Three days east of Thornstud, and the world had forgotten what warmth felt like.

Gabriel walked ahead, his pace steady despite the frozen ground cracking beneath his boots. Behind him, Tess's breath came harder. Shorter. The altitude was already affecting her.

He didn't slow down.

The landscape had shifted from dead forests to skeletal ones. Trees stood like monuments to something that had died long ago, their branches reaching upward as if begging the sky for mercy it would never grant.

The cold bit at exposed skin. At least, it should have.

Gabriel felt nothing.

Tess pulled her thermal cloak tighter as another gust of wind swept through. She watched Gabriel's back, the way his shoulders never hunched against the wind, the way frost never seemed to settle on his hair.

"You're not cold," she said. Not a question.

Gabriel didn't turn. "No."

"That's not normal."

"I know."

Silence stretched between them, filled only by the sound of boots on frozen earth and Tess's laboured breathing.

The landscape had turned hostile. What trees remained stood skeletal and grey, bark stripped away by wind and time. The ground beneath their feet was iron-hard, frozen solid enough that each step sent cracks spider-webbing across the surface.

Tess's breath came in visible clouds. Gabriel's didn't.

She noticed.

"When did you stop breathing steam?" she asked.

Gabriel looked down at his own breath. Nothing. The cold air that should have condensed against his exhalation just... didn't.

"I don't know."

They walked in silence after that.

The mountains grew larger with each hour. What had seemed distant that morning now loomed overhead, three massive peaks that dominated the horizon like the teeth of some ancient god.

They passed the first corpse an hour before noon.

It sat propped against a boulder, frozen solid. The man's face was peaceful, almost serene. His eyes were open, staring at the mountains ahead as if still searching for something.

Gabriel crouched beside it. The body wore hunter's gear, good quality. Expensive. A sword lay across his lap, still gripped in frozen hands.

Tess came up behind him. "How long?"

"Months. Maybe longer." Gabriel's eyes scanned the area. "He made it further than most."

A leather journal protruded from the corpse's pack. Gabriel pulled it free. The pages crackled as he opened them, ice crystals breaking off the leather binding.

He read silently, eyes moving across the faded text.

Tess waited, her breath visible in the cold air.

"The wyvern hunts at dusk," Gabriel said finally. "Patrols its territory. Moves like it's thinking, not just acting on instinct."

He flipped through more pages, studying the hunter's observations. The man had been meticulous, documenting patterns, flight paths, kill zones. All of it useless in the end.

"He tried to ambush it." Gabriel closed the journal and placed it back in the pack. "Set up in the cave entrance. Waited three days."

"And?"

"The wyvern came from behind him." Gabriel stood, brushing frost from his cloak. "It knew he was there. Knew what he was planning."

Tess swallowed. "It's that smart?"

"Yes."

They continued walking.

The Spine mountains appeared on the horizon as the sun began its descent. Massive. Impossible. Three peaks rising so high they pierced the clouds themselves, their summits lost in grey mist.

Gabriel stopped.

His hand moved to his chest, pressing against the fabric of his cloak. Beneath it, his heart was racing. Not from exertion. From something else.

"Gabriel?" Tess's voice sounded distant despite standing right beside him.

The pull was different now. Not painful, but constant. A second heartbeat that wasn't his own, echoing from somewhere in those mountains. Calling to him. Demanding.

"It's there," he said quietly.

Tess followed his gaze toward the peaks that vanished into low-hanging clouds. "The wyvern?"

"Yes."

The voice in his head had been quiet since they left Thornstud. Now it returned, not as words but as sensation. Heat building beneath his skin. The incomplete awakening pressing against him from the inside, demanding completion.

Complete the trial, Dracamere.

Gabriel's jaw tightened. His hand moved unconsciously to his chest, pressing against the scars hidden beneath his armour.

They made camp at the mountain's base as darkness fell. A small depression in the land sheltered them from the worst of the wind, though the cold still bit at everything except Gabriel.

Tess built the fire using dried branches she'd collected during the last hour of walking. The flames struggled against the wind but held.

Gabriel sat apart, staring up at the peaks barely visible against the night sky. His swords lay across his lap, both blades gleaming in the firelight.

He ran the whetstone along the edge of the first sword. The rhythmic scraping sound filled the silence between them.

"We start at dawn," he said.

Tess poked at the flames with a stick. "You ready for this?"

Gabriel didn't answer immediately. His hand moved to the book in his pack, the weight of it pressing against his back even through the leather.

"I don't have a choice."

Tess looked at him across the fire. Really looked. His eyes caught the firelight and reflected it back red. His hair, fully black now, moved slightly in the wind. The scars on his face seemed deeper in the shadows.

He looked less human every day.

"What happens if you complete it?" she asked.

Gabriel's gaze remained fixed on the mountains. "I become what they wanted me to be."

"And what's that?"

"I don't know."

The fire crackled. Somewhere in the distance, wind howled through the peaks like a warning.

Tess pulled her knees closer to her chest. "You could die up there."

"Probably."

"And you're doing it anyway."

Gabriel's hand moved to his chest, pressing against where the scars lay beneath his armour. "The incomplete awakening is killing me anyway. Slower. More painful."

He turned to look at her across the fire. "At least this way, I choose how it ends."

Tess held his gaze. "And if you complete it? If you become whatever the cult wanted you to be?"

"Then you run."

"Gabriel—"

"Promise me." His voice was flat. Final. "If I become something you can't recognise. Something that tries to hurt you. You run."

Tess wanted to argue. The words were right there.

But she saw something in his eyes that made her stop.

Fear.

Not of dying. Not of the wyvern or the trial or the Church.

Fear of what he might become.

"I promise," she lied.

Gabriel nodded, accepting the lie because the truth would have made this harder.

He turned back to his gear, checking his swords one final time before the hunt.

The voice in his head whispered.

Soon.

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