Winter’s Rebirth: B1 - 5. Blood and Stone

Winter’s Rebirth Index

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The butchering was methodical work, relaxing even, like how he’d use logistics after a war push to unwind. He put half the hunters on lookout duty; the wolf and elf retreat would scatter any nearby threats, yet it would also attract aviary scavengers.

Victor knelt beside the alpha wolf’s corpse, knife working carefully around the ribs as his father had taught him. He exposed the chest cavity where organs still steamed in the cold, blood piping hot yet not molten magma, like the sunfire eagle.

Pausing once the meat was folded back, he stared at the heart, larger than both his fists together, dense muscle that had powered a creature built for killing.

He smiled, running his bare hands over the organ. Embedded in that muscle, nestled where ventricles met, a shard of amber gleamed.

Soon, we’ll get enough to arm and train the whole expedition… This is the only way we survive this hellscape.

He glanced up, spotting Mara instructing Kaia, demonstrating how to carve the meat on one of the elk. There was a hunter on each of the four other kills. Some quakes ran down a few frames from time to time—the cursed cold of the north was tempered but not gone.

Victor returned to his task, carving the jewel free. It was pebble-sized, warm to the touch, glowing faint gold in the noon sun. Pure. No fractures, no cloudiness threading through its heart.

If all stones are this pure, we won’t have a problem with them shattering after only a few uses. Perfect for training.

He did the same to the ruby beside it, wrapping the pair in an oiled cloth before tucking it into his belt pouch—two stones from the alpha.

Around him, the hunters worked.

Durren and one of the brothers quartered an elk, separating hindquarters from spine with practiced efficiency. Mara was in the process of instructing on skinning techniques, specifically how to work the knife just under the hide to preserve the pelt whole. Kaia watched, learning and occasionally helping when told.

The intensity on the sixteen-year-old’s face was reassuring. I was a little worried about the imperial officers selecting my party from our lands, but they appear to have done a decent job… Still, to send me off with children as young as six makes me wonder what method they used. I suppose none of that matters in the end.

Victor’s gaze snapped to the sled as the reindeer hitched to the sleds stamped and snorted, uneasy with the smell of so much blood. Two of the hunters kept them calm with steady voices and firm hands on their necks.

The beasts were required in these northern regions. They were embedded with sapphire themselves, allowing them to practically walk on ice and water to some extent. His mother had domesticated them—the first time it had been done—but their jewels were far less pure than the ones he’d found so far.

Victor moved to the second wolf and made the cuts when the hunter couldn’t find the strength to cut into the hide. His amber flared to start the first incision; once it was started, the rest was easy, cutting from the inside out.

He ordered the hunter to finish up the previous one he’d opened up, and repeated the process on this one to remove the magic stones. He went from the sternum to the pelvis, exposing the heart. The ruby and amber were smaller than the alpha’s but still serviceable.

He added them to his collection.

Then he went to inspect the elk as another hunter swiftly closed in to finish the butcher process. The elk hearts were massive once exposed—each one the size of his head, still warm enough to steam when exposed to air.

And shimmering in its place was a sapphire shard. He personally extracted them, then moved on to the remaining two to recover the final stones. Each one was cloudy but intact, catching the light like trapped water.

Holding the sapphires in his palm, he closed his eyes, calling upon its power—abruptly, he was on a raft upon a smooth sea, dark clouds gathering overhead. Unlike his precious walnut-sized ruby and amber, this stone hungered for his soul force—inefficient and demanding.

He took a deep breath, releasing his hold on it and opening his eyes to stare at it; nobles could access all the magic stones, but affinity mattered. Typically, a noble was blessed with two remarkable affinities—his was amber and ruby—but other stones could be used with diminishing returns.

Not as high a quality as I thought it would be, considering the predators I’ve killed. More than manageable, though.

These stones grew where a creature’s magic concentrated. Heart for most. Brain for some. Spine for the truly ancient ones. At least, that was the theory.

By the time he finished supporting the others, his hands were stained dark to the wrists, and his pouch carried seven stones: two amber, two ruby, three sapphire.

He washed his hands with snow, melting it with a thread of ruby heat. As they finished the wolves and two of the elk, Kaia approached. She looked exhausted, face pale, eyes shadowed, but her spine was straight and her voice steady while looking around. The others were watching the skies or sorting through the guts.

