"Fuck you," the man spat, but there was fear in his eyes now.
Isgram sighed, then turned his gaze to the second archer, still barely conscious.
Fang, still crouched, gave a small nod. "Don't test him. You're lucky we aren't in a worse mood."
That did it.
The archer winced under Isgram's boot, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"You're going to talk," Isgram repeated, but this time his tone was colder. "Who sent you?
The man coughed once and then muttered, "It's not a personal job… it's royal."
Isgram narrowed his eyes. "Royal?"
The archer nodded weakly. "There's a bounty… issued by the court of Eldranor. Anyone bringing in the Magistos, dead or alive, gets gold and land. It's official. Your description as a dwarf is posted there as well."
Fang let out a slow breath. "That explains a lot."
'You're just a man chasing coin and titles," he said quietly, almost sympathetically.
The archer didn't answer.
Isgram nodded slowly. "Good. That means we don't need to kill you."
The man's eyes flicked between Fang and Isgram, confused.
"But here's the problem," Isgram continued. "If you go back and say you saw us, that we're alive, that we're here—then others will come. Smarter ones. Stronger ones. Maybe even official ones."
He leaned closer, voice low and steady. "So, you're going to say you found nothing. Dead forest. No trace. Nothing to report."
"You go back and report you found us, even hint that we're here… and I'll make sure your name is remembered."
The archer frowned. "What—"
Fang stepped in. "He means we won't kill you. We'll make you watch."
Isgram's voice dropped to a whisper. "I will find your guild. I will find every contract you've signed, every tavern you drank in, every girl you've kissed, and every poor bastard who ever shook your hand. I'll burn their homes, their shops, their animals—and then I'll leave them alive to wonder why. Why their children scream in the night. Why nothing ever grows again on their land."
The archer's face went pale.
Fang leaned close, speaking softly. "Do you know what I do? I make corpses walk. And I'll make sure one of them wears your face."
"That's not a threat," Isgram added, "that's a promise. You talk, and your name becomes a curse in every border town from here to the capital. A story mothers tell to frighten their sons."
The forest was silent.
The archer looked from one mage to the other. His voice trembled. "Alright… alright, godsdamn it. I didn't see you. The forest was dead. Nothing here. I'll tell them it was a cold trail."
"Swear it," Fang said, eyes like knives.
"I swear. On my guild."
Isgram let go of his shirt and turned his back to him. "Then crawl back to your broken friend. Get out of our forest. And don't stop moving."
The rustle of leaves marked the archer's retreat, half-dragging his broken companion through the underbrush. Neither Fang nor Isgram watched him go. They knew fear would do the work better than any blade.
Fang exhaled, finally letting the magic around him dissipate. The creeping tendrils of shadow curled back into the earth, as if Edenia itself were sighing in relief.
Isgram stretched, spine cracking. "He'll talk about ghosts in the forest for the rest of his life."
Fang cracked a small smile. "Good. Let him haunt the guild with it."
They turned back toward their camp, where a pile of potatoes and wild herbs waited near the ashes of the old fire deeper inside the cave. Fang picked it up and shook off some dirt.
"I'm cooking tonight," he said.
Isgram raised an eyebrow. "After all that drama?"
"You like your potatoes with ash, or not?"
"No ash. But don't skimp on the salt."
Fang shot him a look. "You want to cook? Cause I don't have salt here."
"Oh, come on."
"Shut up."
Back at the firepit, Fang knelt and got to work. He stacked branches above the ash, and Isgram was sparking a clean flame with a flick of mana.
He carved the new potatoes roughly, skins still on, and tossed them in with a handful of foraged herbs.
Isgram sat nearby, cleaning blood from the edge of his gauntlet. "You ever wonder if the others are eating like this?"
Fang stirred the pan. "The others?""The chosen ones. Whoever the gods dumped this on besides us."
Fang paused, watching steam rise from the sizzling potatoes. Then: "I hope not. I want them to eat better than this."
Isgram smirked. "Spoken like a good man."
The fire crackled between them. Fang tasted the edge of a potato, nodded, and set the pan between them.
"Dinner's ready," he muttered.
They ate in silence, the kind of silence that only comes after violence. And somewhere in the trees beyond, two broken bounty hunters limped east.
---------
Morning sneaked in slow. A pale light filtered into the cave, brushing against the stone walls and casting long shadows across the firepit, now cold. The scent of ash and cooked herbs still lingered, clinging to Fang's cloak as he stirred from sleep.
Isgram was already up, crouched at the cave entrance, chewing on something dry and bitter-looking.
"Something's off," he muttered without turning.
Fang sat up, rubbed the side of his neck, then looked to the side where Smoke usually rested.
