Heir of the Fog

59 - A Monument of Loss


CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

A Monument of Loss

Camilla's boots crunched on the gravel as we wound through District 97's scarred streets, the air thick with dust and the faint smell of beast carcasses still littering the edges. Eyes followed us, sharp, quick glances from folks hauling debris or leaning against cracked walls. Some bowed low, heads dipping with a quiet reverence; others snapped salutes, crisp and formal, their hands trembling just a bit. I kept my pace steady, hands shoved in the pockets of the borrowed trousers, feeling the runes on my arms itch under the attention.

"You must be quite popular around here," I said, half-glancing at Camilla, keeping my tone flat.

She smirked, a flash of teeth against her olive skin, hazel eyes glinting with mischief. "Not quite, but you are. Omen, the apprentice Chainrunner who slew a giant serpent, summoned those towering ice walls. Ring any bells? My people are drowning in grief, sure, but they won't forget how you fought." Her voice lilted, teasing but sincere, like she was daring me to squirm.

Elina's voice echoed in my head: humility matters, but I couldn't dodge the warmth creeping up my chest. I had fought hard, claws and mana against beasts and the dead slipping through. A smile tugged at my lips before I could stop it, small but there, cracking my usual blank slate.

"There you go!" Camilla crowed, clapping her hands once, loud enough to startle a kid nearby. "Knew I could coax a smile out of you. Thought I'd have to hire a jester first."

I shrugged, the smile fading fast. "Guess it's not impossible," I muttered. Camilla's laugh rang out again, bright and easy, cutting through the heavy air. She was like that—sociable, quick with a quip, even with the pain she must've been carrying. Her father, her brother, eighty percent of her district, all gone. Yet here she was, chatting like it was just another day.

We paused a few times on the walk, her choice, not mine. I hung back, silent, watching her work the crowd. It hit me slowly, how forced it felt, the way her shoulders tensed just a fraction, the flicker in her eyes when no one was looking. She was good at hiding it, burying the hurt under that velvet voice, and I couldn't help but admire the steel it took.

The district shifted as we went, streets narrowing, the damage growing rawer. Craters pocked the ground, jagged edges stained with dried ichor. Dead beasts slumped in heaps, scales cracked, limbs twisted, some still bearing the corruption's mark: extra claws, split jaws, flesh warped beyond nature. The ward must have purged the corruption within these beasts by now.

At the center of the ruin stood Wulric, the Frost Titan, its icy bulk rising from the rubble like a monument. Claw marks raked its chest, spurs chipped from its fists, but it held firm, sockets dark now, spent from whatever fight it had endured.

"A beauty, isn't it?" Camilla said, tilting her head toward it, her coat swaying as she stopped.

"Can't argue with that," I replied, voice low, eyes tracing its form. Even drained, it loomed—mana pulsing faint in its veins, no core to drive it. Like Hazeveil, I thought, curiosity prickling.

"People are calling it all sorts of names," she said, stepping closer to the base, gravel crunching underfoot. "The marks it left—craters, beast corpses everywhere, some say it scared the rest off. My favorite's 'The Guardian.' Rolls off the tongue, don't you think?"

"The Guardian," I echoed, tasting it. Fitting, better than I'd expected. We closed the gap, the titan's shadow stretching over us, cold even without touching it. The area buzzed with District 98's Chainrunners, scattered around its base. Some sketched its form on rough paper, others prodded at claw gouges with tools, a few hauled beast parts into piles. I spotted familiar faces: Gorin, broad and gruff, barking at a kid with a cart; Dain, lean and tired, scribbling notes; and Lirien, my adoptive mother, standing apart, arms crossed.

They noticed us, or me, really, as we approached. Dain looked up first, his weathered face softening just a touch. "Glad to see you're well, Omen," he said, voice rough but warm, tucking his pencil behind his ear.

Lirien didn't blink, her expression carved stone. "Knew you'd recover in time," she said, flat and cold, like she'd calculated my odds and found them boring. No surprise, no relief—just fact.

"Glad you're all fine too," I said, keeping it simple, hands still in my pockets. "That was an intense fight."

"Damn right," Dain grunted, nodding. "Would've been our end without you and that magic of yours."

Lirien's gaze didn't waver, sharp as ever. "You did well, Omen," she said, clipped, then pointed at the titan looming behind her. "But I need a report, specifically about that."

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I shifted, caught off guard, fumbling for words. "What do you want to know?"

She stepped closer, her boots silent on the dirt, eyes boring into mine. "Many things. Start with this: Is it dangerous? Could it turn on us?"

Her question landed heavy, and I froze, startled by how fast she'd linked me to it. "Why do you think I've got answers for that?"

They all turned, Lirien, Dain, even Gorin pausing mid-shout, staring at me like I'd sprouted a second head. Dain broke the silence, scratching his jaw. "Well… you conjured those ice walls, then this ice titan shows up. Doesn't take a genius to connect the dots."