“My Lord, can I ask something?”

“Go ahead.” He dried his hands on a cloth and tucked it away in the sled.

She gestured around them—at the basin, the snow, the sun climbing higher and brighter overhead. “Why does it feel colder? The sun’s so hot—it’s blinding, but every hour we’ve been in the valley, it’s like…it’s getting colder. In my bones.”

Victor followed her gaze, studying the landscape. He suppressed a shiver himself, refusing to channel the heat to curb it; the chill kept him sharp.

The sun was brilliant, almost painful to look at directly, turning the snow into fields of white fire. Sweat gathered under his furs despite the temperature. There was a gnawing cold beneath the heat, something deeper than weather.

“The Curse of the North,” he said quietly.

The other hunters nearby slowed their work, listening, their snowshoes crunching the snow.

“My father told me the stories before I left. Before the empire expanded this far and the keeps were built, the north was uninhabitable—hundreds of years ago. Not just harsh…but cursed.”

A few hunters gulped, trying to figure out how to position the antlers on the sled while he continued the tale.

“The cold lives in the ground itself, in the stone, in the air.” He gestured at the snow hills, acting like waves at this level of the frozen fields, before drawing her gaze heavenward. “There’s a reason I pushed us to get here around this time… Yesterday was the first break in the curse—the Winter Veil’s end. Spring. When light breaks the clouds.”

“Wow…” Kaia’s green eyes reflected the blue ocean above. “I heard…if you go high enough, you can swim up there in the clouds. Is that true? I heard Count Roderic Wildthorn of the Wildwood Region has been up there.”

Victor frowned.

Count Roderic is a rugged man. Sure, he specializes in Jade and Sapphire, so I can see why the rumor that he can fly comes in, like Mother, but swim in clouds? Strange rumors spread through the commonfolk.

“I don’t know about that, but as to the chill, it doesn’t matter how hot the sun gets or how much you burn. The curse eats warmth. Eats life.”

He pulled his amulet free and let the ruby and amber catch the light. It wasn’t just Kaia’s eyes on the large, shining gems.

“You see this ruby? Our mission here is two-fold. One, establish a fort—that’s part of your task in supporting me.”

Kaia nodded, puffing up her chest. “And yours is to protect us, My Lord?”

“That…and slay a fire lord for its gem,” he mumbled, staring at his two jewels. It would take every ounce of power each had to accomplish that, and he could barely sustain five percent for hardly a few seconds before his soul burned. “The Radiant Crystal.”

Kaia’s eyes widened. “That sounds so mythical… I want to help you, My Lord!”

Victor chuckled as he tucked the amulet away, seeing renewed enthusiasm in the teenage girl’s face, tiredness gone.

“If you get strong enough with your amber, maybe you can. In any case, every day, the curse will be beaten back further. Give it two weeks. and this whole plain should be mud and new growth.”

“I’ll do my best.” She saluted in the way he’d shown them at the start of their journey, repeating the phrase he’d taught them. “Semper Fi! Eh, that means truthful?”

“Always faithful,” he said in return, feeling warmth touch his iced-over heart. “Semper Fi, soldier. Now get back to work. The Curse of the North won’t be scared and pushed back another hundred miles unless you practice your war face, so make sure to practice it in the mirror. Extend the barrier north.”

“Grrrr!”

More cute than scary, Victor held up a thumb. “A work in progress.”

Silence settled like snow as she grinned ear to ear.

Then Durren, voice rough: “And, My Lord…what if we can’t find one of these fire lords?”

Victor met his eyes as the teen moved to take the load from Mara, hauling a lump of meat to the sled. “…Then eventually, the curse devours us. All of us. Slowly… It’s life or death, and movement keeps the bones warm. Double time! We move in ten minutes.”

The work resumed—quieter now, more urgent.

Movement overhead caught his attention. Victor looked up, hand instinctively going to his bow.

Shit.

Sunfire eagles. Four of them, circling high against the gray-blue sky—eighteen to twenty-foot wingspans, feathers trailing embers even in daylight. The alpha led, larger than the one he’d killed the day before, its tail burning bright enough to be seen from half a mile away.

Not the same flock from yesterday. Younglings with them? A different territory. Different flock. That’s good. It means they aren’t here for revenge.

