After a few days, they came to the foot of the "Black Wall"—a massif riddled with magnetite ore. For an ordinary person, it was just rock, but for Pollux, it was a torture instrument. The magnetic fields struck his infection with a relentless insistence that drove tears to his eyes. His head throbbed, static electricity lifted his hair, and he felt as if his brain would melt under the pressure of that invisible scream. He felt as if his head were stuck in a waterfall and could not escape.
"Turn it off, Pollux! Otherwise, that magnetite will tear you apart from the inside!" Fenryr shouted then through the whistling wind, watching as the boy staggered mindlessly.
"I can't! It's everywhere...!" Pollux sank to his knees, clutching his head with his hands, and the amber light in his eyes shone as brightly as a candle in the dark.
Fenryr grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard. "You're trying to fight it like a machine, but this isn't a machine! It's nature! Stop concentrating on it. Stop looking for faults in it. Imagine you are just a stone. A stone has no ears. Be the rock you walk upon!"
He lay down on the ground beneath that black rock and looked at the sky, across which small, white, fluffy clouds slowly floated. He stopped perceiving the boundary between his skin and the freezing air. He watched how they dissolved and reformed, how they changed shape. He imagined flying in those clouds. He listened to the water trickling down that black rock from the melting snow. He imagined that his consciousness was just another stream of ice water flowing beneath the snow.
The terrible pressure in his head did not disappear, but Pollux stopped perceiving it as pain. It became merely a backdrop, just like the wind. When he stopped moving involuntarily, Fenryr slowly approached him and covered him with his shadow. He looked at him silently for a moment and then sat in the snow beside him.
A month passed. Time on the northern ridges of Skeldar lost its linear form; it was no longer measured by mechanical clocks, but by the length of the bluish shadows on the snow and the intensity of the frost, which diminished with every dusk. The days were lengthening—an irreversible sign that even up here in the eternally frozen land, summer was approaching.
In the valley below him, clouds rolled like a thick white sea crashing against the base of the peaks. Down there, the world was full of sounds, instruments, and people from Aethel Biotech who were constantly searching for something in the mud. But up here... here was a peace that Pollux had never experienced before. His white hair merged with the swirling snow, and the black maps of the Ambara on his neck were almost invisible, retracted and dead in this extreme cold.
He closed his eyes. A few weeks ago, at this moment, his mind would have immediately begun to hungrily "reach out" to the surroundings. It would have searched for metal, electricity, the rhythm of something artificial. It was a reflex, a compulsive need of his consciousness to connect with something mechanical. It was that constant static that caused him migraines and the feeling that someone in his head was constantly tuning a broken radio with a damaged antenna.
Today was different.
Pollux took a deep breath of the freezing air and internally "disconnected." He imagined his mind as an old clock tower in which, with a single gesture, he stopped all the gears. One by one. That persistent high-pitched tone that had accompanied him from the moment Alina found him began to fade. He blocked it out. Not by force, but by ceasing to feed it with his attention.
For the first time in his life, he felt freedom from his own head.
He was no longer a slave to every wire in the vicinity. He felt light, almost transparent. When he opened his eyes now, he didn't see the world as a set of components and tensions. He saw it as a whole. He could concentrate on a single snowflake that landed on his glove and revealed its perfect geometry, without his attention being pulled away by the ticking of Fenryr's watch hidden deep in the backpack.
"You did it," Fenryr's voice sounded behind him. His voice was no longer the blunt command of a teacher; it was a quiet acknowledgment.
Pollux did not turn; he still gazed at that infinite white beauty. "It's as if I had lived in a room full of screaming people until now, and suddenly someone closed the door. It's quiet here, Fenryr. A real, deep silence."
"That is not the silence of the surrounding world, Pollux. That is your own silence," Fenryr sat on a cold stone with a muffled thud of his armor. "The southerners from Aethel rely on their machines because they fear the emptiness within themselves. They need that noise so they don't have to hear themselves. You have learned to master that emptiness. Now, when your mind isn't looking for metal, you will see things that escape them. You will see the truth about movement, about the direction of the wind, about a person's true intent before they even reach for a weapon."
Pollux realized that this was the most important component he had ever repaired—himself. He no longer needed a pistol to feel strong. He felt firm like this rock beneath him. That constant anxiety, that fear that someone from the south would "turn him off," had vanished. In the north, where technology had no name, he discovered that his gift was not a curse if he knew how to silence it.
