Chapter 18 - Nyssara
Chapter 18 – Nyssara
The snow soaked through his back.
Each breath was a battle.
Caleb lay half-buried near the church wall, the world around him a swirling blur of white and blood. His robe clung to him like a shroud, stained red at the seams, and the cold gnawed deep, deeper than ever before.
Orven paced nearby, blade dancing between his fingers.
He wasn't in a rush.
"Not much left in you now," he muttered, crouching down and tapping Caleb's cheek with the flat of the blade. "You had some fight in you. Gotta respect that. But I've got time."
Caleb's eyes barely stayed open. He tasted iron. The kukri was somewhere in the snow. He couldn't lift his arms. His body felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.
"Ever seen a man skinned alive?" Orven whispered, crouching closer. "It's a shame to waste meat with deep cuts. Gotta know where to slice. Precise work."
He stood again and stepped back, savoring the moment.
"I'll start with the legs," he said, almost to himself. "Can't have you kicking."
And that's when the light dimmed.
Not from the clouds above. Not from snow.
But from something else.
A shadow unfurled near the far side of the churchyard. It didn't walk, didn't fly, didn't move in any way a living thing should. It simply was—there, then closer, then behind Orven.
He spun around.
"What the—"
The thing lunged.
No sound. No flash.
Just a flicker, a blink—and it was gone.
Orven staggered, blinking, turning in circles. "What—where—?"
His voice cut off.
He dropped the knife.
Then fell to his knees.
Hands clawed at his chest, at his face. Veins darkened, spidering beneath the skin. Steam poured from his mouth as if the heat inside him was being pulled out forcefully. His screams pierced the air—raw, panicked, animal.
"I—NO—GET—OUT!"
His skin blistered. Peeled. Shrunk against his bones.
And then silence.
What was left of him was barely human. A husk, grey and empty, eyes wide in horror but lifeless.
The snow quieted.
Then the shadow returned—coalescing slowly, deliberately—until she took form.
Slender. Pale. Wreathed in frost and midnight smoke. Eyes like twin shards of obsidian. Her lower half faded into mist, but her upper body held vague echoes of what the guardian corpse had once been—only… refined. Terrible. Beautiful.
She hovered near him.
And lowered herself to his side.
Caleb couldn't speak.
He barely breathed.
But he saw her.
Her hand—cold as the void—touched his forehead.
A voice, not spoken, but heard—deep within his bones.
"You have fed the silence. You have freed the forgotten.
I am Nyssara.
I shall walk with you… until your steps are no longer needed."
Caleb's lips parted, but no sound came. His eyes rolled back.
The snow fell heavier now, muffling everything.
He slipped into unconsciousness, the faint image of her still burned behind his eyelids.
Darkness.
And the flicker of frostlit flame, refusing to die.
End of the 18th chapter.