Reincarnated as an Elf Prince-Chapter 117: Travel (3)
The man shifted his stance again. Blade reversed in a tight grip. Feet careful in the snow.
Lindarion's eyes narrowed. He watched the weight in the man's knees. The subtle pull in his shoulders.
No aura of magic building. No faint ripple of mana in the air.
Nothing but breath and muscle and the steadiness of an old blade.
'He's not a mage,' Lindarion thought.
'Just a fighter. A real one.'
The realization settled cold and heavy in his chest. He had prepared for something else. A spell flung from the dark, a poisoned dart hidden behind words.
Instead, it was steel. Flesh. Breath.
That made it simpler.
He shifted his own balance. Let a slight sag pull into his shoulders. A feint. Weakness, if the man was desperate enough to believe it.
The bait worked.
The man lunged, low and fast, blade darting for the ribs already torn. Smart. Efficient.
But not smart enough.
Lindarion twisted into the strike. Let the coat catch the blade's edge. Felt the sharp tug of tearing fabric. The sting of skin splitting open again.
He didn't falter.
Instead, he stepped inside the man's reach. Quick. Sharp.
The world shrank to the width of a breath.
Lindarion drove the pommel of his blade up under the man's jaw.
He felt the jolt travel up his own arm, the brief resistance of bone, the crack of teeth slamming shut.
The man stumbled, half dazed.
Lindarion did not hesitate.
He reversed his grip and plunged the blade up into the soft space under the man's ribs.
There was a moment of ugly resistance. The push through worn cloth. Then the yielding give of flesh.
The man gasped. A short, sharp sound punched from his lungs.
'You're dead already,' Lindarion thought, feeling the tremor pass through the man's body.
He twisted the blade once and yanked it free.
Blood spilled out in a thick, slow rush, dark against the snow.
The man staggered backward. Knees buckled. One hand pressed against the open wound as if that would hold his life in.
He fell forward, hands hitting the snow with a dull thud. Stayed there.
Lindarion watched.
No rush. No final attack. No tricks.
The man's chest rose once, then stopped.
'He's dead now.'
The cold seemed to deepen around him. The only sound was his own breathing.
He crouched slowly. Wiped the blood off his blade against the man's sleeve.
Checked the body, methodical.
No crest. No mage tools. No signal rings. Just a plain hunting knife, a worn coat, a few crumpled coins.
Not a conjurer. Not a scholar. Not even a court assassin.
'He was just a soldier.'
A skilled one. But still, only mortal.
He straightened slowly, feeling the ache rise up from his torn side. A wetness spreading under the coat. The wound needed binding, but it could wait a little longer.
He stared down at the body one last time.
No anger. No sadness. No pride.
'He followed me all this way just to bleed out here in the snow.'
The thought wasn't cruel. Just a fact. Heavy and final.
The snow beneath the corpse was already turning to a dark slush, the blood melting through the top layer.
Lindarion turned away. Adjusted the scarf around his throat, tugged the strap of the pack tighter across his shoulder.
The forest ahead loomed darker than before. Every shape heavier. Every shadow colder.
He looked once more over his shoulder.
The man lay still.
'There will be more,' he thought.
'There's always more.'
He stepped back into the trees, every footfall muffled by the deepening snow.
No prayers.
No promises.
Just the cold and the road still unwinding before him.
—
The snow swallowed the sound of his steps almost completely.
Lindarion kept his head low, the scarf drawn up high across his face. The cold dug in deeper now, knifing through the seams of his coat, settling in the cracks of old wounds. His side ached with every step. The blood had slowed but not stopped.
The weight of it dragged at him. Small pulls. Small weaknesses. The kind that didn't scream but would kill if you let them.
He did not look back again.
'Dead is dead,' he thought. 'Standing over it does nothing.'
The trees thickened ahead, bare arms clawing at a pale sky. The horizon pressed down, heavy and wide. No sun. No moon yet.
Just the endless blue-grey stretch of cold light that belonged to places men forgot.
He followed no trail now. No path. Just a sense of direction in his bones. South and east. Away from the village. Away from what he had already lost.
He adjusted the strap of his pack once. It bit into his shoulder. The bedroll was soaked through from where he had dropped it earlier, the dampness seeping out cold against his back.
'Need to find cover by nightfall,' he thought. 'No fire this time either.'
The fight had stolen too much time. He could feel it ticking under his ribs. The forest stretched wide ahead, featureless and white, and he had no landmarks left to cling to.
Each step packed snow underfoot.
Each breath burned against the inside of his throat.
He passed an old tree split by lightning long ago, the trunk hollowed black and rotted through the center. A bad place to shelter. Too open. Too obvious.
He didn't stop.
Didn't pause to rest.
The cold would get in the moment he sat down. It would sink into his spine. Make the decision for him. Make him still.
He wasn't ready to die in a hole like that.
The blade at his side tapped lightly against his hip with each step. Dull edge. Dirty hilt. Blood already drying into the cracks of the worn grip.
It was a poor weapon.
It was all he had.
'Better poor than nothing.'
The charm Rhea had given him bumped against his sternum again.
He could feel it even through the layers of cloth. A small, stubborn weight.
He hadn't thrown it away.
Hadn't really considered it either.
'Maybe I'm stupider than I thought,' he muttered inside his own skull.
'Carrying luck I don't believe in.'
