"Come sit and rest for a while? Traveling too long in such places is quite tiring." Edwin, noticing she remained standing, feigned thoughtfulness as he beckoned her.

  The place he sat was a felled tree trunk, its branches chopped off for firewood. Though long enough to seat four or five people comfortably, Yvette didn't choose to sit beside him. Instead, she walked toward a slightly more distant tree stump and sat on its uneven surface, chopped rough by an axe - hardly a comfortable seat.

  Still wary, Edwin thought.

  Meanwhile, Yvette was struggling to restrain herself. She feared catching another whiff of that divine nectar flowing through his veins, just like that time in the church - a scent that made her instinctively guard herself.

  Though their intentions differed, their immediate goal aligned: to lull the other's vigilance. Under this tacit understanding, they engaged in amicable conversation.

  "You seem quite young, sir. Traveling alone in the wilderness at this late hour doesn't quite seem like leisure. Work-related, perhaps?"

  "Yes, I'm a geology student currently conducting independent fieldwork for topographic mapping..."

  Just then, the boiling liquid in the small copper pot released the aroma of coffee, triggering an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

  Yvette knew Byzantine coffee was made by boiling ground beans, differing from Western Europe's steeping method. She'd seen Greek-looking foreigners drinking this exotic beverage in specialty cafes, yet this scent was different. Authentic Byzantine coffee usually included spices like cinnamon, but now she strangely imagined Edwin adding raw eggs, chocolate, cream and other heavy ingredients.

  What a bizarre combination, yet why did it feel so familiar... even nostalgic?

  "...Shouldn't you add eggs now? Better still if they're grouse eggs." Yvette murmured absently.

  The thick beverage from finely-ground coffee easily foamed. Standard practice required removing the pot after boiling, repeating thrice. Yet hearing Yvette's comment, Edwin hesitated, allowing boiling foam to overflow.

  "Careful!" Yvette warned.

  "Ah... nighttime fatigue distracted me." Edwin covered awkwardly. "...Why assume I'd add eggs?"

  This was uniquely his homeland's custom.

  Though 'homeland' felt inappropriate - Jews had no true native land. Both Edwin and Radbert were of Jewish descent, part of their eternally scattered people. Their ancestors were among Eastern Europe's Jews. Medieval Western Europe's repeated antisemitic pogroms, including Albion's expulsion edicts, forced many Jews eastward. Yet Kyivan Rus proved equally unwelcoming - Tsars like Ivan the Terrible ordered "one-third expulsion, one-third assimilation, one-third drowning." Edwin's ancestors converted to Orthodoxy, surviving through humiliation.

  Growing up ostracized, the brothers experienced that supernatural outcast alienation early. Even their childhood home felt foreign. Their father, a staunch Zionist imprisoned for seditious writings, became a serf.

  Yet Edwin never shared his father's zealous faith. That destitute man endlessly quoted scriptures about Messiah's coming - how Israelites would return to rebuild ruined cities. Because scripture promised deliverance, Jews prayed faithfully despite persecution, believing salvation would come however delayed.

  How foolish.

  Unconsciously (or perhaps deliberately ignored), this messianic complex profoundly influenced both brothers, transferring later onto the Benevolent Father who rescued them from despair.

  Reflecting now, childhood imprinted more deeply than Edwin realized. Their Byzantine Jewish ancestry preserved this inverted-funnel pot coffee method. Kyivan Rus's cold climate added local twists - eggs, chocolate and cream for calories. As boys, they often gathered grouse eggs in woods for breakfast.

  How could this stranger know such obscure customs?!

  "Surprised? It's rare elsewhere. My older brother often made this growing up. Best with eggs and cream - double sugar normal coffee uses. Add chocolate and butter when affordable. A hot, rich cup in cold weather - nothing more comforting." Yvette smiled innocently.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Radbert...

  The name nearly escaped Edwin's lips. Catching himself, his heart pounded violently.

  Their hair, features, build shared no resemblance. Why had he momentarily seen Radbert in her?!

