Spring in Skeldar did not arrive with flowers, but with a roar that shook the very foundations of the mountains. Every few hours, a rumbling echoed, deep as the voice of the earth itself—snow overhangs, heavy with the first spring sun, tore from the rocks and plunged into deep valleys in millions of tons of white death. The roads, which had been firm and clear all winter, turned into fierce streams of dirty water and slimy, cold mud that pulled boots from feet with a squelching sound.
Pollux stood in the courtyard and watched Fenryr prepare the team. This time, they were not riding horses but heavy, frost-resistant riding beasts with iron-shod hooves that stamped impatiently in the wet slush. The sun reflected off the melting ice, and Pollux felt his hair shining with that unnatural yellow color.
"The snow line has retreated," Fenryr noted and tightened the saddle with one smooth, strong movement. "That means the passes are passable again. And that means the first strangers, for whom spring has opened the doors, have appeared in the village below us."
Pollux felt a familiar, sharp sting at his heart. For three months, he had lived in perfect, quiet isolation, where the only rhythm was the pounding of a blacksmith's hammer, the creaking of the mill, and Orion's infectious laughter. Now the world, which had seemed safe, began to shrink dangerously again.
"Traders?" Pollux asked, his hand instinctively dropping to his pocket, where he felt the cold metal of the tags through the cloth.
"Traders, treasure hunters, and those fleeing corporate law in the South," Fenryr replied, fixing his stony gaze on Pollux. "Kyrios wants you to go there with Orion. You are to check a shipment that arrived for Filopsis. It's books, some medical instruments, and components for the clan workshop that won't wait for drier roads."
The descent to the village was grueling and dirty. Mud splashed up to their ears, and the mounts stumbled every few moments over hidden rocks beneath the surface of the slush. Orion was unusually quiet. He didn't joke about the girls in the village or the beer; instead, he constantly scanned the horizon, his ears turning tensely toward every suspicious sound of falling ice.
When they finally arrived at the "Frozen Pilgrim" inn, they saw a group of wagons in the yard that hadn't been there a week ago. They weren't the coarse Skeldar wagons made of pine wood. These had sprung axles, steel reinforcements, and were covered with heavy, waterproof tarpaulins with inscriptions in human script. Pollux passed by them, and his mechanical empathy reacted immediately. He felt the vibration of those wagons—they were built for long distances, for transporting heavy, sensitive goods. But he also felt something else—a scent he didn't know in the mountains. The smell of the city, of burnt pungent fuel, the dust of a metropolis, and cheap tobacco.
Inside the inn, it was stuffy, noisy, and smelled of damp wool. In the corner of the room sat three men in long, dust-covered coats made of artificial leather. They weren't drinking honest Skeldar beer, but something clear and sharp from their own silver flasks.
As Pollux and Orion entered, one of the men slowly raised his head. He had short-cropped hair and a scar that ran across his entire eyebrow to his temple. For a moment, his gaze met Pollux's. It wasn't a hostile look; it was the look of a professional hunter who scans the surroundings in a fraction of a second, searching for anomalies. The man's gaze slid to Pollux's hip, exactly where he suspected a hidden holster for a weapon beneath the coat.
Pollux felt the dog tags grow heavy in his pocket. He had the feeling that the number—00001—was glowing through the fabric of the coat like a red-hot ember intended to betray him. He felt the infection on his neck heating up under the influence of stress and the heat in the inn, as if those black maps wanted to move. He lowered his gaze and closed his eyes. He felt the amber flame ignite spontaneously within them.
"Don't stop, look straight ahead," Orion whispered and gently but firmly pushed him toward the bar, where miller Hrabko was already preparing their shipment. "They're just mercenaries from the South escorting a caravan. Ignore them as if they were just more mud on the road."
As they were taking the heavy wooden crate of books, Pollux happened to touch the hand of one of the strangers who had just appeared at the bar. It was only a fleeting, split-second contact of skin on skin, but in Pollux's head, it exploded like a grenade.