But.
The space was empty.
He called out. "Smoke?"
Yet all that greeted him was silence followed by Isgram's yawn.
"Boy, what are you yelling for this early?" said Isgram, eyes still closed, tone somewhere between annoyed and half-asleep.
Fang ignored him. He was already on his feet, scanning the cave with sharp eyes.
"Smoke's gone," he said, quieter this time, but the edge in his voice was unmistakable.
That got Isgram's attention. He turned, brows furrowing. "You sure he didn't just wander off again?"
"No tracks." Fang knelt near the mouth of the cave. "And he doesn't just wander this far. Not without waking me. Not without a sound."
Isgram stood up fully now, chewing forgotten. "You think someone took him?"
Fang and Isgram strapped their gear and weapons, Fang held a new dagger he confiscated from one of the archers the day before.
They moved in silence, Fang tracking the faintest signs through brush and dew. Isgram followed, half-grumbling, half-alert, his axe slung loosely at his side.
It took an hour before they found it.
The smell came first—blood, thick and metallic, clinging to the morning air. Then the flies. Then the boar.
It lay slumped against a tree trunk, massive even in death. Its throat was ripped wide open, not slashed, but torn—raw force, not weaponry. The earth around it was churned with the marks of a struggle. Hoof prints. Scattered stones. But no human boot prints. No signs of magic.
"Shit," Isgram muttered. "That's a big one."
Fang crouched beside the carcass. "It didn't die easy."
"No arrow, no fire, no blade…" Isgram rubbed the back of his neck. "You think a bear got it?"
"Too clean. And no feeding." Fang narrowed his eyes. "It was killed. But not eaten."
Just then, a sound.
quiet, yet unmistakable came from the brush beyond the corpse.
Both turned, tense.
Then Smoke stepped out.
Fang froze. So did Isgram.
The rabbit—or what once was a rabbit—moved with a new weight, each step more deliberate than before. His body, once wispy and soft like curling smoke at dusk, had become denser, more defined. Shadows clung to him like a second skin, and the mist that constantly drifted off his form now left faint ripples in the air itself.
"Gods..." Isgram muttered, stepping back half a pace.
Smoke's ears twitched. His glowing eyes, once small flickers of emberlight, now flared like twin coals. He stood a full third taller than before, his outline sharper, the smoke that composed his limbs dark as void and edged with purple streaks of raw mana.
Fang knelt, eyes narrowing—not in fear, but awe. "Smoke… what did you do?" his voice laced with pride of a child.
The rabbit stared at him for a long moment, then padded forward, light as air. He stopped by the boar's corpse and sniffed the torn neck.
Isgram crouched beside them, wary but fascinated. "That's not the same creature you summoned."
Fang nodded slowly. "He didn't just feed. He… evolved. Did he absorb the boar's mana?"
Smoke looked up, eyes locking with Fang's, and for a split second, something intelligent flashed behind the ethereal glow. It wasn't just instinct. It was awareness.
"He didn't kill for hunger," Fang murmured. "He did it to grow."
"Is that even possible?" Isgram asked, voice low. "Familiars… they're tools. Weapons. Not… this.
Is this what death magic can make? This is not funny Fang, we don't know how big he can grow like that.
I can summon flame familiars but they can't use other sources of mana other than mine, let alone survive for so long"
Fang turned to Isgram, his smile widening. "I needed to feed him mana before. Every time. But now…" He nodded at the boar. "He can eat on his own. He's grown."
Isgram stared at the rabbit, then back at Fang. "You say that like it's a good thing."
"It is," Fang said.
"No," Isgram shook his head. "No, it's not. That thing didn't just grow. It learned. You saw his eyes."
Fang was silent.
"This isn't a trick or a mutation. You've made something new. Not a summon. Not a shadow pet. Something else." Isgram stood slowly. "You sure you're still in control of it?"
Fang looked at Smoke, who had now settled beside the dead boar. He wasn't eating. He wasn't moving. He was just… watching them.
"I don't think it's about control anymore," Fang said quietly.
Fang's voice was calm, steady, certain. "It's trust."
Isgram scoffed. "Gods help us if you're wrong."
Fang crouched again beside Smoke. The familiar didn't flinch, didn't react, just kept his gaze fixed on him.
"I don't think I am," Fang whispered. "Not with him."
Smoke blinked slowly, as if in agreement.
Then, with a flicker of shadow, the rabbit rose and turned away, padding softly into the trees. Fang stood, dusted his cloak, and followed.
Isgram groaned. "We're following the demon bunny now?"
Fang smirked. "We always were."
And they disappeared into the woods, two mages and a shadow that no longer needed them.
But still chose to stay.