Deep in the ancient forests of southeastern Lothara, where the canopy hung heavy like a shroud and the trees stood older than any kingdom, a road wound quietly through the wilderness. The path was narrow, worn by time and forgotten boots, flanked by moss-covered stones and silent, watching woods.

  Along this forgotten road walked a pair of monsters.

  The first was an orc—but unlike any orc known to the borderlands. Towering and broad as a siege tower, he moved with the quiet certainty of an avalanche just beginning to shift. His skin was a dark, stormy green mottled with scars and ritual burns, and the light armor clinging to his form looked more decorative than necessary. Across his back, a greataxe nearly the size of a grown man rested in a rune-etched sheath, yet it was clear to any who might’ve been watching that he didn’t need it.

  Every step cracked the stone beneath his feet.

  He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His silence said enough.

  Beside him walked a barefoot woman in casual, thread-worn clothing—a faded blouse tucked loosely into travel-worn breeches that clung to her like silk. Her feet made no sound against the forest floor, and her long crimson hair danced in the breeze like strands of flame. She walked with an effortless, predatory grace, hands swaying loosely by her sides, humming an old tune in a language long since lost.

  Where Zorok was weight and war, she was shadow and song.

  “Oh, can you believe it, Zorok?” she said suddenly, twirling once in place, arms lifted to the branches above. “Father’s entrusted us with the prince of Lothara. Not geralt, not Quen, nor any of those other dreary little worms. Us.”

  Zorok gave no response.

  Derain turned her head toward him with a smirk.

  “I know, I know. You’re thinking it’s beneath us. But I rather like the idea. Imagine how pleased Father will be when we drag that boy back in chains—or better yet, when he comes willingly. All I have to do is talk to him.” She paused, silver eyes gleaming like daggers. “A smile. A whisper. Maybe a tear or two, if he’s the soft kind. And poof—he’ll follow me like a moth to the flame.”

  Zorok grunted. A single, heavy sound that could’ve meant anything: agreement, indifference, or the urge to smash something nearby.

  Derain grinned wider.

  “Oh, don’t be such a sour beast,” she said playfully. “Father chose us because we’re better than the others. Stronger. Smarter. Scarier.”

  Zorok’s next step struck the ground so hard the nearby trees shook, and cracks spidered outward from the impact.

  She opened her mouth to continue—but the words died on her tongue.

  A wave of frost tore through the underbrush like a striking serpent, white and vicious. It surged across the road in a heartbeat, wrapping itself around Zorok’s legs, torso, arms—encasing him in jagged ice that erupted upward like crystalline fangs.

  In less than a breath, the monstrous general was frozen solid.

  The birds had stopped singing.

  The air turned brittle.

  Derain blinked slowly and tilted her head at the enormous sculpture of ice where her half-brother had stood.

  Then her lips curled into a mischievous smile.

  “Well,” she whispered, eyes glinting with quiet amusement, “that was rude.”

  The forest exhaled—and the wolves emerged.

  From the brambles, shadows took shape. One by one, the bandits stepped into the clearing, surrounding the ice-entombed orc and the barefoot woman beside him with a confidence born of numbers and false understanding.

  Twelve in total.

  Two mages stood near the rear—one crackling with residual frost magic, fingers stained with blue light, while the other traced glyphs midair with trembling concentration. Four archers took up position in the trees, bows drawn and nocked, their arrows trained not on Zorok, but on the far more delicate-looking figure of Derain. Three swordsmen advanced from the front, armor mismatched, blades sharp and well-worn.

  Then came the magi-humans.

  Three of them stalked forward with the poise of predators, each radiating a different type of innate power. One’s hands blazed with fire, the flickering glow licking up his wrists as his boots scorched the dirt beneath him. Another’s skin crackled with arcing lines of electricity, energy dancing along his limbs in short, savage bursts. The third—silent and thickly muscled—had glowing veins pulsating with golden light, bulging beneath his skin like rivers of molten strength. He grinned, teeth sharpened by enchantment or mutation.

  But it was the swordsman in front who approached Derain with the most gall.