But they’d noticed their kills. Worse, they were giving away their position to land-based predators.

“Eyes up,” Victor called. “Eagles, northwest, high altitude.”

Every hunter stopped and looked skyward. Of course, when they’d grown lax, pushing to load the cart faster, they’d taken their eyes off the sky.

The eagles circled lazily, almost casually, riding their own thermals above the basin. Watching. Assessing. Deciding if the creatures below were threat, prey, or neither.

Victor’s hand stayed on his bow, but he didn’t draw. “Keep working. Don’t run. Don’t show fear. They’re just watching. Durren, drag the rest of that half-carcass a bit away. If they have something to eat, they’ll ignore us as we leave.”

“Maybe for now,” Mara muttered.

“For now,” Victor agreed. “We can’t make an enemy of every sunfire eagle flock… They’re known to group with other flocks if they have shared enemies.”

“Well, that’s great,” one of the others mumbled. “This whole place just wants to kill us.”

The hunters returned to their tasks, but their eyes kept flicking upward. Checking. Waiting.

Victor nocked a ruby-tipped arrow, the shaft sliding into place with a faint scrape.

Amber’s resonance bled through his veins—vision sharpening, pulse steadying, the world narrowing to threat and motion.

“I’ve got the skies,” he murmured. “You just—”

The warning never finished.

He felt it first—in his boots.

Not from above.

From below.

The snow flexed, a low shudder racing through the ground like a buried heartbeat.

Then it broke.

A blur of white tore across the drifts—white on white, so fast it seemed carved from an avalanche. Ten yards. Closing.

Victor’s soul flared amber, stronger than the last two days combined. Time fractured. Muscles locked and loaded beyond human limits as he tracked the oncoming blur.

The steel-beak swan.

Seven feet of armored predator, wings folded tight, belly-sliding across the snow like a thrown spear. Its armored, twenty-four-foot wingspan was made for gliding. Five hundred pounds of steel-shelled fury, moving faster than a galloping horse.

And its target wasn’t him.

It was Mara.

Bent over the elk carcass, back turned, knife flashing in quick, practiced strokes—she never saw it coming.

The snow hissed.

Dammit! Focus. Ignis Vector—no, if I lose focus at this level, I’ll go faint…

Unable to use the old general’s signature ruby technique to launch himself with flames. Thirty feet away—too far to intercept with blade or hand. He lifted his notch arrow.

Muscles screaming at the output, string drawing, fire gathering at its tip—too slow.

Mara screamed.

The swan’s beak opened—steel-gray, serrated with frost, a living guillotine—and snapped.

The sound was wet metal on bone.

Her knife flew from her grasp as the bird wrenched back, dragging her half off her feet, blood spraying in a bright arc across the carcass.

The swan spread its wings—full span, twenty-four feet of white feathers catching sunlight like sails—and lifted its head in an intimidation display. Mara dangled from its beak, blood already streaming down her wrist, her weight barely registering to the creature holding her.

The other hunters froze, weapons half-drawn, eyes wide with shock.

He drew his bow in one smooth motion, the tip glowed dull red—and loosed.

The arrow flew true past Mara’s twisted back—perfect shot, center mass, exactly where his father had taught him to aim. It struck the swan’s chest and shattered.

The tip broke against plated feathers, steel-hard and dense, scattering fragments of flame across the snow. The shaft clattered away uselessly.

Victor’s jaw tightened as the bird’s beak opened in shock, stumbling back from the nova of fire that combusted—it scorched Mara’s side, but managed to free her. The northern variants must have heavier armor than the ones Father described.

Mara’s hand severed at the wrist—bone, tendon, flesh parting with a wet crack. She screamed again, higher, raw, mixing with the sunfire eagles’ cries overhead. The sound of someone whose body just betrayed them in a way they didn’t think possible.

The swan dropped the severed hand and turned, blazing cobalt eyes fixing on Victor—these birds were extremely aggressive and territorial. The southern variant were known to challenge smaller packs of dire wolves with their mate—hopefully, she wasn’t nearby.

He threw the bow aside, drawing his claymore in one swift motion, world still slowed.

He was already charging.

Amber flooded his legs—strength, speed, endurance burning through muscle and bone. Ruby heated his blade, turning steel orange, then white-hot. But he didn’t stop there with this foe—channeled amber into the sword itself, reinforcing the metal, preventing it from chipping or shattering on impact.