"I am ready," Pollux said and looked contentedly at Fenryr.
Fenryr nodded. He saw something in the boy's eyes that hadn't been there before. Pollux had learned to concentrate his entire being into a single point.
Pollux exhaled a small cloud of steam and watched as it immediately dissipated in the freezing air. He felt free. For the first time, he belonged to no one—not to his past in the laboratories, not even to that constant noise in his own head. He belonged only to this moment of silence that he had fought for amidst the frost and rocks.
He remembered what Alina had once told him when she first took him out into the winter morning in the valley while everyone was still asleep. Back then, he hadn't quite understood those words; they seemed too poetic for a world full of metal, but up here, at the edge of the world, they finally made sense to him.
"Snow is impartial, Pollux," she used to tell him with that calm smile of hers while adjusting his scarf. "It doesn't care about what you believe or don't believe. It is honest; it doesn't promise to be anything other than what it actually is. It is pure, and every ill will is immediately visible upon it. You will find only truth and peace in it. And if you understand it one day, you will find a friend in it."
Today, Pollux understood the snow. It wasn't an enemy that wanted to take his breath and freeze his blood. It was a veil that covered him and allowed him to find himself beneath the layers of foreign metal and foreign numbers. The snow had not deceived him. The snow showed him that if he could remain silent, he could survive anything the world in the South could devise.
Fenryr stood up and threw the heavy pack onto his shoulder. "Tomorrow we begin to descend. It is time to return down. Spring has progressed, and the shadows in the valley are lengthening."
Pollux nodded. He was no longer trembling from the cold or from uncertainty. He stood up with a lightness he hadn't known before and took one last look at the northern ridges. He had found a friend in them, exactly as Alina had said. He had found in them a peace that he would take with him.
The descent from the ridges did not take hours, but days full of quiet harmony with Fenryr. The lower they went, the more the freezing, thin air of the north changed into the heavier, damper scent of the valley. Pollux walked differently than he had a month ago. His step was sure, his breath calm, and his mind... his mind was finally his own. Even the proximity of the first mechanical traps and sentry devices on the borders of the clan territory no longer triggered that unbearable pressure in his temples.
When the massive walls of the Kyrios clan's estate emerged before them in the evening gloom, it was for him the sight of a missing home. Bluish smoke rose from the chimneys and the warm light of hearths reflected in the windows, promising safety.
The courtyard was not empty. Orion stood there leaning against a stone pillar, as if he had grown there along with it. When he spotted the two figures emerging from the mist, he didn't pull away from the pillar immediately. He watched them for a long time, as if he didn't believe his own eyes. Then that wide, sincere smile spread across his face—the one Pollux had so often missed during the freezing nights in the north.
"You looked like two snow ghosts from a distance," Orion called out and stepped forward to meet them, his ears bobbing joyfully. He didn't run in a panic, but with a joy that radiated from every movement. "I was already preparing a rescue expedition, but Kyrios stopped me. He said that if Fenryr doesn't break you, the mountains won't eat you. And it seems he was right."
Pollux smiled. It was the first time he had smiled with his whole face. When Orion patted him on the shoulder and then gave him a brief, firm hug, Pollux felt the true warmth of human closeness.
Inside, the reception was quiet but deep. Kyrios welcomed them with a short nod, in which a new respect for what Pollux had undergone could be felt. But it was the women who breathed true life into the estate. Aurora ran up with fresh, warm blankets, and Liberia, though maintaining her dignity as the leader's wife, looked at Pollux with unprecedented tenderness and pride.
"You are thinner, Pollux, but your eyes are clearer than a summer sky," Liberia noted as she handed him a cup of hot milk with honey. "The mountains took everything you didn't need, didn't they?"
Pollux nodded and accepted the drink with gratitude, feeling the warmth flow down his throat. "They took my noise, my lady. That is the most valuable thing I could have left there."
The evening passed slowly. They sat in the small hall where the fire crackled and Orion told stories from the village. He spoke of how the wool merchants cursed the spring mud, how the miller complained about a squeaking wheel, and how he had managed to "accidentally" lead one Aethel scouting party into a dead end beneath the southern cliff, where they spent the whole night in the rain. Aurora sat beside Pollux and held his shoulder firmly, as if she feared he had returned only for a moment. When he wasn't paying attention, she watched him silently, trying to count all the changes in his face.