No clear image appeared to him, but a raw, cold sensation. Through the touch, he felt harsh discipline, years of drill, and suppressed emotions. He felt the weight of the weapon the man had hidden under his coat—it wasn't a crossbow or a hunting rifle. It was a modern, compact submachine gun with a silencer, lubricated with the same synthetic oil that Master Hlyn used on Pollux's pistol. He felt the rhythm of that mechanics, its readiness to spit death.
On the way back to the estate, when they were already high above the village in the safe shadow of the rocks, Pollux stopped his horse. The cold wind lashed his face, but he didn't perceive it.
"Orion," he said quietly, his voice trembling with suppressed tension. "Those people in the inn... they are looking for something." He looked at Orion, his wide eyes louder than the avalanches breaking from the peaks.
Orion gazed at the small lights of the village deep in the valley. "I know. I felt it too, brother. They were too calm for pilgrims getting into our wild mountains for the first time. The one with the scar... he didn't stop watching you until we walked out the door."
Pollux reached into his pocket and felt the piece of sheet metal with his number. Spring had truly begun.
"I have to start training more," Pollux said firmly. "Not just self-defense with Fenryr. I must understand what my pistol can really do. I must learn where the metal ends and I begin. I must merge with it before it's too late."
Orion nodded, and for the first time since morning, not even a hint of a smile appeared on his face. "I'll have your back, brother. No matter what shadow from the South crawls out of that spring mud, we won't be alone for it."
Kyrios's study was plunged into thick gloom that evening. The only source of light was the hearth, where logs were burning out, and two tall wax candles on the massive oak table. They cast long, restless shadows on the maps spread across the entire surface.
Kyrios sat motionless in a chair, with fingers interlaced under his chin, his face partially hidden in shadow. Beside him stood Filopsis, studying the list of goods from the caravan that Pollux and Orion had encountered in the village with a furrowed brow.
"There were three of them," Pollux began, standing before the table. He still had dried mud from the road on his boots. "They didn't call each other by names; they hardly spoke. But their equipment... under their coats, they had holsters made of materials we don't make in Skeldar. And that smell, sir. The scent of synthetic weapon oil. The same as I have in my holster. They resonated in my head like an old, familiar pain."
Kyrios slowly raised his gaze. "Aethel Biotech. So your former 'owners' have finally dared to stick their noses out of their offices and into our frosts. They thought the snow would stop them forever, but spring gave them courage."
"Officially, they are just guards for the Concordia Trade Association caravan," Filopsis noted and tossed the paper onto the table with a quiet slap. "But the list of their cargo is more than suspicious. Too many communication components, sensors, and too little food for such a long journey. They aren't looking for trade. They are looking for a specific frequency. They are looking for a trail."
"They are looking for the unit," Pollux whispered, his throat going dry.
Kyrios stood up and walked to the window, from which the lights of the village deep in the valley could be seen. "Skeldar is built on traditions and faith, Pollux. Strangers with automatic weapons and numbers instead of names don't belong here. But if I drive them out by force now, I will only confirm to them that I am hiding something here that has value to them."
He turned back to Pollux. "You will do nothing. They will watch you; they will wait for your first mistake. They want to see if the one they lost in the snow is somewhere here."
"And am I him? Am I still their... machine?" Pollux asked.
"That depends on how you choose to fight," Filopsis joined the conversation. "If you use their methods, if you start behaving like their mechanical machine, they will find you by your rhythm. They have instruments for that. You must learn to be a shadow. You must merge with the mountains so perfectly that their sensors see only dead stone and cold snow."
Kyrios nodded. "Fenryr taught you to endure fatigue and pain. Now I will teach you how to lead a war without anyone firing a shot. If they want to play a game of hide-and-seek in my mountains, we will show them that the shadow has wings that their manuals don't write about." He turned and paused for a moment. "But first, you must disappear."
When Pollux left the study, he found Orion sitting on the stone steps, sharpening the tips of his knives with disturbing calmness. The metal against the stone made a sharp, hissing, yet soothing sound.
"So?" Orion asked without raising his gaze from the blade.
"Apparently, they are here because of me, Orion. Kyrios knows it. Filopsis knows it. My unknown past has ceased to be a memory and has become a threat."