His snowshoes sank deep into the thick snow as he pushed on, trying to balance three channels at once: body, weapon, heat. He was plunged into the apocalyptic inner world of the fortress siege, meteors falling around him, attempting to shake his focus.

His father’s voice rang in his head: Don’t overextend. Master one before you attempt two. No time for that now.

They met mid-charge.

Victor swung—full force, both hands on the weapon that felt as if it were light as a feather, every ounce of strength his fifteen-year-old frame could channel through amber stone and trained muscle. The claymore cut through the air with a sound like tearing silk, blade trailing fire.

The swan met him with flapping wings, beak, and focused wind.

Jade stone flaring in its chest, manipulating the gale into a concentrated blast at the point of impact.

Their strikes collided.

Victor felt the force hit like a wall, bone quivering—not just the swan’s physical strength, but the wind behind it, compressed and directed with magical precision of a drill. His swing connected, blade biting past the wind to chip its reinforced beak, breaking past armor—

—and then the counterforce detonated with the superheated wind, throwing him backward.

Not across the snow.

Through it.

Down.

He hit the surface and kept going, driven by wind pressure and his own momentum, redirected. Now compressed around him like wet concrete, packing tighter with every foot he descended. Six feet. Eight. Ten.

Twelve feet down, he finally stopped.

His back struck something solid—ice or stone, he couldn’t tell—and pain lanced up his spine. He clenched his teeth, refusing the scream. In his mind’s warzone, the fortress siege raged on; his sword cut a phantom soldier in half, keeping focus alive through the pain.

He stepped back into the fire.

Back on the outside.

Darkness.

Cold pressing in from every angle, seeping through fur and leather faster than ruby heat could chase it away. The air thinned, every breath a drag of frost. Meltwater trickled down his neck and froze again in the same heartbeat.

Calm. Assess. Adapt.

He pushed more ruby into his core, pulling amber back to keep his muscles from tearing under strain. The sword wasn’t just a weapon—it became a furnace. Fire bloomed outward in every direction, snow hissing to water, water to steam. The pressure mounted, a confined detonation shaping around him.

He curved it, forced the blast to bend away from his body—controlled chaos in a buried grave of white. The steam cyclone erupted upward, carving a chimney through twelve feet of packed snow in seconds. Victor used the explosion to reposition—planting his feet against solid ice at the bottom, using amber-enhanced legs to launch himself toward the light.

He emerged into blinding brightness, steam billowing around him, and saw the swan circling twenty feet away.

Readying to strike Mara again, as Kaia tried to drag her away without an ounce of success.

Breath slowing, the world slowed even more as his half-broken snowshoes touched the compact snow the swan made, he flipped the hilt into a reverse grip.

One shot.

Victor didn’t hesitate. He stepped out of the fire and channeled everything he had left into amber—strength, precision, will—hurling the claymore like a javelin.

The magically hardened blade sang, fire trailing from the edge, superheated steel cutting through air with a sound like a scream.

It struck center mass.

The tip punched through the small gap his first arrow had made, penetrating maybe three inches into flesh. Not deep enough to kill. Not even deep enough to cripple.

Son of a bitch! It’s a damn tank! Hmm?!

The swan shrieked—high, piercing, rage and pain braided together—and flapped backward, wings beating hard. The claymore lodged in its chest swayed with each movement, fire still burning along the blade.

Its blue eyes shone bright jade.

The swan beat its wings faster, creating a whirlwind beneath itself—air compressed and spinning, lifting the creature skyward like a rocket launching. Snow exploded outward in a ring, the pressure wave knocking the nearest hunters flat.

I can’t do more than one more arrow before I’m spent… Sweat leaked from his pores, body feeling as if it would break. I’ve used it too much today.

Victor dove for his bow again, cursing as he realized most of his arrows had fallen out inside the hole as the bird rose, steam obscuring his vision.

Thirty feet up. Forty. Fifty.

The claymore dislodged.

It tumbled through the air, end-over-end, and buried itself point-first in the snow fifteen feet from where Victor landed. Yet, the swan kept rising, wings beating, blood trailing from the wound in its chest.

Seventy feet now. Eighty.

It’s going for another dive attack—it’s going to swim through the snow like a damn dolphin!

