Mark stood there, chest still heaving, a dark, dried line under his nose—a reminder of the first grizzly, now almost invisible.

  The man still standing stared at him like he'd just watched God descend from a split sky.

  "Th-thank you," he stammered. His voice cracked on the second syllable. "Thank you, I—we—"

  He didn't lower his sword.

  Smart.

  Mark breathed slowly, felt his heartbeat slow down—just a little—and kept his hand suspended in front of him. Ready.

  The second mercenary was still on the ground—barely upright after the grizzly had nearly torn him apart. He gripped his sword, but the tip trembled. Face like wax, breath short, eyes fixed on Mark: same terror, same forced gratitude.

  The smell of shit and fear hung in the air—one of them had pissed himself.

  "Drop your swords," Mark said.

  His voice came out steady.

  Steadier than he felt.

  "I don't want to hurt you. But drop your swords. Now."

  The standing man hesitated.

  His eyes slid from the grizzly-man's corpse to Mark's hand, then back to the sword he was gripping.

  Then he let it fall.

  The metal hit the ground with a dull thud, sinking slightly into the mud and clotted blood.

  The man on the ground did the same, pushing his blade away with a weak kick—more surrender than trust.

  Mark lowered his hand.

  Slowly.

  He felt it tremble slightly—residual adrenaline, or maybe just the weight of having almost killed another living thing.

  Behind him, Antea said nothing.

  Antea listened.

  Or rather: she heard.

  Mark spoke—real words, clear, understandable to those men—and her brain translated everything into an incomprehensible mess of guttural sounds, crooked syllables, shapeless noise.

  She heard something that sounded like "krrràthess" or "tharròkh"—impossible to tell.

  Like when someone speaks in tongues during a mystical crisis.

  Glossolalia.

  Pure. Fucking. Noise.

  Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms, body stiffening like reinforced concrete, and inside her something screamed no powers no language no body that feels truly mine and now not even words to ask for help—

  Something pressed behind her eyes—hot, wet, burning.

  Tears formed at the rims of her eyelids.

  They didn't fall.

  Not yet.

  Not in front of them.

  She breathed slowly.

  Tried to hold herself together with the brute force of rage, because if she let go now she'd collapse, and if she collapsed she wouldn't get back up.

  Then she looked at those men.

  Scared.

  Hurt.

  Disarmed.

  And she saw the way they stared at Mark.

  Fear. Respect. Pure terror.

  The strongest of everyone she'd met so far was on her side.

  Not all bad comes to harm.

  And the language could be learned.

  As long as they didn't die first.

  The thought came out of nowhere—a foreign body compared to the grim edifice of somatic markers this world was building, brick by brick, into her personality.

  An intuition.

  Strange.

  Almost out of place.

  It's easier to hope in a world that doesn't seem to have a damn thing positive to offer.

  But will it really be like that?

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Her morale—if she could call it that—was higher than the gloomy mood of the first day.

  Maybe the awareness that something much worse could happen at any moment helped fortify her feelings.

  Or maybe it was just the fact that she wasn't dead yet.

  But now's not the time to think about such things.

  In front of her, the two men dropped their swords without being told twice.

  What could those blades do against the psychokinetic whip?

  Nothing.

  Zero.

  One thought, and Mark would've slammed them against a tree like rag dolls.

  Antea wiped her eyes with the back of her hand—quick, furtive—and breathed in again.

  She looked at Mark.

  Looked at the mercenaries.

  Looked at the woman tied against the tree, still silent, still there.

  "Ante... uh, Anton," Mark said.

  Antea shot him a look.

  A look that could've shattered glass.

  "Free the woman," he added, nodding toward the tree.

  "No! Stop!"

  The man with the sword—the one still standing—raised a hand, pale as a fresh corpse.

  Mark turned toward him.

  "Why?"

  But Antea hadn't stopped.

  She'd already taken two steps toward the tree, toward the bound woman, toward something she could finally do instead of standing there like dead weight.

  The ground under her feet was soft, sticky—mud and clotted blood pulling at her soles with every step.

  "Wait," Mark said, louder.

  "I'm not under your fucking command, asshole," she shot back without turning.

  But she stopped.

  Because the man with the sword looked genuinely worried.

  Not a generic "oh no, you're making a mistake."

  A sincere "fuck, you're about to get yourselves killed."

  His breath was short, broken—real fear, not an act.

  Whether he was worried for himself or because the woman was a real danger, she couldn't tell.

  But it would've been enough to listen to his version first, then remove the woman's gag and compare them, only to still know nothing.

  How can you make a judgment when you don't know how much distance there is between your worldview and theirs?

  It seemed impossible to make a sensible decision.