Orion stopped the movement of the whetstone and looked at Pollux. "Do you know what's best about the mountains in spring? That the mud hides every track and the avalanche smooths over every sin. If those three take even a single step off the main road, no one will ever find them again. The mountains will simply... digest them and spit out only bones."
Pollux sat down beside him. He felt the quiet, electrical hum starting in his head again—a reaction to the proximity of foreign technologies in the valley. "I don't want blood to flow in the village because of me. Those people gave me bread and warmth when I was just a nobody without a name to them."
"That's why you have us here, brother," Orion said seriously. "You concentrate on staying calm. I will be their shadow in the village. I will know about their every breath, about every message they try to send back to the south. We are not Aethel, Pollux. We are family. And family takes care of its own until the end."
Pollux closed his eyes and concentrated on the silence of the house. Spring in Skeldar had just become colder and more dangerous than the entire past winter.
Dawn came slowly, drowned in a milky mist that crawled from the valleys up toward the clan's estate. It was one of those mornings when the world feels muffled, as if it were afraid to breathe. Pollux had not slept well. The quiet hum that had awakened in him at the sight of the tags was still echoing in his head.
When he stepped out of his room, the hallway was silent. He found them in the small dining room. Kyrios stood by the window with a cup of hot tea, Fenryr sat at the table checking the leather straps on his pack. Orion sat on the bench slowly putting on his high boots, there was no trace of yesterday's unrest in his face.
"Pollux," Kyrios addressed him without turning around. "The night has brought clearer thoughts. If we want those people in the village to remain blind, we must take away the light they are seeking. And that light is you. Your presence here is now a beacon for their sensors for the clan."
Pollux sat down opposite Fenryr. "So I have to leave."
"You are leaving," Kyrios confirmed. "But not as a fugitive. You are leaving as a shadow returning to the darkness. Fenryr will take you to the far north. To where the magnetite in the rocks turns every southern instrument into just a piece of blind metal. If you aren't there, they will have nothing to find. They will search the inns, ask in the mills, but they will find nothing but snow and the silence of the mountains."
Orion walked up to Pollux and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'll take care of the village. I'll be their shadow. If they find out anything, I'll know about it before they even write it down. You just make sure you don't freeze in the north. Fenryr is a tough teacher, but I know no one better in those mountains."
Pollux nodded. Yesterday he felt fear, but today he felt a deep humility instead. "When do we set out?" he looked across them.
"When you finish your tea," Fenryr said. "Pack only your things. Nothing new, nothing that reeks of the south. In the north, wool, leather, and your patience will be enough for you."
Pollux finished the warm drink. He returned to his room. He packed his old leather coat, a whetstone, and his pistol, which this time he did not strap to his thigh but wrapped deep into his backpack. If there was to be peace in the north, he didn't need to have it at hand.
When he returned, Orion was already leaving for the village. They briefly embraced, and their gazes met intently. In Skeldar, people said goodbye as if they were to see each other again in an hour, even though they knew it could be months.
Kyrios walked up to Pollux. "The mountains remember no one by a number, Pollux. They only remember those who have a pure heart and can keep silent with them. Go."
They set out. Without fanfare, in the quiet dawn. Two men heading where the roads end and the white emptiness begins. Pollux felt the gate of the estate quietly closing behind him. He didn't even look back. Before him was only the road, Fenryr's broad back, and the infinite silence of the north, in which 00001 was finally to become just another invisible part of the mountain.
The journey north was not about speed. It was about rhythm. Fenryr set a pace that seemed slow at first, but was relentless as the movement of a glacier. Every step into the fresh snow was accompanied only by the dry sound of crushed ice and the steady breathing of both men.
The higher they climbed, the more the landscape changed. Pine forests gradually thinned. The trees were increasingly twisted until finally, only dead, white trunks remained, looking like the raised fingers of skeletons in the mist.
"We stop," Fenryr said after hours of climbing. He halted under a massive rock overhang. Pollux leaned against the rock, his lungs burning. The air up here was thinner and sharper.
"Turn it off, Pollux," Fenryr said, pulling out blankets.
