The landscape beneath the southern cliffs of Skeldar was inhospitable. From the south, these mountains appeared as an inexorable, sharp wall that separated the world of frozen truth from the world of lies. Autumn manifested differently down here. The air was heavy, and Pollux walked in silence, yet he felt his body reacting to the world in a way he could not explain.
"We're stopping," Ash snapped, throwing her weapon onto a pile of dry brush under a rocky overhang.
Pollux stopped, and that was when she noticed it. In the setting sun reflecting off the steep crags, his hair was no longer grey and dull as it had been when they found him in the snow. Under the influence of the world's invisible currents, it was taking on a bright, light blond colour that radiated its own light. His azure eyes glowed quietly in the gathering dusk.
Ash stared at him for a long time. As a Banshee, she perceived the world through the echoes of names and songs, but Pollux's presence confused her.
"Look at yourself, Investment," Ash spoke, and in her voice was the weariness of a race that remembers more than it would like. "In Skeldar, you were in a bubble. There, they took you for a human because the snow hides every anomaly. But here, your essence is pushing out. You look like a human, but you're guaranteed not to be human. That hair of yours... that's not dirt from Karimor. That's a light that doesn't exist in humans."
Pollux ran a hand through his hair. "You mean this? My hair? This has been happening to me for as long as I've known myself. But I don't know much about myself. In Skeldar, they accepted it as me, and I didn't think about it."
"Are you serious?" Ash laughed loudly and fixed her red eyes on him. "And how many like you did you meet there? Do you think everyone's hair colour changes here as they please?"
Silence followed. Pollux looked at her with his searching eyes, and she looked for a focal point anywhere just so she wouldn't have to look into his eyes. "You look like a human, Pollux. But... this isn't even the infection."
Pollux lowered his gaze to his hands. The Ambara on his neck pulsed quietly in the dark. "I don't know who I am. I don't look like you. I don't have horns or long or different ears." Pollux bowed his head and continued on the path. He didn't wait for her. The questions didn't change. Only time did, and so far, it brought no new answers.
"Where are you rushing?" Ash caught up with him. "Investment, if I thought you were human, you would have been left in a corner of that backwater, riddled with lead in some dead-end alley."
The journey dragged on. Hours merged into days, and those into an endless, rhythmic march through a grey wasteland where the horizon offered no point of reference. Beneath their feet, shale crunched constantly—a dry, sharp sound that in time became the only music of their world. The shale absorbed heat and returned it in invisible waves that made Pollux's head spin.
In Skeldar, the air was like crystal; here, he felt as if he were swallowing a piece of this ruined earth with every breath. The dust had a metallic aftertaste, clinging to sweaty skin and turning into a grey crust in the corners of the mouth. Ash walked three steps ahead of him, her figure shimmering in the hot air like a phantom.
"Still far?" Pollux forced a question from his throat that sounded more like a hoarse rasp.
Ash didn't even turn around. She just adjusted the strap of the submachine gun, which had scratched a bloody welt onto her shoulder. "You've been asking that since morning. The road doesn't get shorter by talking about it, Investment. Save your breath. In the east, you'll need it more than words."
They walked past the remains of something that might once have been a settlement. They were now just rusty skeletons of tanks and concrete foundations that the wind had polished smooth. Nothing lived here. Even the insects seemed to have been exterminated by those layers of dust. Pollux felt as if they were walking on a giant pile of ash, under which were buried histories he did not understand.
"Ash?" he tried again after another hour of silence. "You keep telling me I look like them. Like humans. But I still don't understand who they actually are. Why is everyone so afraid of them when I don't see them anywhere here?"
Ash stopped so suddenly that he almost collided with her. She turned to him, and in her red eyes, he saw something that wasn't anger, but a deep, old weariness.
"Do you know why you don't see them? Because humans don't need to walk these dusty roads. They sit in air-conditioned offices in Tarnov or Aethel or some other big shitty city and run the world through terminals. Skeldar is an open-air museum, Pollux. Up there in that frost, time has stopped. No one deals with anything there. And they don't dare go there. But down here? It's different..."