He tugged the scarf higher as the wind shifted. Thin and sharp now. The kind that scraped at the eyes, the kind that made noise where none should be.
Somewhere to the far west, a crow called once, thin and high.
Not close enough to mean anything.
Still, he didn't like it.
The land started to tilt downward again, a soft slope he could barely see but could feel in the stretch of his calves. He let it guide him. Let gravity do the work his muscles could no longer handle.
The sky above was darkening. Not sudden. Just a slow dimming, the edges of the world folding in piece by piece.
He would need shelter soon.
Another hollow. A fallen tree. Anything that would keep the wind from cutting straight through him when night fell.
And night was falling fast.
He clenched his hands into fists inside his gloves. Stiff. Half-frozen.
'Just a little longer,' he thought. 'Keep moving. No matter how slow.'
The thought had no triumph in it. No hope.
Just a quiet, stubborn shape he set his teeth into.
One foot dragged slightly now. His ribs hurt when he pulled in air too fast.
He tucked the pain away into the place all the other pain went. Folded small and neat, pressed under the weight of necessity.
The land flattened again after a few more minutes.
He pushed forward, head down, breathing ragged and shallow.
Nothing around him moved.
Nothing spoke.
The world was a white desert, empty and waiting.
And he kept walking into it.
—
The cold deepened in slow, steady layers.
Lindarion could feel it bleeding through the soles of his boots now, each step slower, heavier. His side throbbed in time with his pulse. The wet patch under his coat was spreading again. He didn't need to look to know it was blood.
The air shifted.
The smell changed.
The wind picked up without warning, cutting low and fast across the slope, dragging the scent of frost and old earth and something sharper. Ice.
He stopped at the edge of a shallow drop, squinting into the distance.
The horizon was gone.
Just a blur of white and grey, rolling in slow but certain.
A storm.
'Of course,' he thought, tightening the scarf higher across his mouth. 'Because it wasn't hard enough already.'
He looked for shelter.
Eyes scanning quickly, methodically. No panic. Just fact.
Dead trees. Open snowfields. Rocks crusted with old frost.
Nothing wide enough. Nothing deep enough.
The first gust hit him hard enough to stagger.
He caught himself with a hand against a tree trunk, fingers scraping bark through thin gloves.
Snow whipped sideways now, small grains first, then heavier, thick clumps crashing against his coat, sticking to the rough weave.
Visibility dropped fast.
A few yards. Maybe less.
He forced himself forward.
One step.
Another.
The storm wasn't howling yet, but it would. He had seen storms like this before from the Academy windows, curled safe behind glass and stone walls.
Out here, there was no wall coming.
No safe distance between him and the sky.
He bent lower against the rising wind. Kept his body narrow, small.
The snow built against his boots, dragging, slowing him.
Every step took more from him now. Not just strength. Heat.
Tiny pieces, pulled away with every breath he exhaled into the cold.
'Need cover,' he thought grimly. 'Anything. A ditch. A hole. A crack in the ground.'
Something in the woods to his left caught his eye.
A shadow. No, a hollow. A low shelf of stone half-buried against a rise.
Not perfect.
Maybe not even good.
But it was something.
He turned, dragging himself across the slope at a slight angle.
The snow battered at his side, filled his footprints before he finished lifting each boot.
He made it to the shelf after what felt like an hour but was probably only a minute.
The stone jutted out at a slant, creating a shallow wedge of space underneath. Tight. Cramped. Just deep enough to curl up against the worst of the wind.
He dropped to his knees under the ledge, breath tearing out of him.
Cold stone scraped the back of his gloves as he pushed deeper inside.
Not much room. Barely enough to lie curled on one side. Snow had drifted in already. It packed against his legs as he squeezed himself in.
Better than nothing.
'At least it's not open sky.'
The storm hit full a few seconds later.
He could hear it even through the stone. The way the world turned violent in an instant. Roaring wind. Sheets of snow driving sideways.
A force too big to see. Too big to fight.
He pressed his back tighter against the stone. Pulled his knees up to his chest.
The blanket was still in the pack, damp but usable.
He unrolled it with numb fingers. Wrapped it around himself clumsily. Sealed as much as he could inside coat and scarf and rough cloth.
It wasn't warmth.
It was just slightly less death.
The storm pounded against the stone above him. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
Snow curled inside the wedge of shelter. Caught in his hair, his lashes. Melted against the heat still bleeding off his skin.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
Not sleep.
Not surrender.
Just closing against the blinding swirl of white.
The cold clawed at him.
The wetness on his side gnawed deeper.
It would freeze if he sat too long.
Maybe it already was.
He peeled the scarf down for a second. Pressed two fingers against the torn side of his coat. Felt the slick chill of blood against cracked leather.
'No binding tonight,' he thought. 'No fire. No light.'
Just darkness.
Just cold.
Just survival.
The world outside the stone had turned into noise and emptiness.
No shapes left.
No paths.
If someone had been hunting him now, they would have found nothing but wind and white.
'Maybe that's the mercy of it,' he thought. 'Even monsters freeze.'
He shifted once, slow, trying to keep the blood moving in his arms, his legs.
Trying to keep from becoming another lost thing buried by the storm.
Another minute passed.
Another hour.
Time blurred under the crush of cold and exhaustion.
He didn't dream.
He didn't even think clearly anymore.
Just breathing.
Just existing.
One heartbeat at a time.