  The man said something—long, frantic, full of sharp syllables.

  Mark answered.

  The man shot back, louder.

  Antea watched their mouths move and understood jack shit.

  She bit her lip.

  Tasted iron—she'd bitten too hard.

  Glossolalia on glossolalia.

  She hated not understanding anything.

  Hated having to rely on Mark's account—who wasn't an idiot, sure, but not exactly a role model when it came to attention span either.

  Fuck.

  What stress.

  Her chest tightened.

  Short breath, sweaty palms, that feeling of being caged while others talk over your head and decide your life without even asking permission.

  Her thoughts tangled with the noises the actors exchanged in this kind of art installation meant to represent a Chicago slaughterhouse before 1905.

  Overlapping voices.

  Crooked words.

  Frantic gestures.

  A fly perched on one of the dead cubs buzzed lazily, fat, obscene.

  Antea stared at it.

  And thought: At least she doesn't have to understand shit.

  And there she was, in the middle, trying to figure out who was lying, who was telling the truth, and whether there was still a difference between the two in this shitty world.

  The guy turned and, as fast as possible for someone as banged up as he was, limped toward a spot in the clearing where something dark and shapeless lay.

  A backpack.

  Not the kind with nylon straps and zippered pockets—something older, rougher. Thick leather, hand-stitched, worn but sturdy leather straps, dull metal buckles that looked hammered out. No bright colors, no logos, no kid bullshit. Just function, wear, survival.

  He hauled it up with a grunt and came back toward Mark, rummaging inside as he walked.

  Antea stiffened.

  The guy was approaching, hand in the bag, and for a second—just a second—she thought: weapon.

  But then she saw what he pulled out.

  Food.

  Strips of dried meat, dark and leathery, wrapped in a dirty cloth.

  A few pieces of dried fruit—figs, maybe, or something similar—wrinkled but still edible.

  A hunk of bread hard as a brick.

  The mercenary held it all out to Mark without a word.

  Mark took the food, nodded—a sharp gesture, almost military—and turned to Antea.

  He held out a strip of meat and a piece of fruit.

  Antea looked at the food.

  Then looked at him.

  "Can we trust this?"

  "I don't know," Mark answered. Already chewing. "But we gotta eat or we pass out."

  He was talking with his mouth full.

  Bits of meat between his teeth.

  "And I don't think they're carrying around poisoned food."

  Antea stared at him.

  He disgusted her.

  Really disgusted her.

  Chewing and talking at the same time—that thing they made you stop doing as a kid at the table—and there he was, casual, like it was nothing.

  "What if they did?" she asked.

  Mark swallowed loudly.

  "We have to risk it. You prefer trying random stuff in the woods?"

  "Maybe. I don't trust those guys."

  But her stomach was growling.

  And after she said it, she took the food and ate it.

  The meat was salty, tough, tasted like smoke and something that maybe had been spiced months ago.

  But it was food.

  She swallowed.

  "The woman?"

  "We're not freeing her."

  "Why? We haven't even heard her side of it."

  "Not that I blindly trust these strangers, but if they're right it'd be too risky to free her mouth."

  "Why?"

  "Because they say she's an enchantress."

  Pause.

  "What the fuck is..."

  Antea stopped.

  "Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather pretend to trust you."

  "Thanks. Really nice to hear."

  Sarcastic.

  One of the men approached.

  Antea felt chills—cold, immediate—and moved closer to Mark.

  The man went straight to the bound woman, lifted her without much care, and slung her over his shoulders like a sack of flour.

  The woman shot a look—loaded with resentment, pure rage—at Mark and Antea.

  Antea returned the look with something compassionate.

  Mark looked at her with a bit of indifference.

  Like they'd convinced him a little.

  Or at least that's how it seemed to Antea.

  Then she noticed something.

  The man who earlier seemed on the verge of kicking the bucket had gotten to his feet and was limping noticeably toward his companion.

  "He recovered fast. Where'd he find all that strength so suddenly?"

  "The fuck do I know. They probably got something like Balzar beans."

  "Yeah, you're right. Whatever."

  "Let's go."

  Antea looked at him.

  "Where? You don't want to follow them?"

  "They know the way to the city."

  "Then why didn't they avoid this family of bear-things?"

  "Maybe it wasn't there before."

  "So they don't know a safe route, and I don't think they can give us much help if those things attack us again. Especially since you took their swords."

  "Come on, you can't do this for everything. Let's just go. What's it change?"

  The men were moving slowly but getting farther away.

  Antea decided to move.

  "There's no trusting them, you can bet on it. I'm only coming so I can tell you 'I told you so.'"

  "I'm only following them so I can get a second meal, actually."