I don’t know how long I sat there with my face buried in my hands. The snow under my knees had long since turned to ice, and the blood of the slain beasts on my clothes had frozen into brown, crusted patches. The world around me felt like a gray canvas, and the only bright spot on it was that same emptiness in my chest.

  “Arkgrim! Hey, boy—time to move!” The leader’s voice cut through the fog of my thoughts.

  Slowly—like a hundred-year-old man—I got to my feet. My body felt heavy, чужое. I followed them, staring up at the endless gray sky.

  Why was I still here? Why was I living?

  Those questions came more and more often, like dark birds circling over my mind, and flew away without answers. Only sharp gusts of northern wind dragged me back into reality now and then, forcing me to feel the burning cold on my cheeks.

  I walked and watched the mercenaries hauling bear carcasses behind them. To them it was добыча—food and money.

  To me, it was evidence of my madness.

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  When we returned to the city, the leader left for a while. Later he came out of his room with heavy sacks that clinked pleasantly with coins. He started dividing the honestly earned gold—then someone cut in.

  The same thirty-five-year-old mercenary who’d laughed at my “weakness” that morning stepped forward. His face was pale, but his взгляд was unusually steady.

  “That was my last run,” he said quietly. “I’m not taking contracts anymore.”

  The leader froze with a pouch in his hand. “What? What the hell are you talking about? We just started working well together! Why?”

  “Because today I saw my death. Not just saw it—I tasted it, and I saw what comes after.”

  He walked up to me slowly. His hand—rough, calloused—settled on my shoulder. To my surprise, he wasn’t trembling. Then tears suddenly burst from his eyes, carving lines down his dirty, windburned face.

  “Thank you, kid,” he whispered, and there was so much sincerity in his voice it made my skin crawl. “If not for you… if you hadn’t shown me that horror in the forest, I’d have kept playing adventurer. I’d have died—if not today, then tomorrow. But now… now I’m going back to my wife. To my kids. While I still can.”

  I stayed silent. I didn’t know what to say to a man thanking me for almost driving him insane with my insanity. I’d wanted to break him—and instead, I’d saved him.

  “Thank you,” he repeated, squeezing my shoulder hard, then stepped away, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.

  I looked down at my palms. There was still blood on them.

  The emptiness inside me hadn’t gone anywhere—but for a moment, a tiny spark flared inside it.