No sound followed, only his breath and the aching echo of his heartbeat.

  He remained prostrate. Neither praying nor mourning. Just… listening to the silence, and the guilt that it stirred.

  Why didn’t I stop it? Why didn’t I see it? Surely, I-

  But he knew those thoughts all too well. Old wraiths, sharpened to hurt. He let them bounce off him, as he did the arrows which struck his armor on the way to the city walls.

  When he lifted his head, the room had changed again. Or perhaps, revealed itself fully now.

  The far wall was no longer solid. It shimmered and shifted, as if smoke was pretending to be stone. Looking more a veil to walk through, than a door to open.

  He noticed something else had changed, his mind.

  It was free from that cloudiness that had infected it since entering the realm, whispering those sweet temptations to reach out to that detestable door.

  Alric didn’t know if it left on its own, or if his defiance had broken him free from its talons. What he did know, was that his mind was now his own, having shut down the mind hex completely.

  So, with a clear mind, and a clearer goal, he stood up from the ground where he knelt, shaking the dust off his cape, attentive to not let any speck dare to fall over the child’s body.

  With a steady gait and sure steps, he started to walk towards the smoke.

  No sweetness. No intoxicating liberation either. Only the will to return, steady and unbroken.

  The room had nothing to give or show. It stood still—immobile. The gray pall breathed again and again as it had been doing until now, and the shape of the room didn’t change. Just muffled steps, and a retreating man.

  At the threshold, Alric turned.

  The sword lay beside him, sheathed, silent, as if guarding him against unseen evils.

  Alric raised his right hand to his chest and held it there in salute. A father’s last goodbye. A soldier’s farewell.

  Then, he turned to the veil of smoke behind him, and stepped over the border.

  As the world dissolved behind him, he heard it.

  A boyish laugh, full of joy and mirth.

  It reminded him of warm courtyards and small wooden swords.

  To days filled with glee, where conquering was but a play, and they, mere actors in it.

  And before long,

  He smiled.

  A breath. A blink.

  The smile still lingered.

  Then, reality pulsed into being, like a heart remembering how to beat again.

  The world of timeless grey and eerie distortions peeled back layer by layer, revealing hues now alien to Alric’s eyes, after what felt like hours beneath that curtain of colourlessness.

  Shafts of light slithered through the chamber’s broken windows, banishing the dying veil like old kings reclaiming their long-lost throne.

  Alric stood still.

  The world changed before him, reshaping itself to the pattern of natural order.

  This quiet metamorphosis lasted less than an instant, but his mind lingered in it.

  A canvas repainted by magisterial hands. A masterwork of restored purpose.

  His senses drank in the blackness of shadows, the weight of stone, the singed scent of wood, the cool gleam of glass. All of it returned in quick succession, as if too much of it would break the mind.

  Anchored by order, and steadied by reason, he felt: he was back.

  He found himself stading before the rebel leader, half-dead, head lolled to the side, slumped like a discarded puppet.

  Had he moved on his own? Or had the spell ported him here? He didn’t know, nor did he care. He had other things to confirm first.

  “Commander?”

  A voice sounded behind him, laced with uncertainty.

  He turned.

  His retinue still locked in formation—breaths steady, eyes sharp, weapons drawn.

  Instead of offering an explanation, he scanned his unit.

  No fear. No alarm. No shifting stances.

  They hadn’t budged at all, since he got sequestered to that metaphysical madhouse. Whatever happened to him hadn’t cost more than a few seconds in the real world.

  Furthermore, considering the lack of panic or bewilderment after his return, his body must’ve remained here and moved on its own towards the rebel leader, guided by his instinct, or something else entirely.

  He clicked his tongue, and muttered softly, so nobody could hear.

  “Great, a new kind of haunting hex.”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Then, louder, to address his men.

  “Everything in order here?”

  Visibly confused and slightly apprehensive, the soldier who had spoken stepped forward and answered.

  “Yes, Lord Commander, but why do you ask? Did something happen to you, sir?”

  “Yes, I was hexed.” Alric said evenly.

  The moment those words left his mouth, it was as though a siege engine had torn through their eardrums, leaving cracks of anxiety and ringing ears in its wake.

  Faces wrought by the shadow of fear, held firm by duty and discipline. They advanced in formation, stopping just short of the collapsed circle of ash.

  A stormguard near the front of the formation stepped forward cautiously.

  “Lord Commander, can we assist you in any way?”

  Alric allowed himself a slight, half-amused chuckle.

  “Fetch me a saw blade. Throw it to me from outside the circle, and have the field medicaes ready. I want him stabilized for transport. I’ll bring him to them myself traversing the hexed space.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  The stormguard unholstered the implement from his belt and tossed it toward Alric, who caught it mid-flight.

  Opening and locking it into place, Alric got to work, starting to saw the hostage free of his leather bindings.

  In the meantime, he could hear shuffling feet repositioning.

  His subordinates began preparing for medical aid, opening bags, laying out instruments of healing, and quiet orders being given from man to man.

  As he neared finishing to free the man from his chair, Alric noticed the space beyond the circle had been cleared of everyone, save the waiting medicae crouched beside their tools.

  The stone floor had turned into a field operating slab, cold and indifferent.