"Turn what off?"
"That unrest in your head," Fenryr handed him a piece of dried meat. "You're following me from behind, but your mind is constantly searching for something in the backpack. It's searching for that weapon. Searching for the rhythm of the machines left below. You don't need that up here. If you rely on what you perceive through metal, the mountain will deceive you."
Pollux sat on the cold stone and looked around. He was right. His technopathy was constantly, subconsciously "reaching out" into the dark. He felt the pistol in the backpack like a faint, muffled heartbeat. It was a habit he couldn't shake.
"I don't understand how to do it," Pollux admitted quietly. "It's like breathing."
Fenryr leaned toward him. "When you get hurt and your arm aches, you think about that pain constantly. But if you have to run from wolves, the pain disappears because your body wants to survive. It's the same here. You must learn that machines are not a part of you. They are only a burden. If you don't disconnect them, we will never walk quietly enough."
They spent the night in a shallow cave without a fire. They huddled together, sharing body heat. Pollux watched the stars and realized there was no noise up here. No gears, no mills. Only the wind. For the first time in his life, he was in an environment where his gift had nothing to bite into. It was terrifying, yet liberating at the same time.
"Fenryr?" he whispered into the dark.
"Sleep with the mountain, boy. Today only the frost tested you. Tomorrow I will start teaching you how to fight in that frost without touching metal."
Pollux closed his eyes. He tried to imagine his consciousness freezing. The pulse of the weapon in the backpack grew distant. Only the pounding of his own heart remained.
On the third day, their path led through a narrow saddle where the snow creaked like old boards. Pollux walked mechanically. Every movement reminded him how fragile the human body is at this altitude. When they stopped, Pollux closed his eyes, and an image emerged from the depths of his memory.
He saw Alina's face. He smelled the scent of dried herbs and felt the light of the fire on her face when she taught him to recognize the tastes of tea. He remembered her eyes when she found him—there was no fear of who he was in them, only a quiet joy that he had survived.
"She is the reason why there is nothing here that can break," he whispered to himself. Alina was his only real anchor. If Aethel Biotech sought a machine, she saw a human. It was because of her that he had to walk upward now. He had to become something that no southern manual could describe.
"What are you thinking about?" Fenryr's voice interrupted him.
"That the mountains are fair," Pollux replied. "They don't care who I am. If I make a mistake, they will freeze me regardless of the value of the metal in my backpack."
Fenryr gave a short, guttural laugh. "Finally, you're starting to talk like someone from Skeldar. Come here."
They set aside their packs. "Today I won't teach you how to survive the night. Today I will teach you how to survive a human. Down there, you relied on seeing the mechanism of a weapon. Up here, you will rely on feeling the shift of the snow under his feet before he manages to strike you."
They looked at each other for a moment, checking their readiness. Then they lunged at each other in the deep snow. It wasn't a duel of warriors; it was a lesson in anatomy. Fenryr was massive; his strikes had the weight of an avalanche. Pollux learned that in the snow, it isn't the speed of the feet that matters, but the balance in the hips.
"Your gift isn't in your hands, Pollux, it's in your head!" Fenryr shouted after throwing him into a snowbank for the third time. "You said you see how gears fit together. So look at me! I am just a machine too. My joints are levers, my muscles are springs. If you want to hurt me, you don't have to overpower me. You only have to find the point where my movement stops."
Pollux stood up, snow crawling down his collar, but he didn't perceive it. He concentrated on Fenryr. He tried not to perceive the metal buckles on his armor. Instead, he watched how his shoulders tensed. He saw the rhythm of his breath. He realized that Fenryr was right—life is just a more complex mechanism than he had ever met. And even it had its rules.
That evening, Pollux felt every bone in his body. It was the pain of growth.
"You have silence in you, boy," Fenryr said. "Today you finally didn't move like a piece of sheet metal. You moved like a shadow. If you keep this up, the South will never find you. They will look for the heat of a machine, but they will find only cold rock."
Pollux nodded. He looked toward the south, where Alina slept somewhere in the depths of the mountains and where Orion kept watch in the shadow of the village.