Then, one of the hunters shouted.

“Sunfire eagles!”

Victor’s eyes cleared as he dropped his amber output to just sensory, enhanced vision squinting against the brightness. Through the mist and steam, he saw the plain’s apex birds.

A cyclone of fire descending from the sky.

The sunfire eagle alpha, wings spread wide, feathers burning white-hot, dove at terminal velocity. Behind it, the other three followed—coordinated, practiced, a family that hunted together.

The alpha struck the swan like a meteor.

Impact drove both creatures back toward the earth—tumbling, wings tangled, fire and wind and blood mixing in the air. They hit the snow a hundred yards out with enough force to throw up a geyser of steam and ice.

Then the other three eagles landed.

Victor crawled out of his lying position, letting the heat bleed away from his body before it cooked him from inside out. His hands shook. His vision was spotted at the edges. Soul strain—he’d pushed too hard, channeled too much, burned through reserves faster than they could replenish.

But they were alive…for now.

He couldn’t see it, but all of them could hear it as the eagles tore into the swan with surgical precision—talons ripping, beaks tearing, fire melting plating as they fed. The alpha hopped up over the mound, perching on a rock outcropping thirty yards from the kill, watching Victor’s group with its burning eyes.

Not hostile.

Not friendly.

Just aware—hell, he’d forced the swan into a hopeless position in the sky and allowed them an easy kill. Maybe he was saying thank you.

Jokes aside, the gaze was not random.

He was marking them. Remembering.

We could kill you if we wanted. Remember that. Is that what you’re saying?

Victor forced himself to breathe. The ground wasn’t their territory, the sky was, and they’d at least proved useful to them. He’d have to mark this bird, and the crown pattern on its chest was unique enough.

The alpha watched him for another ten seconds, then turned its attention back to the feast.

Victor’s throat was dry, raw from steam inhalation. He coughed, tasted copper, and forced his legs to move.

Mara.

He stumbled toward where she lay, still screaming—though the sound had gone hoarse now, thin, like something breaking.

Blood pooled dark in the snow around her, spreading in a circle that grew with each heartbeat. Her left arm ended at the wrist—clean severing, bone visible through torn flesh, blood pulsing, steady and red.

She was going into shock. Face pale, eyes unfocused, breath coming in shallow gasps.

Kaia knelt beside her, hands hovering uselessly, not knowing what to do.

Victor dropped to his knees, forced command into his voice despite the hoarseness. “My sword—and treat the wound, dammit. Now!”

The hunters moved as if whipped—Durren grabbing bandages tossed his way, one of the brothers bringing water, another pulling medical supplies from a pack. Kaia was actually the one to retrieve his claymore, shaking the whole way, but managing it.

Victor looked at Kaia as she returned, using all her tiny body weight and strength to drag the heavy weapon to him. “Her pouch. Left side. Find the silverwort and willow bark.”

Kaia’s hands shook as she dropped the blade by him and searched, but she found it—a leather pouch containing dried herbs wrapped in cloth, powdered medicine ground fine.

She held it up.

“H-How much?”

“All of it.”

Kaia pressed the pouch to Mara’s lips. “Y-You have to swallow. Mara, please—open your mouth.”

Mara’s eyes flickered with awareness just as Victor slapped her cheeks.

“Hey! Hey, stay with me!”

Instead of letting the girl feed her, Mara grabbed the pouch with her good hand, tilted her head back, and swallowed the powder dry—grimacing at the bitterness, throat working until it was gone.

“Ack-ack!”

Pain relief. Not strong enough to stop what was coming, but enough to take the edge off.

Durren knelt on Mara’s other side, unbuckling his leather belt as Victor picked up his blade, fighting past the pressure to heat it. “You’re going to want to bite down on this, love.”

He offered it to her—a soldier helping another soldier.

“Who said I’m anyone’s love, bitch… How is it?”

“Bleeding daisies.”

“Sounds about right…”

Mara took it, placed it between her teeth, and nodded once.

Victor looked at Kaia. “Hold her good hand. Don’t let go.”

Then to Durren: “On her chest—keep her down.”

Kaia gripped tight, knuckles white.

Victor lifted the blade—white-hot now, edges humming. No one spoke. They all knew.

Mara’s gaze locked on his—clear despite the pain, despite the shock. She gave one last nod.

