbs. One second he is kneeling, the next he is choking, yanked up by the back of his shirt.
He’s hauled up like a wayward kitten, pulled up like he weighs nothing. It's not Sektor, it's far too strong to be Sektor. A second hand grabs him by his front, drags him two steps and then the world flips upside down. A blast of warm air hits him and he is plunged into darkness.
It takes his eyes a second to adjust. He blinks painful stars out of his eyes and squints at the figure who had dropped him graceless to the floor. Above him, Bi-Han looms, silhouetted by bright light.
He frowns down at Tomas.
They hadn't had a chance to say goodbye. Bi-Han had vanished four days ago. On an urgent mission, Kuai Liang had said. He was too caught up in his own preparations to question it. It feels like the air has been stolen from his lungs.
The cave is silent compared to the howling gail outside. It’s quiet enough to hear dripping water far behind him. Dripping water? He cranes around to look for the sound. It takes strength he doesn’t have just to look.
With the last of his strength he forces himself deeper into the cave. It’s only a few feet until he collapses against the wall. Warm air flows up from a crack in the floor. It’s some kind of thermal vent, he realizes. It’s still frigid, and without his cloak he shivers violently, but its nothing compared to the outside. More importantly, it's hidden. Tucked against the wall he vanishes into the furthest dark he’s ever known.
B-Han watches the storm rage just beyond the cave’s opening. A ragged cough rips itself from Tomas’s lungs. The taste of black soot sticks to his tongue and stings his throat. Back when he had first been learning to control magic, the smoke had often made him ill. More than once, he had woken up their home, with terrible coughing fits from ash coated lungs.
He doesn’t miss the way Bi-Han turns ever so slightly towards the sound.
His mind drifts and he falls into an uneasy slumber. In his dream, Bi-Han looks at him with eyes like dying embers. His body is consumed by a cold fire, smoke billows in dark plums from his mouth and nose. He looks more like a monster than a man. Whatever it is that looks back at him is not Bi-Han, but something evil.
The sound of voices jolts him awake. Bi-Han has not moved, but that dark spot is gone. Next to him, Sektor speaks, hushed. Despite it, Tomas can hear her clearly, her voice echoing on the cold stone walls. “What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?” Bi-Han grunts “I’m not going to do anything.”
“Scorpion will be furious.”
Bi-Han says nothing. From here, Tomas is close enough to hear the way he shifts his weight, the quiet squeak of his leather boots. A shadow is the only thing that hides him from them. In four steps Sektor could be on him. There is no way he has the energy to escape her a second time.
She turns, glancing into the cave.
“We don’t know that he fell.” Bi-Han says. She turns back toward him.
“And if he doesn't fall, he's going to freeze.” She laughs. It dies quickly in her throat when Bi-Han doesn’t join her. She huffs, it sounds annoyed. “Drop the storm, I’ll go out and find him.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Then, you're going to kill him.”
“What choice do I have?” The way he says it- it’s cold. Dispassionate. Like the words belong to someone else. It sounds practiced, though Tomas is sure he’s never heard Bi-Han say such a statement before.
“I just want to make sure you know.”
They stay like that for a long time, nearly close enough to touch, and yet oblivious to his presence. Bi-Han doesn’t say much else. Tomas wishes he could see his face, but Bi-Han never turns, and Tomas never sees any more than his back.
That’s how he falls asleep, two strides away from a woman who tried to kill him only a few hours ago. It’s freezing and uncomfortable. He still hasn’t had a proper meal in two days. But he’s safe, and that’s all his tired body needs to drift.
He dreams of black smoke.
When Tomas awakes, the cave is quiet. Outside the storm still rages- though perhaps it is quieter. He looks around for Bi-Han, but he knows without knowing that he left a long time ago.
His bones creak as he rises. His muscles protest. His stomach revolts. It would be so easy to hide in this cave. To rest, forever. It would be peaceful. But peace was never the fate of his ancestors, and death now would only turn him into another vengeful revenant in the wind. The decision is easy and he pushes once again toward the summit.