Wald breathed. In and out. The hunter, Karem’s Blessed, focused on reversing the natural flow of cold and heat.
Gradually, the inward cold turned warm, and the outward heat changed to expel cold.
His frostbitten body thawed. In those moments, even with his waning lucidity, Wald could realize how dangerously close he’d come to freezing to death in the night blizzard – or losing a part of his body to the frigid cold. So focused was he on finding his prey, to slaughter and kill it, he had lost sight that one must still care for themselves – that even with all his marked powers, he was still a Mortal creature who could perish.
A mere Mortal…
…who only borrowed the granted powers of an Immortal to attempt to be anything more.
The snow melted underneath him while his body temperature continued to rise despite the blowing winds and blizzard storm around him.
His familiar, granted to him by Karem, tried to lift him up and offer warmth as well. Wald slumped over the wolf’s back like a ragdoll, his last act of consciousness before he drifted between lax states of awareness and he focused everything he could on keeping himself warm.
However, Ylfa did not continue forward.
Instead, the wolf turned around and started back toward the forest.
After a few bits, Wald’s consciousness returned to him. Before him, he saw Rasul pointing in the opposite direction. The hunter told the child to go home.
"Why you try?"
Wald got back to his feet. He did not realize, having been unconscious, that their path had rerouted and that Ylfa had decided for them. The Karem familiar acted on survival first, contacted by the Immortal herself to do so.
For Karem had felt the danger that her Blessed was in, and she refused that she might lose her marked to something like inclement weather. The solution was simple, return him to the cover of the trees that blocked the sharp wind chill. Rather than what the wolf knew would be a far path of cold and dark across open tundra plains, to try and catch up to humans who had certain advantages to their travel. Advantages that would cause Wald’s attempt to likely fail.
Ylfa continued to guide Wald forward, to the tree line.
Wald realized only three breaks later, due to the short range vision caused between the blizzard and night, when they reached the forest again. He recognized the silhouette of the trees ahead. Though he’d only returned to where he’d once been… Wald was alive.
A strange sensation came over him. Rasul had disappeared.
Complete clarity and lucidity returned to Wald once more.
He heard what sounded like metal-clad footsteps approaching from the south.
Ahead, from the forest, a powerful, tall figure in half plate, bearing the crown of the Eternal Empire on her brow, approached him. She stopped, shook her head at Wald, and then resumed her approach.
Raskalarn had returned to him. He felt the boost of vitality and strength drain from him, leaving through his arms. The Might of the Conquerer had been rescinded from him.
“Wald Lowca,” said Raskalarn. As she spoke, her voice boomed through the blizzard. It seemed as if the snowflakes avoided landing on her, drifting away from her indomitable aura. “You have failed me.”
The Immortal stopped right in front of him, a mighty figure to behold, and she peered down at Wald as if he were a mere tiny ant about to be squashed under heel.
“I have watched you in this mission. You attempt to claim dominion over nature, yet you bow to the mere breath of Ziell. You depend greatly on Karem for your conquests and devastation, rather than your own might. Command is important, yet one cannot solely rely on their companion, nor on clever tricks. You must be capable of devastation yourself!”
She continued, voice causing Wald's body to shake and tremble for how powerful it was. “And your discipline! Discipline to realize your weaknesses, discipline to order your mind, you have not impressed me.”
“…but you are not hopeless, Wald Lowca,” she added. Though her tone did not soften, and she remained as loud and commanding as ever, she did look at him with a gleam in her deep green eyes. Her raven-black hair drifted to one side as a wind strongly cut across the tundra.
“Train your mind and body,” she added. “Develop your discipline. Learn the ways of conquest, of true dominion, so that your potential for devastation can be fully realized. Only then, might I reconsider…”
“Only then, might I lift the curse.”
She held up a hand and a dark magic rose from her gauntlet. Wald saw shadows drift between them, then circle around his head. A circlet of shadows gathered, then painlessly sunk into his skull until a black tattoo marked him. The dark crown of Raskalarn’s Condemned, the Curse of Krorros, signaling him as a known enemy of the Eternal Divine Empress.
“Survive,” she commanded, then she vanished.
Wald was left in the cold. The blizzard continued to fall heavy around him. On the eastern horizon, the light of dawn started to rise and grant a dim blue light to the snowy sky. He was cursed, but he was not alone. Ylfa laid down beside his feet, a quiet whine from the intelligent wolf familiar. And Rasul reappeared between the trees, sobbing.