She paused and her gaze scanned his face. "Humans aren't native here. They came from somewhere a long time ago and took what they wanted. The rest they turned into Clay. You are similar to them. No horns, no fur, no instincts. You seem so smooth that it's suspicious in this filth. To every drifter we meet, you're the face of the corporation that took his river and gave him dust instead."
During the following days, they met several small caravans. They were mere shadows in the dust. Pollux watched a group of Lupos dragging a cart with a broken wheel. Their ears were drooping, their fur dull and matted with sweat. As they passed, one of the older workers spat toward Pollux. The phlegm immediately disappeared into the grey dust of the road.
"See that?" Ash nodded toward those leaving. "They don't see a boy who doesn't know where he's going. They see a symbol. They see the one who invented taxes, limiters, and who sends them mercenaries when they ask for more water. For them, you are Human. And a human on Velthar means you will lose something else."
Pollux lowered his head. He felt guilty for something he hadn't committed. Every step in that grueling, dry wasteland reminded him that he was an outcast in both worlds. In Skeldar, he was too "different" to be one of them, and here he was too "human" to be accepted.
The march continued in agonizing silence. The landscape didn't change—only the rocks were slightly sharper and the shadows under the overhangs grew fewer. His only companion was the smell of sweat, which began to fade as they approached Tarnov, and Ash's cold shadow pulling him forward through this dead zone of the world.
The sun beat down on the shale rocks and the dry air parched their throats. The last of the water supplies had run out two days ago, and Pollux felt his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Ash constantly scanned the horizon, her red eyes narrowing to thin slits in the harsh light.
"There," Ash pointed toward a lone concrete monolith rising from the ground like a rotten tooth. It was an old AQUA-PURITY corporation pumping station, enclosed by a high fence with barbed wire.
"It's locked," Pollux noted when they reached the gate. He sensed something pulsing quietly deep beneath them—the remains of pressure in the pipes that no one had completely shut off yet.
"The lock is the least of the problems," Ash snapped, taking the submachine gun off her shoulder. "That terminal on the post has a sensor. If you stick a hand there without a chip, it'll set off a siren they'll hear as far as Tarnov. And I'm not in the mood for a chase with a patrol today."
Pollux stepped toward the terminal. It was battered, covered in a layer of greasy dust. He placed his palm on it. The moment his skin touched the metal, he felt a slight tingling. Inside the device, it was boiling—old circuits trying to process data, but stuck in an endless loop of errors.
"Don't try it with force," Ash warned him while she alertly watched the surroundings. "If you overload that system, it'll close the valves for good."
Pollux barely registered her. He focused on that quiet rhythm inside. It wasn't "persuasion," more just a gentle nudge. He felt a high-pitched tone in his head trying to align with the terminal's frequency. He pushed on that one specific connection he knew was holding the magnetic valve shut.
Suddenly, a metallic click came from the depths of the machine. The pipe beneath them groaned deeply, and a thin, brownish stream of water began to flow from the rusted tap on the side.
"You're lucky, Investment," Ash muttered and immediately slid a scratched canteen under the tap. "The rust will wash away in time. Drink only enough to survive. This water tastes of metal and corporate greed, but you won't find any other here."
Pollux cupped the water in his palms. It was lukewarm and indeed smelled of iron, but at that moment, it was the best thing he had ever drunk. He felt something inside him calm down as that stream of water passed down his throat.
"Why don't they just let it flow?" he asked as he wiped his wet lips. "In Skeldar, water belongs to everyone. It's in the rivers, it's in the snow..."
"Because in Skeldar people are stupid and think the world is infinite," Ash hid her canteen and kicked the dust beneath her feet. "Here on the Clay, water is a commodity. If you control the valve, you control lives. AQUA-PURITY knows that better than anyone. Now turn that thing off before someone in the central office notices a drop in pressure."
Pollux placed his hand on the terminal again and let that quiet tone in his head fade out. The water stopped flowing.
"Let's go," Ash commanded. "Tarnov is close now. Smell that? It's not just dust. It's burnt ozone and the sweat of thousands of races eking out a living for a few credits. That's where your upbringing ends, Pollux. Whether you like it or not."