  He chuckled as he sheathed his weapon halfway, swaggering toward her with a leer plastered across his unshaven face. "You’re all alone now, girl," he said, cocky and sure. "That ice is the real deal. Your big green friend’s not gettin’ out anytime soon. So here’s how this goes."

  He stopped in front of her, close enough to touch, eyes dragging across her body.

  "You hand over all your gold," he continued, voice dropping to something slick and suggestive, "and maybe… just maybe… you give us a little something extra."

  Laughter broke out behind him. A few of the others hooted, already imagining the end of a scene they thought was theirs to direct.

  Derain's smile was slow and poisonous.

  She took a step forward—fluid, unthreatening. One hand rested gently on the man’s chest, the other slid up to his arm with a touch as soft as silk. The swordsman’s smirk deepened.

  "Aren’t you smooth?" she whispered, silver eyes gleaming like mirrored daggers. "That’s an interesting offer... Maybe..."

  She leaned in.

  Her lips brushed the shell of his ear. She whispered something—something none of the others heard.

  The change was instant.

  The smirk on his face drained into confusion. Then fear. His jaw quivered. His eyes widened, glassing over with tears that spilled without resistance. A full-body shudder rolled through him.

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  Derain stepped back, hands returning to her sides, her smile sharp and flawless.

  "Boss?" one of the archers called out. "Everything good?"

  The swordsman didn’t answer.

  He turned, eyes wide with horror. Without a word, he drew his blade fully—not toward Derain, but toward himself.

  And stabbed it clean through his own throat.

  Blood sprayed in a sudden arc. He staggered backward, gasping wetly as he collapsed, convulsing on the forest floor.

  The clearing erupted in chaos.

  “What the fuck was that?!”

  “She didn’t even touch him!”

  “Was that a spell?!”

  The fire magi-human pointed at Derain with one flaming hand, eyes wide. “What the fuck did you just do?!”

  Derain tilted her head with a small shrug.

  “What I do best,” she said sweetly. “Now it’s time for my brother to do what he does best.”

  A sound followed—deep, guttural, and wrong.

  The bandits froze.

  A low crack echoed from the ice—slow at first, like the groaning of stone under pressure. Then another. Then another.

  Hairline fractures crept across the surface of the frozen pillar, but they didn’t glow with heat or magic. No spell unraveling the prison.

  Just force.

  Raw, unrelenting force.

  The bandits turned, weapons raised too late.

  The ice exploded.

  With a thunderous shatter, jagged shards burst in every direction. One mage went down screaming, a spike of ice driven through his shoulder. An archer fell from a tree as a shard ripped open his thigh. The rest dove back, eyes wide.

  From the heart of the destruction, Zorok stepped out.

  Steam hissed from his skin—not from heat, but from the sheer effort of moving through frozen death like it wasn’t there. His shoulders rolled. His breathing was calm.

  Not strained.

  Not fatigued.

  He had broken free easily—and had simply chosen not to do so until now.

  His yellow eyes swept the clearing, taking in every face.

  There was no roar. No warcry.

  Just a glare.

  Then he charged.

  The frost mage reacted quickly—hands flying up, mouth spilling syllables in a frantic chant. Ice blossomed beneath his feet, then erupted outward in a jagged wave toward the advancing orc. Shards of freezing crystal surged over Zorok’s arm and shoulder, encasing them in gleaming blue like a gauntlet of winter.

  It did nothing.

  Zorok didn’t stop.

  The mage’s eyes widened as his spell locked into place, sealing the orc’s limb in thick ice—only to watch it crack and fracture around bulging muscle as if the frost were nothing more than morning dew.

  Zorok reached him.

  With a guttural snarl, he swung his frozen arm into the mage’s chest.

  The impact was like a battering ram. Ice and ribs exploded in the same breath. The frost mage flew backward through the air, limbs limp, body folding around a tree with a sickening snap as the ice shattered around Zorok’s arm like brittle glass.

  Without pause, the orc turned.

