The scream came from outside.
It wasn't a scream of anger. Or fright. It was the kind of sound that came from someone seeing something the body refused to accept. A torn, too-shrill sound that died halfway through, as if the throat had given up before the person did.
Everyone in the tavern turned toward the door.
Zephyr didn't turn. He only stopped chewing.
The pressure in his head returned. Not like before—not like a distant whisper. This time, it was as if someone had pressed their thumbs against his temples. Hard. Constant. Pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
The tavern door flew open with a crash.
The man who stumbled inside tripped over his own feet. He fell to his knees. He was panting, eyes wide, and there was something on his face that Zephyr recognized before a word was spoken.
The look of someone who had seen something that shouldn't exist.
—They're... —The man swallowed hard. His hands were shaking. —Marta. Enio. They're...
He couldn't finish.
He didn't have to.
Because at that moment, through the open door, Zephyr saw.
A figure was walking down the dirt street. Slowly. The movements were wrong—not like someone drunk or wounded, but as if the body were being pulled by invisible strings. The arms swung out of rhythm. The legs bent at angles that didn't fit the steps.
It was a woman. Or it had been.
Her skin was pale. Not the pallor of someone who was sick—a sickly whiteness, like melted wax spread over bone. Dark veins pulsed visibly beneath the surface, climbing her neck and branching across her temples. The fingers of her right hand had stretched longer, the nails transformed into something resembling claws. A wooden spoon still dangled from her left hand.
And she was crying.
It wasn't a monster's cry. It was human. Short, broken sobs escaping from a mouth that no longer closed properly. Her eyes—still human, still recognizable—were full of tears.
The tavernkeeper dropped the mug he was holding.
—Marta, he said, almost voicelessly.
The woman—Marta—turned her head toward the sound. The movement was far too fast. Mechanical. Her eyes found the tavernkeeper through the open door, and for an instant, something was there. Recognition. Pain. A silent plea that lasted less than a second.
Then the body lurched forward.
Zephyr rose from the bench. Not toward the door. Toward the back of the tavern. His eyes were already searching for another exit—a window, a back door, anything.
The pressure in his head throbbed.
He didn't want to be there.
More screams outside. Not one—several. Coming from different directions. The sound of something heavy slamming into wood. A child crying. A man shouting a name Zephyr didn't know.
The young man near the door—the one with the stance of someone who had held a sword before—grabbed a bench and ran into the street. The tavernkeeper stood frozen behind the counter, mouth open, staring at the spot where Marta had been.
Zephyr found the back door. He shoved it open. The alley was narrow and dark, and the rain was falling harder now.
He took three steps.
Stopped.
On the main street, visible through the gap between two houses, there were more of them. Four. Five. Walking with that broken cadence, like puppets with half their strings cut. A large man with dark spines sprouting from his shoulders and back, each one the size of a finger. He was still wearing a blacksmith's apron. Still holding his hammer. Another was younger—a boy who couldn't have been more than seventeen, with claws where his hands had been and a sound coming from his throat that was half growl, half sob.
They were all crying.
Each in his or her own way. The blacksmith cried in silence, teeth clenched, as if trying to hold his own body together with the strength of his jaw. The young boy cried loudly, like a child, repeating something Zephyr couldn't understand. An older woman, black veins covering half her face, muttered a prayer between sobs—the same words, repeated without pause, as if the prayer were the last thing that still belonged to her.
And they attacked.
Not like predators. Not like soldiers. They attacked like people being shoved forward—their bodies advancing while their faces begged them to stop. The blacksmith swung his hammer against the wall of a house. The wood shattered. A scream came from inside. He swung again, and as his arm came down, his mouth opened and a single word dragged itself out, almost unrecognizable:
—Run.
Zephyr took a step back.
The pressure in his head was almost unbearable now. It wasn't pain—it was presence. As if something inside him were waking up, stretching, paying attention.
He could leave. The alley led out of the village. The road was there, a few yards away. All he had to do was turn his back and walk. He'd done it before. He'd left villages, cities, entire camps behind. It wasn't cowardice. It was survival. The same lesson the Black Crow Company had hammered into him since childhood.
He turned toward the alley.
Took another step.
And then he heard it.
Not the whisper. Not the pressure. A real voice. Small. High-pitched. Desperate.
—Mom! Mom, it's me! Stop, Mom! It's me!
Zephyr stopped.
He didn't want to look. He knew what he would see. He knew because he'd lived through it before—not exactly like this, not with those words, but enough. Enough that his whole body refused to turn his head.
He turned anyway.
In the middle of the street stood a little girl. She couldn't have been more than seven or eight. She was clinging to the leg of one of the corrupted—a woman with cracked skin and veins pulsing in her arms, holding a kitchen knife in one hand while the other tried, with clumsy, violent movements, to break free of the child.