He pressed the flat against the stump.

The sound came instantly—a hiss, a sizzle, the thick stench of cooked flesh.

Mara’s body arched, rigid; teeth clamped so hard the leather creaked. Her scream tore through the cold, muffled but feral.

Kaia held on, sobbing silently, whispering something Victor couldn’t make out.

The smell hit him—charred meat, burnt hair, blood turned to ash.

And suddenly, he wasn’t in the Frozen Fields.

He was on Saipan.

The beach.

The war to end all wars.

Earth.

Artillery turning sand to glass. A Marine—kid from Texas, maybe nineteen—screaming as a field medic pressed a red-hot knife to what used to be his leg. Biting through leather, dying anyway three hours later, because the island didn’t let anyone leave whole.

His focus slipped, Victor blinked.

Back. Present. Now.

The snap of his connection to the amber felt like fire scorching his chest, yet he used Mara’s face to refocus.

“Mmgm… How is she?” he mumbled, blinking rapidly to reorient himself.

“Passed out,” Durren reported, looking up with fear in his eyes. “Should we go? Are they going to come after us next?”

Victor shook his head, feeling the drag on his mental, physical, and spiritual fortitude. He examined her again, unconscious from pain and medication braiding together, body finally giving up the fight to stay aware. Her breathing was shallow but steady. The wound was sealed, cauterized black and red, no longer bleeding.

She’d live.

Victor dropped the edge into the snow, letting it hiss and cool as the magic dissipated, heat bleeding out of the steel. His hands were shaking again.

“We move. Get her on a sled,” he said, voice rough. “Cushion her with furs. Keep her warm. Kaia, get my arrows down that hole—quick. We’re leaving the other carcass for the birds… They saved our asses. Move!”

Durren and another hunter lifted Mara carefully, carrying her to one of the sleds where they’d piled the softest pelts. They laid her down gently, covered her with more furs, and made sure her head was elevated.

Kaia stumbled into the hole, falling head-over-feet inside before popping up a half a minute later, hands full of arrows. She handed them to him before climbing onto the sled beside her, taking Mara’s good hand in both of hers.

Victor stood, forced his legs steady, and looked at the remaining hunters, nearly every one more than ready to leave this area. 

The sunfire eagle alpha hopped back up onto the rock with their noisy movement, observing the leftovers, head tilting as they prepared to go. They were lucky the giant reindeer were so well trained by his mother. 

Victor met the bird’s gaze.

Take it. We’re not worth the trouble.

The eagle seemed to agree. It returned its attention to the swan carcass, tearing into flesh out of sight with the rest of its flock, already half-consumed.

The hunters moved to the reindeer—six of them, harnessed to two sleds now loaded with meat and hide and stones and one unconscious woman. Even with his mother’s training, the animals were spooked, eyes rolling white, stamping and pulling at the harnesses.

Steady hands, soft voices, firm grips on necks and reins soothed them. Slowly, the reindeer settled.

Victor walked to where his bow had buried itself in the snow and pulled it free. He took one last look at the field—blood-stained snow, scattered bones, steam still rising from where he’d been buried.

He’d done his job. His mother could heal severed limbs and organs, but few could use emeralds at her level… Still, if they did manage to make it back home at some point, Mara could be healed.

“Move out,” he ordered. “Formation: four on point, four flanking, four rear guard. Eyes on the horizon. Anything moves, you call it. We’re not getting ambushed twice… I bet there are arctic foxes nearby, waiting to scavange what the sunfire eagles leave, so keep your eyes peeled.”

As they began their march, he checked for cracks in his blade and bow, feeling sore all over; he found no damage and slid them into place over his shoulder.

We got really lucky…

They’d loaded most of the meat—prime cuts, organ meats, the best hides. But ribs, heavy bones, some of the less valuable sections—those stayed behind. No choice. Too much weight, not enough sled space.

The column formed—disciplined despite exhaustion, despite fear. They began the long march back toward the broken fortress, using the sun’s position in the sky as a guide to head west and north.

Behind them, the sunfire eagles fed.

And the north watched.

But they had enough food to feed everyone until the snow melted in two weeks. Now, they needed to secure shelter.

Hopefully, his father’s general and tutor—before he far surpassed him—had secured the fortress, because he needed a good night’s rest for what came tomorrow.

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