  The second mage was on the ground, screaming—an ice shard lodged deep in his shoulder from the earlier explosion. He tried to crawl. Tried to summon another spell.

  Zorok grabbed him by the ankles.

  With a single, merciless pull, he bent the mage in half at the spine. Bones cracked through skin. A final scream burst from the man’s throat—cut short as Zorok hurled the ruined body aside like refuse.

  That’s when the bandits broke.

  Panic shattered whatever cohesion they had left.

  Arrows launched from the treeline. Bolts of fire and lightning arced across the frost-glazed clearing in chaotic bursts. Flames licked across Zorok’s chest. Electricity coiled around his arms.

  He didn’t flinch.

  Not even a blink.

  He scanned the battlefield with measured, predatory calm—then chose his next target.

  He barreled forward with inhuman speed, slamming into a cluster of archers and swordsmen like a falling tower. One archer barely had time to scream before he was backhanded across the face, his skull folding inward like wet parchment. A swordsman lunged. Zorok caught the blade with one hand and ripped it from the man’s grasp—then impaled it through the attacker’s mouth with a casual thrust, silencing the scream before it could begin.

  Another tried to run.

  Zorok ripped him from behind by the scalp and drove his knee into the man’s back so hard his ribs tore free from his chest.

  Limbs flew. Blood painted the trees. The screams rang like bells in a church of violence.

  And through it all…

  Derain danced.

  Barefoot and bloodless, she twirled atop the frost-slick ground with her hands behind her back, her crimson hair trailing like silk through the air. Her humming was soft, cheerful—an old lullaby, long forgotten by the world, yet still perfectly remembered by her.

  She spun through the mist as if the massacre were music.

  The lightning magi-human saw her then—staring in disbelief at the serene figure in the eye of the storm. His arms lit with a burst of crackling blue energy, lightning ready to arc—

  But he never got the chance.

  Zorok appeared behind him and grabbed his arm mid-cast, crushing bone in his fist.

  The man howled, body twisting, sparks spitting wildly from his ruined limb. Zorok didn’t release him. He seized the other arm and began to break him—elbow, wrist, collarbone, knee. Each joint snapped with a pop, each scream higher than the last. The orc hoisted the writhing man up like a broken doll.

  That’s when the fire magi-human panicked.

  He sent a searing beam of flame toward Zorok’s back.

  Zorok turned—still holding the lightning mage—and shoved the broken man directly into the path of the fire.

  The screams that followed were something inhuman.

  The fire didn’t stop until the smell of scorched flesh and melted bone filled the clearing.

  The fire magi-human hesitated.

  Zorok took the twitching, blackened husk in both hands, folded it into a ball of crackling limbs and charred muscle—then hurled it across the clearing like a cannonball.

  The body smashed into the fire magi-human with the force of a meteor, slamming them both into a tree. The impact echoed like a thunderclap. Neither rose again.

  Only one remained.

  The last magi-human—his veins glowing green with some unknown energy—charged forward in desperation. He roared as he landed a strike across Zorok’s jaw, the blow echoing through the clearing.

  Zorok turned his head back slowly.

  Unmoved. Unbothered. Unimpressed.

  Then he planted his feet and delivered a thunderous uppercut.

  The magi-human’s head separated from his shoulders with a brutal snap, blood geysering into the air like a fountain. The body stood a moment longer before collapsing.

  Zorok exhaled—a long, low growl rumbling in his throat as he stood in the center of the carnage.

  Corpses littered the frost. Limbs. Weapons. Blood steaming against the cold ground.

  Derain stepped lightly across the battlefield, not a speck of blood on her. She looked radiant amid the ruin.

  “That was fun, wasn’t it, brother?” she asked, her voice like a songbird over a grave.

  Zorok snorted, the sound more beast than man.

  “Now now,” she said, resting a hand briefly against his bloodstained forearm. “We mustn’t linger. We still have a job to do.”

  Zorok grunted low and turned.

  Together, they walked away—two figures vanishing into the misty woods, leaving behind only the dead and the memory of terror.

  No glance back. No remorse.

  Just silence.