The girl wouldn't let go.
—Mom, look at me! It's me! I'm Lina!
The corrupted woman stopped.
It was quick. Less than two seconds. Her eyes—still brown, still human beneath all that sickly whiteness—lowered to the child. And there was something there. A tremor. The hand holding the knife dropped a few inches. Her lips moved, trying to form a word her body could no longer pronounce.
The girl looked up. She saw her mother's eyes. Saw that she was still in there.
—See? I knew it. I knew you were still in there.
The corrupted woman closed her eyes. A tear ran down her pale skin, cutting a path between the dark veins.
Then her body contracted. Her fingers closed around the knife. Her eyes opened again—and this time, less of her mother remained inside. Less with every second.
Her arm began to rise.
Zephyr was already running.
He didn't think. He didn't decide. His body moved before his mind—as on battlefields, as on nights when thinking meant dying. The large sword came off his back in a single motion, the dark cloth coming loose in the air, and the blade came down.
Not on the woman.
On the ground. Between mother and daughter. The impact split the wet earth, and the sound cleaved the air like a dry peal of thunder. The corrupted woman recoiled—not by choice, but by instinct, her body reacting to danger before the corruption could force it forward.
Zephyr grabbed the girl with his free arm. He pulled her back. The child screamed, kicked, and tried to break free.
—Let me go! That's my mom! That's my mom!
He said nothing. He held her firmly and stepped back three paces, placing the blade between them.
The corrupted woman stood still. Her body trembled. The knife rose and fell in spasms, as if two wills were fighting over the same arm. Her eyes found Zephyr's—the blue skin, the horns, the violet eyes—and for an instant he saw something that wasn't fear or hatred.
It was relief.
As if she were grateful that someone had pulled her daughter away.
Then the corruption pulled again. Her body lunged forward. The knife came toward him.
Zephyr spun the sword. The movement was clean, precise, almost gentle for a weapon that size. The blade struck her wrist. The knife fell into the mud. He reversed the stroke and used the flat of the blade to shove the woman backward, creating distance.
The girl was crying in his arms. She pounded her small fists against the breastplate of his armor. She called for her mother.
Around them, the village was coming apart.
The young man from the tavern was trapped against a wall, holding the bench like a shield while the corrupted blacksmith advanced. With every blow of the hammer, the bench lost another piece. The young man screamed, not in anger—in panic. He didn't know what to do. He knew he had to defend himself, but he couldn't attack. He couldn't strike someone he knew.
Farther on, an old man was trying to drag an elderly woman into a house. She refused to move. She stared at one of the corrupted—the young boy with claws—and repeated a name. The same name. As if saying it would be enough to bring him back.
It wasn't.
Zephyr set the girl down. He knelt and gripped her shoulders. His violet eyes met her tear-filled brown ones.
—Don't look, he said. His voice came out low. Hoarse. —Go into that house. Close the door. Don't look out the window.
—But my mom...
—Don't look.
The girl sobbed. She looked at her mother—who was now advancing again, without the knife, but with her hands outstretched and her fingers curling into claws. She looked at Zephyr. At the horns. At the eyes glowing beneath his hood.
She ran into the house.
Zephyr rose.
The pressure in his head was deafening. Every beat of his heart brought a wave of presence that wasn't his. The whisper wasn't whispering—it thrummed, like a deep string plucked inside his skull.
He raised the large sword.
The girl's mother came first. Her body lurched forward awkwardly, hands outstretched, mouth open in a scream that was half roar, half sob. Zephyr waited. Read the movement. When she came close enough, he spun the blade and used the ricasso to lock her arm. He pulled. Knocked her to the ground.
She lay there facedown in the mud, trying to rise while her body convulsed. Her fingers dug into the earth. Her mouth repeated something—not words, only sounds. Sounds that resembled a name.
Zephyr looked at her.
Looked at the sword.
The woman raised her face. Tears mixed with mud. Her brown eyes met his—and this time there was no doubt. She was in there. Trapped. Conscious. Feeling everything.
Her mouth moved. This time the words came out. Dragged and broken. But clear.
—Please.
He knew what she was asking.
The sword had never felt so heavy in his hands.
Zephyr closed his eyes. Breathed. Opened them.
The blade came down.
Fast. Clean. Painless.
The body stopped moving. The dark veins stopped pulsing. Her face relaxed—and for an instant, before life faded completely, there was something there that looked like peace.
The whisper stopped.
Silence.
Not the silence of the tavern. Not the silence of fear. An empty, hollow silence, as if something had fed and was resting now.
Zephyr stood motionless. Rain ran down the blade, washing away the blood. Around him, the other corrupted still moved. Still cried. Still attacked.
He tightened his grip on the sword hilt.
And kept walking.