I opened my mouth, then shut it. Obvious, sure. Too obvious. Problem was, I didn't know. Wulric or whatever he'd become, stood there, silent, spent. Could it turn against us? That was a question I had no answer to.

"I don't really know," I said, the words slipping out plain and honest, my hands still buried in my pockets. The Frost Titan loomed behind them, its icy bulk casting a shadow that stretched across the cracked ground, silent but heavy with questions I couldn't answer.

Lirien's eyes narrowed, sharp as a blade. "That's problematic," she said, her voice low and clipped, each syllable a judgment. She crossed her arms tighter, the leather of her coat creaking faintly, her stance unyielding.

I shifted, gravel crunching under my boots, and glanced between them. "What are you all planning to do with it?" Concern edged my tone.

Dain snorted, rubbing a hand across his stubbled jaw, his pencil still tucked behind his ear. "Not much we can do," he said, blunt as ever. "Too damn massive to haul anywhere. And no one's itching to poke it awake, Chainrunners included. We were kinda hoping you'd figure it out, Omen."

"Me?" I blinked, caught off guard, my voice rising just a notch. "Why me?"

He tilted his head, one eyebrow arching like I'd asked something obvious. "Well, first off, you haven't exactly denied having a hand in this… Guardian business. Second, it's either you sort it, or we leave it standing there, praying it doesn't blink. Besides." He paused, nodding toward the ward's faint shimmer in the distance. "District 97's range will be reduced in a few days. This spot'll be fog territory soon enough."

"Reduced?" I frowned, turning to him, then Lirien. "Why?"

Lirien stepped forward, her boots scuffing the dirt, her gaze locking on mine with that cold, unflinching clarity. "Because it's overdue," she said, each word deliberate, like she was explaining something I should've already known. "Their ward can't hold this much ground anymore, not with the power it's got left. That breach? Wasn't just beasts. The ward flickered, weakened from stretching too thin. If they don't shrink it, another collapse is coming."

The weight of that hit me square. My breath caught, a quiet jolt running through me. So that's why it had failed. A ward too frail to hold. I glanced at Camilla, her hazel eyes meeting mine, steady and somber. She gave a small nod, confirming it, her lips pressing into a thin line, no quips this time.

Gustav's voice cut through then, gruff and loud, as he hefted a beast carcass onto a cart nearby. "Not like they'll miss the space," he said, wiping sweat from his brow with a sleeve, his broad frame hunched from the load. "So few of 'em left, they could fit in a closet now."

No one answered. The air thickened, his words hanging there, crude but true. Eighty percent gone, Camilla had said. The district could shrink, and it wouldn't matter much to them now. I looked back at the titan, its claw-scarred chest glinting faintly in the ward's dim light, and felt the thread tying us. The real question gnawed at me: What now? Leave it to the fog? Hope it stayed dormant? I didn't have answers, and their stares told me they knew it.

Camilla shifted beside me, her coat brushing my arm, breaking the silence with a quiet hum. "Well," she said, softer now, "at least it's not moving. That's something." Her tone was diplomatic, smoothing the edge, but her eyes stayed on the titan, thoughtful, like she was weighing it too.

Lirien didn't budge, her voice cutting back in. "Something's not enough. We need certainty, Omen. Figure it out—fast."

Lirien's words echoed in my head: figure it out, fast, like a weight I couldn't shrug off. I'd been naive, maybe, picturing her greeting me with a rare smile, a pat on the back for pulling through. Gratitude wasn't her way, though. She didn't deal in kind words or affection; they were distractions, soft edges she'd long filed off. To her, every solved problem just revealed the next—relentless, cold, always forward. Now her eyes were fixed on the Frost Titan, that mountain of ice looming over us. One wrong move, and it could crush what was left of District 97, her Chainrunners, everything. Seeing it through her lens, I got it. The stakes were brutal.

But understanding didn't lighten the load. Too much had hit me too fast—the breach, the dead, Wulric's rebirth, the ward's frailty. It piled up, pressing on my chest, my thoughts a tangle I couldn't unravel. Lirien wanted answers I didn't have, and the pressure burned. I needed space, time to think, or better yet, time to not think at all. Standing there, staring at the titan's chipped spurs, wouldn't fix it.

So I turned away, boots scuffing the dirt, and joined the cleanup crews instead. The district sprawled around me, craters, rubble, beast husks festering in the light. I grabbed a slab of broken stone, hefting it to a cart, the rough edges biting my palms. No mana, no risk—just muscle and sweat. My storage ring hummed as I shoved a cracked beam inside, then a beast's severed claw, its scales slick with dried ichor. Each load I hauled dulled the noise in my head, the ache in my arms drowning out Lirien's voice.

All the while, I could feel the eyes of Lirien and the others upon me. They wanted me to figure out what to do with The Guardian and, more importantly, to know if it could be used as a weapon.

People nodded as I worked, Chainrunners, locals, their faces smudged with grime. Simple labor, no questions about titans or danger—just debris to clear, streets to mend. District 97 needed it, and I needed the quiet. For now, that was enough.

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