They walked on. The road was grueling, dry, and quiet. But now, with canteens full of bitter water, the horizon of Tarnov seemed slightly less hostile, though Pollux knew that in the noise of that city, his azure eyes would have nowhere to hide.
Night in the wasteland beneath the cliffs was not quiet. The wind chased between the rocks, creating wailing sounds that reminded Pollux of distant voices. They camped in a narrow crevice where their fire, just a small pile of smouldering embers, cast almost no light into the surroundings.
Ash wasn't sleeping. Or at least it looked that way. She sat leaning against a rock, her submachine gun laid across her knees, and her red eyes didn't glint in the dark—instead, they absorbed what little light remained. Pollux tried to calm his breathing. He sensed his inner restlessness increasing. It wasn't just because of the cold; it was something in the air. A static charge that didn't match the rhythm of the wind. He felt new variables that didn't belong in the previous calm.
"Someone is here," Pollux whispered.
Ash didn't move. "I know. I smell them. Sweat, old grease, and cheap gun oil. Nomads. Vultures waiting for someone to close their eyes on this road."
A rasp of stone against stone came from the darkness. A second later, five figures emerged from the shadows. They weren't soldiers in clean uniforms, but outcasts—a mixture of races united by hunger and hatred. At their head stood a massive man with Lupo ears and a tail. His eyes glinted in the starlight of the night. He had a scarred face and held a thick iron bar wrapped in wire.
"Nice coat, boy," he rasped, his gaze sliding to Pollux. "Throw us everything you have, and maybe we'll let you keep walking on foot."
Ash slowly stood up. "Your judgment is off, puppy. This coat is too small for you, and I have very short patience today." She tilted her head provocatively and threw a fleeting glance at Pollux. He knew what she intended. His heart rate quickened.
"Kill her!" he roared.
Pollux saw the scene break into fragments. In a fraction of a second, hyperperception mapped out the trajectories of their movement. He saw one of the attackers, a short Felin, drawing a knife. He sensed the tension in the joint of his arm.
Ash didn't wait. She hit the first attacker in the jaw with the butt of the submachine gun before he could even scream. Pollux heard the crack of bone—a dry, disgusting sound that carried through the night. The second nomad fired an old crossbow. Pollux reflexively jerked his head, and the bolt flew mere millimetres from his ear. In that moment, something inside him switched. The world slowed down. He saw another bolt jam inside the mechanism of that crossbow. He felt the tension of the string.
"Watch out!" Pollux shouted and slammed his shoulder into the attacker with the knife who lunged at Ash from behind. He used his weight, exactly as Fenryr had taught him, and threw him against the sharp edge of a rock. The man hit the ground with a muffled groan. Pollux felt a tingling in his palms—not from the impact, but from how his inner energy was trying to find a way out, though he himself had no idea what it was.
Ash, meanwhile, danced in the midst of the chaos. For her, no rules existed. She drove her knee into one man's ribs, with her other hand she drew a knife and with a short, precise cut, disabled the arm of the attacker holding the bar.
"Stop!" Pollux shouted when he saw Ash's face. In her red eyes, there was no anger. There was a cold, professional killer who enjoyed being able to silence the noise of the world with her own brutality. The man fell to his knees, clutching his arm from which dark blood flowed into the dust.
"I hate vultures," Ash hissed and pressed the barrel of the submachine gun to his head. "Did you think we were easy prey because this one looks like he needs a nanny? On this Clay, no one is innocent."
"Leave him, Ash," Pollux stepped toward her and placed his hand on the barrel. "They won't hurt us anymore. Look at them. They're just hungry wrecks."
Ash looked at him with such intensity it made him feel nauseous. Then she slowly lowered the weapon. "You're weak, Investment. Skeldar made you into someone who has compassion where he should only have the instinct for survival. These wrecks would slit your throat for a gulp of water if they had the chance."
The other Nomads who were still on their feet scattered into the darkness, leaving their leader in the dust. Ash wiped her knife on the man's coat and tucked it away again.
"Get lost," she commanded curtly. "Blood in this wasteland attracts worse things than these amateurs. And you, Pollux... next time save your breath for running, not for pleas for mercy."
Ash picked up her things and headed east. For the rest of the night, they walked in total silence.