The days that followed were a different breed of torture. Valak’s training had been a trial of physical endurance, but Skida’s was a slow erosion of the mind. They spent their sunlight hours in a state of agonizing focus, trying to unmake matter, and their nights buried in complex texts that made their heads throb.
The Wanderer struggled until he stopped fighting the world's resistance with blunt force. He realized the Spiral can't be pushed out of the process. He tapped into the hungry resonance of the Spiral’s void, using that internal vacuum to swallow the existence of the sand. Once the first grain vanished, the rest followed.
Kuma was a natural, already moving on to the dense cellular structures of wood and the dense of steel. With his help and Skida’s critiques, the Wanderer eventually caught up.
On this particular morning, the air felt sharper. Skida stood before them, clad in silver and black battle armor.
"Enough dismantling stones," she said. "Time for the next lesson."
A small detachment of soldiers arrived, snapping into a perfect salute. "We have a mission," Skida announced. "You’re joining my personal unit in the field."
"Yes, General!" Both replied in unison.
As they marched beyond the obsidian gates of Draemir, Kuma leaned toward one of the armored guards. "Hey," he whispered. "You guys can all do the 'thing'?"
The soldier replied without turning his head."We all carry the blood pact."
"No need to whisper, Kuma," Skida called out from the front. "My loyal boys tell me everything." Kuma offered a faint smile and fell back into line.
They marched for a full day, far beyond the Draemiran territory. By evening, they reached a village that was nothing more than a graveyard of smoking timber and collapsed houses. Draemiran regulars were already there, wiping blood from their blades as they stepped out of the ruins.
"Gather the survivors," Skida commanded.
The Wanderer and Kuma helped her guards to gather the villagers into the center of the square. The air was thick with the copper tang of blood and the broken sobs of the terrified.
Skida paced the perimeter of the group. "Take the men to Luna," she told her guards. "Leave the women for now."
A woman lunged forward, shrieking as her husband was dragged away. Skida intercepted her, catching her by the shoulders. "Shush, shush," Skida whispered with a motherly softness. She wiped a tear from the woman's cheek before gently pushing her back into the dirt.
Skida stepped behind her, leaning down until her chin rested on the woman’s trembling shoulder. Her eyes locked onto Kuma.
"Dismantle her."
The color drained from Kuma’s face until he looked like a ghost. "What? Why?"
"Why do you think I gave you anatomy books?" Skida replied, pinning the woman in place with a casual strength.
"But she’s defenseless," Kuma said, his voice trembling. "She can't do anything!"
Skida snapped the woman's neck and wrenched the head clean from the shoulders, her head up, looking into the dead eyes. "See what the bad man did?" she said to the head. "He wasted a resource."
She looked at Kuma, her expression darkening. "Bad, bad boy." Then tossed the head at him.
Kuma caught it instinctively. He stared into the lifeless, wide-eyed stare for a fraction of a second before letting out a strangled shriek and throwing it into the dirt. The guards erupted into mocking laughter.
Skida was already standing over another woman. "Shush, now. I’m sure he won’t make the same mistake twice."
The woman looked up at Kuma, her face a mask of pure terror. "Please," she choked out. "I don’t want to die."
"I can force you," Skida said to Kuma, "but I’d prefer you to love your work. Puppets are boring."
The Wanderer surged forward, stepping between Skida and Kuma. "You said the pact only matters if we betray you!"
"Disobedience is betrayal," Skida snapped. She looked him in the eye, her lip curling. "You love technicalities, don't you?"
A crack sound followed. She snapped the second woman’s neck without looking away from the Wanderer.
"Stop!" Kuma screamed. "Just stop! I’ll do it!"
Skida pointed to a third woman. Kuma stepped forward, his hand leveled, tears streaming down his face. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice cracking.
He focused. He focused on her hand, peeling away the skin with his mana, then the veins, then the muscle, exposing the white of the bone while the woman was still screaming. The sound was a high wail that tore through the night.
Kuma’s focus flickered. He couldn't hold the mental image through the horror. He let go, and the woman’s hand reappeared instantly, but he didn't learn to assemble yet. The flesh returned in a gory, twisted mass of misaligned muscle and skin, leaving her mangled and howling in the dirt.
"I didn't know you were a fan of torture," Skida said, her voice dripping with mock delight. "A nice surprise. I love it, too. Now, down to business. dismantle her entire body."
Kuma covered his face with his shaking hands. "I can't. I can't do it."
Skida’s expression shifted instantly from amusement to sharp fury. She reached out mentally and yanked on the ethereal chains she had coiled around his mana circles. "Do it!"
Kuma collapsed to his knees, a raw scream tearing from his throat as the blood pact burned through his nervous system. Trembling, he forced himself back up. He raised his hand, his eyes squeezed shut to avoid seeing the woman’s face, and unleashed his mana.
In a horrifying blur of unmaking, the woman vanished. A second later, the world pushed back, and she reassembled in a chaotic nightmare of displaced organs and tangled limbs.
Kuma turned his face the other way sobbing.
Skida turned her gaze to the Wanderer. "Your turn. Do you love torture, too?"
The Wanderer gave her a side-eye, without offering a reply. He aimed his hand at another woman who began to run away, trying to escape the gory fate.
But the only mercy he could give was a quick death.
His mana caught her before she could take a third step. In a pulse of the Spiral's void, she vanished into absolute nothingness. When she reappeared, her organs were external, and her mouth had been displaced to the center of her abdomen. She tried to scream, a wet, muffled sound vibrating from her gut, before she slumped over into a merciful silence.
"Efficient," Skida noted, sounding disappointed. "But not very fun."
“ I'll obey my way, you can have your fun doing it yourself ” he replied
The Wanderer looked at the heap of flesh, then back at the General. "You can't fix her?"
Skida laughed. "Magic can do a lot of things, maggot. But it doesn't revive the dead."
Skida turned to the guards, her voice as casual as if she were ordering dinner. "Take the rest of the women to Luna. If she’s full, feed them to the war beasts. I don't want to see them when we march."
The guards moved, shackling the weeping survivors and dragging them toward the Crescentian territory. The remaining unit fell in behind Skida as she began the long trek back to Draemir, Kuma and the Wanderer followed them, a few steps behind.
Kuma walked as if he was half dead, his hands still shaking so violently he had to bury them in his sleeves. "I need to get out," he whispered. "She’s a demon... I can’t... what have I done?"
"Shush," the Wanderer hissed, his eyes fixed on the back of Skida’s head. "Play along for now. Those women wouldn't have found a better fate anyway."
"At least they would be alive!" Kuma choked out.
The Wanderer replied. "You call serving Luna living? You think being a 'daughter' to that thing is a mercy?"
"I don't want any part of this," Kuma said, his pace faltering. "None of it."
The Wanderer slammed his shoulder into him, knocking him into the dirt. He stood over him saying. "You knew what you signed up for when you took the Draemiran coin. You knew what this army was."
"I thought there was justice," Kuma spat, looking up from the ground. "Cruelty, yes, but I thought there was a reason."
The Wanderer reached down, his hand firm as he pulled Kuma back to his feet. "Justice is a luxury for the strong, Kuma. Draemir values strength. Nothing else. Focus on your growth. Focus on your revenge."
Kuma’s eyes were wet as he said. "They aren't any better than the Mage Seekers who butchered my parents. I was in a village just like this one. I was the child in the dirt."
"Then play along," the Wanderer whispered. "At least for now. You aren't the only one who hates the feeling of chains."