Pollux listened and felt... happy. It was that pure, uncomplicated feeling of belonging somewhere. He watched Aurora laugh at Orion's jokes and saw Kyrios observing the scene with a slight smile. It was a picture of perfect peace.
Late at night, when everyone had already gone to their rooms, Pollux remained sitting by the dying hearth for a while. The house breathed quietly. The wood in the walls crackled softly, and outside, the wind was rising again. It was in that silence, amidst all that comfort and safety, that something moved within him. It wasn't the hum of machines; it was a thought, sharp and clear.
He looked at Orion's empty chair. Orion truly liked him; he would risk his life for him in the village every second. Kyrios had opened the doors of his home for him and exposed his clan to the risk of the corporation's wrath. Aurora brought him blankets with such naturalness, as if he were her own brother.
"They are so pure," Pollux thought, and his gaze fell upon his own hands, where in the warmth of the fire, the fine black lines of the Ambara began to appear again. "They are as sincere as that snow in the north. But I... I have brought a shadow here that they don't even know how long it truly is."
It was just a quiet melancholy. A feeling that this peace was a gift he perhaps didn't deserve, and that every minute he spent here was another minute during which his past with the Aethel Biotech logo was knocking on their door.
He leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. Alina's words about the snow rang in his ears. "Snow is honest." And he knew that if he wanted to be honest with this family, he wouldn't be able to remain their hidden burden forever.
The following days at the estate flowed like a quiet stream. Pollux helped in the armory with minor repairs that didn't require his gift, only manual skill. He often sat in the kitchen, watching the bustle of clan life. However, every one of those moments deepened that quiet unrest within him.
It was afternoon when the sun finally broke through the clouds and illuminated the courtyard. Pollux sat on a bench, watching Aurora try to teach Orion a new game. Their laughter echoed between the stone walls. Orion was cheating—he did it openly and with such charm that Aurora, instead of getting angry, only laughed helplessly. Pollux watched their gestures, their relaxed shoulders. None of them looked over their shoulder. None of them listened for the rhythmic sound of heavy engines in the distance.
"Join us, Pollux!" Aurora shouted at him. "Orion is losing so ignominiously that he needs someone to save his reputation!"
Pollux only smiled and shook his head. "Someone has to watch you, so you don't tear down the castle out of joy."
In reality, however, he was unable to move. The more love and acceptance he felt, the more clearly he saw that invisible line between them and him. They were Banshe—rugged but pure. He was 00001—just a number on a property list of some human corporation.
Later that day, Kyrios asked him to accompany him to the village. They walked along the road, and the people they met bowed to Kyrios with natural respect. Pollux noticed how Kyrios settled disputes—with a calm word and a fair decision.
"Do you see it, Pollux?" Kyrios asked as they were returning upward. "That is Skeldar. We are like this mountain. Slow, hard, but loyal to one another. Your life will have the same rhythm. You are already one of us."
Pollux looked at the old mill in the distance. "It's beautiful, sir. It's more than I ever expected to find in this life."
"But?" Kyrios did not stop, but his tone indicated that he heard the unspoken.
"But the shadow that is looking for me has no respect for your traditions," Pollux said quietly. "If they come here with their steel, they won't ask about your ancient law. They will only see property that belongs to them. And I... I cannot just sit and watch as this peace burns only because I wanted to steal a piece of your home for myself."
Kyrios stopped for a moment and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Skeldar knows how to defend itself, boy. Don't forget that."
"I know," Pollux nodded. "But a good strategist knows when the price of defense is too high. If even one of your people died because of me, or if Orion lost his laughter... that would be a price I wouldn't know how to pay."
That evening, Pollux did not go to sleep. He sat in his room and, by the light of a single candle, pulled his pistol from his backpack. It no longer lured him with its power. He saw in it only a beacon that constantly sends a quiet signal into a world where he no longer wanted to belong, but which relentlessly claimed him.
Slowly, he ran his fingers over the grip. He blocked out the hum of the metal, as Fenryr had taught him. In his head, there was no longer noise, but clarity. He loved this family. And that was exactly why he had to leave. In Skeldar, he had found the most precious thing—he discovered who he truly was. He found a silence within himself that no one would ever take from him. And this silence told him clearly that his path to true freedom did not lead through the walls of this estate, but through a confrontation with the past down there, in the South.