The trees had long since died.
Only brittle husks remained skeletal branches clawing at a colorless sky, their silhouettes etched in stillness like the bones of giants long forgotten. The wind didn't whistle anymore; it scraped. It dragged itself across the frostbitten earth like something wounded but unrelenting.
And the silence…
It was no longer peaceful.
It was the kind that sat heavy on the chest the silence before something broke. Before something bled.
Elias stood just beyond the firelight, a figure motionless beneath a sky that never quite brightened. He hadn't tried to sleep in weeks. There was no point in pretending. Not anymore.
At night, while the others snored and shifted in their sleep wrapped in worn cloaks and dreamless fatigue he sat at the edge of the fire, his eyes open, his breathing shallow and infrequent. He didn't blink unless he remembered to. He didn't breathe unless he forced himself to.
He had stopped trying to mimic the living.
For he himself no longer lived.
The cold no longer touched him. He layered himself in coats and wool like the rest of them, but it was for show. For peace of mind. The cold passed through him now, more spirit than man. It flowed over his skin like wind over stone, and he barely felt it.
They still called him Shirah the mute. The name had begun as a joke. Something muttered behind his back in those early days. But now it came with a weight, a reverence. He was the one who didn't sleep, didn't eat, didn't bleed like the rest of them. The one who moved without sound. The one who always knew where danger lay.
A ghost with a sword.
And Elias? He didn't mind. The name fit. Maybe too well.
---
Some mornings, Mira would rise with curses frozen on her tongue, boots stiff and fingers blue with cold. Toma would groan and huff into his mittens, claiming his toes had gone numb. Even Halric, who rarely spoke, moved with the slow heaviness of a man braving his third northern winter.
Elias moved like smoke.
He glided through the camp without sound, his steps leaving faint impressions in the snow that vanished moments later. He lit fires before the others stirred, gathered wood without being asked, vanished into the trees and returned with food or nothing at all always silent, always watching.
He noticed things no one else did. The weight of fresh snow on a low branch. The faint warmth in a trail just gone cold. The quiet tremble of Mira's fingers before a fight not of fear, but focus.
They spoke to him more now. Not often, and never about anything deep. But they included him. Brief nods. Simple orders. Grunts of acknowledgment. It was enough.
When Elias replied, it was in clipped, precise words. Never more than necessary. But when he spoke, they listened.
---
Their next job came from a village built too close to the treeline. Houses with sagging roofs and walls sealed with pitch and prayer. Livestock had gone missing. Dogs, too. Blood on the snow. Something stalking them from the dark.
It didn't take long to find it.
A direwolf. Starved. Ragged. Its fur was patchy and grey, ribs showing through skin stretched too thin. Frost clung to its whiskers, and its eyes once proud and golden were dim with madness and hunger.
The thing was cornered at the edge of a frozen creek, teeth bared, saliva mixing with ice.
Toma drew his sword. Mira flanked right, daggers loose in her grip. Halric raised his crossbow without a word.
Elias stepped forward.
The creature growled a sound more pained than threatening. Then it lunged.
Snow exploded beneath them as they collided. Elias caught it mid-air, muscles coiling with unnatural precision. He turned with the beast's weight and drove it down into the snow. Its claws tore through his coat, slicing deep into his arm. Blood welled thick and dark, unnaturally slow.
He didn't flinch.
"Kill it!" Mira shouted. "Do it, Shirah!"
He didn't.
Their eyes met beast and something far removed from man.
The wolf's heartbeat thundered in Elias' ears. Wild. Chaotic. But not evil. Just starving. Just trying to live.
Elias released his grip.
The direwolf stumbled back, confused. Then it turned and limped into the trees, swallowed by shadow.
Mira cursed. "Soft."
Halric stared after it for a long time, then said only one word. " merciful ".
---
That night, Elias sat farther from the fire than usual. The others muttered and laughed, passing a bottle between themselves, the warmth of drink chasing away the day's cold.
He said nothing.
The wound on his arm was nearly gone. The skin beneath his coat was already knitting itself back together, clean and pale. He pulled off his glove and stared at his hand.
There was power in what he was now. Power that made him faster, stronger, harder to kill. There was clarity, too. An awareness. Every sound in the forest had weight. Every heartbeat, a rhythm.
But that same power scared him more than any beast he'd faced.
It wasn't just the hunger. It was the stillness. The ease of it all. How easy it is for him to accept what he is becoming that voice in the back of his head that whispered: Let go. Give in. You are no longer one of them.
---
Days passed. As the snow deepened. The winds grew crueler.
One evening, while picking through a collapsed rest stop along the old trade road, Toma let out a triumphant yell. He stumbled from the ruins, waving a scrap of parchment like a prize.
"Big job," he grinned, eyes alight. "North needs steel. Good pay. Better beds."
Halric took the paper and examined the seal. Mira leaned over his shoulder, frowning at the brittle ink and faded lettering.
They argued about distance. Supplies. How much gold was really being offered.
Elias said nothing.
He stood off to the side, still as stone, eyes locked on the parchment. On the sigil burned into its corner.
A silver tree.
A black mountain behind it.
Something inside him shifted.
Not a thought. Not a memory. Just… a silent call
Like a door creaking open in a room he hadn't known existed. A pull not sharp, but persistent. Like gravity in reverse.
That night, as the others prepared for the journey, laughing and bickering about routes and rations, Elias stood farther from the fire than he ever had.
Snowflakes drifted lazily around him, catching in his hair and cloak. The wind rolled in from the north not sharp, not cruel. Just cold. But also familiar.
He closed his eyes and let it wash over him.
There was something waiting out there.
Not a threat.
Not an answer.
A calling.
---
He didn't hear his name aloud.
No voice. No sound.
But still… he heard it.
From deep within the earth.
From the cold.
From the blood in his veins.
Elias turned his head, the firelight flickering at the edge of his vision. The others were still talking. Still warm. Still alive.