  Cradling the broken man in his arms, he moved cautiously, mindful not to aggravate the damage already done.

  Turning his back to the chair, he began his march through the space again, this time in reverse.

  While crossing the circle, he noticed the sigils at his feet. They were now marred by brokenness, uneven patches of black powder gathering sporadically, frayed at the edges, as if singed, and left to scatter into the air.

  Whatever force held them together, was dissipating into nothingness.

  Before the thought could settle, he stepped beyond its outer edge and gently laid the rebel leader down onto the stone floor and stepped back.

  The medicae swarmed him like wingless crows cawing with metal beaks.

  One knelt at the head, two flanking the torso and legs. Their hands moved with controlled urgency.

  “Airway, clear,” the head medica said while opening the rebel leader’s jaw, and inspecting his mouth with a cloth-clad finger.

  “Shallow breaths, no fluid in the lungs” said the second, ear pressed lightly to the man’s chest.

  “Pulse faint, but holding. Moving to the hands.”

  He reached for the ruined limb, and what greeted him was a graveyard of fingers.

  The few that remained were stripped of nails, some blackened over with old clots, others still slick with a film of blood and pus.

  The stumps where digits had been torn or severed were worse.

  Raw meat rimmed in red swelling, skin stretched taut and scabbed over in places, edges darkening with squirming rot.

  The smell of it clung to their throats, a metal jaw to their sanity.

  “Necrosis starting. We can’t cauterize, too invasive. Might lose him to shock.”

  “Cleanse, pressure, and wrap.” He added, not waiting for answers.

  He soaked a piece of linen fabric in cooled, boiled wine from a bronze flask.

  The bandage darkened immediately, blooming with diluted filth and decay.

  As he bandaged the stumps, the rebel’s body convulsed slightly, nerves still listening through it all.

  Next came the eyes.

  The head medica leaned in, inspecting the mutilated lids with narrowed focus.

  The wire, a thin black-bloodied worm nesting in them, a crude suture of malice threading the openings, like a butcher threading meat.

  “No swelling, eyes might still be intact.” He muttered.

  Not looking up, he said.

  “We don’t touch it. We flush it and keep it clean.”

  One of the adjacent medicae handed him a vial of herbal water, antiseptic made of bitterroot and smoked oak bark, pungent and sharp.

  With the gentleness of a a sweet caress, he dabbed at the crusted wounds, clearing away what corruption he could without touching the wire.

  The rebel didn’t stir.

  As the worst had been handled, the medicae moved to apply poultices, disinfect, wash, bind and bandage the man.

  Alric, standing to the side, let them do their work while silently watching.

  He was observing, but not truly paying attention.

  His mind still fastened on the predicament he found himself in just minutes prior. His eyes locked onto the stone pavement marked by the blasphemous sigil.

  What kind of hex was that?

  It couldn’t be a regular haunting hex, they don’t function like that… at least, not usually.

  They trap the mind but freeze you in place.

  Yet this one, it moved me forward, like a soulless puppet, mimicking my pace, direction, and mannerisms.

  It could’ve been the use of selective displacement, where my body was guided to the rebel leader, while the real me was trapped inside that disfunctional realm.

  And that longing… wasn’t something normally present in haunting hexes.

  It imitated my will and desires, using my regrets as feeding grounds for insanity, amplifying them all many times over, almost deceiving me completely, making me think it my own will was at play.

  A hybrid between haunting and luring hexes maybe? But the latter ones are seldom this overt in their power.

  Generally speaking, they need time to grow into something powerful enough to influence the target.

  This felt seductive and intimate, but much too plain to view.

  This goes completely against their very nature; they have to remain invisible to be successful.

  So, it’s either some new form of hexcraft, or some strange new school of combined dark arts.

  Both cases are dangerous for me. And potentially the Empire. Who knows if there are lingering effects. I need to get myself checked when I return.

  An audible sigh of relief pulled Alric out of his reverie, anchoring him to the world of flesh and war.

  “So?” Alric asked flatly

  The medica kneeling at the rebel’s head turned towards him, pale-faced, but resolute.

  “He’s barely hanging on,” he said. “Should be able to avoid death. For now, at least.”

  “Good enough for me.” Alric’s gaze swept the room. Raising his hand, he pointed at two stormguards near him.

  “You, and you, take two spears and bind cloth around the shafts. Make it hold.”

  The soldiers moved without hesitation, grasping their weapons in hand and pulling fabric from broken curtains and spoiled tablecloth strewn across the room, crafting a makeshift stretcher with efficient, silent hands.

  Alric turned again to the head medica, voice flat, but firm.

  “He goes in the middle of the formation. Two of you will carry him, while the remaining one stays at his side.”

  “Yes, sir!” the reply came in unison.

  He gave a last long look at the human-reduced-plaything of a man and for second, felt a pang of pity.

  Then, wordlessly, he turned toward the entrance.

  Raising his fist, he said “We move out. Same formation. Medicae and prisoner at the centre. I take point.”

  With trained discipline, the men assembled in pairs around the medicae, as a cloak of flesh and steel.

  Unsheathed short swords and raised shields marked the linear phalanx. Alric gave the signal, and with swift bootfalls, they began their march back to camp.