  "I've heard of this - a Kyivan Rus custom. But you look French. Has it spread there recently?"

  "Not sure - childhood memories." Yvette deflected. "Watching you brew reminded me of my brother. A good man. I'm sure you're similarly reliable? Beloved by siblings?"

  Not exactly.

  Memories flooded Edwin despite his resolve to move forward. He realized he'd remained stationary all along, waiting for the past to find him.

  Once, he was a bookish weakling obsessed with Latin and classics, dreaming of city work as scribe or lawyer's assistant - anything better than farming. Yet rural life demanded firewood-chopping, wheat-reaping, sheep-herding. When he spilled milk or lost lambs, Radbert always covered for him, joining searches in bear-infested woods.

  The Benevolent Father was messiah and spiritual beacon - Radbert represented cherished humanity. Though Doomsday Clock viewed outsiders as livestock, their isolation concentrated emotions into intense fixations on select individuals.

  Thus even cold-blooded Edwin grew erratic after Radbert's death. Though London swarmed with Albion's mystic police, grief drove him to sign vengeful bombings with "Tali·Onis" (invoking lex talionis), leaving a kinslayer's manifesto taunting the Church. All reckless moves.

  "...I had a brother. Wished I'd treated him better. Lost my chance forever." Edwin murmured disjointedly, pouring coffee, unsure why he confessed to a stranger.

  Inside the residence, Radbert wept silently.

  Forgive me brother... I kept you waiting too long.

  But not too late.

  The omnipotent One stirs. She'll judge this world's guilty as snakes shed ill-fitting skins.

  But we'll be saved, brother. Emerging from light in mortal flesh yet unstoppable - for immortality prevails. She's Divinity incarnate, invisible to material beings.

  Yet I'll help you! Time for your false self to die, true self to awaken.

  As Christ died crucified, Orpheus on Hebrus' banks, Krishna by Yamuna, Osiris in Typhon's coffin - alchemy requires decomposition before sublimation. "Only those owning nothing earthly enter Heaven's Kingdom (Matthew)."

  Shed this fleshly robe, brother! End eternal轮回's sorrows! I'll help you.

  Overwhelming sorrow contorted Radbert's face - tears streaming into his grotesquely grinning mouth, mingling with saliva into a horrifying mask.

  The channel opened. Yvette sensed the residence's psychic outpouring, mirroring its yearning.

  "If you'd like, you can pretend I'm him... dear brother."

  As she spoke, whispering echoes infiltrated Edwin's mind - reminiscent of abyssal voices heard during his apotheosis, those cosmic whispers with their enthralling allure toward destruction.

  The youth’s striking features blurred unsettlingly into Ledbetter’s defiant face, throwing Edwin into momentary reverie.

  Just as he moved to pass the Voodoo-spiked coffee to Yvette, his grip tightened convulsively on the cup—as if his very bones rebelled against its consequences.

  "No, Ledbetter... you can’t..." The whisper escaped him like steam from a kettle.

  Then—an unnatural chill spider-walked down his spine, jolting him alert.

  What’s happening to me?!

  His enhanced senses, sharpened by ascension, detected the eerie phosphorescence around them. Not mundane light—this was the residue of active supernatural power.

  Which meant only one thing: the lone figure before him was manipulating his mind.

  He was wrong.

  Yvette’s ability wasn’t mental domination but subtle thermodynamic conversion—shifting ambient heat into harmless subsonic waves. A mere discomfort, nothing more.

  Yet Edwin’s gift had limitations. Like a vandal smashing machinery he couldn’t comprehend, he could perceive and disrupt others’ powers through brute will—but never truly wield them.

  This blindness bred mistakes. The telltale glow made him assume mind control—the one threat "Blood Tribute" couldn’t counter. After all, what use was stealing powers if your enemy could make you swallow your own gun?

  (Oh, how Ledbetter had anticipated this! The boy knew his brother’s stolen "Spatial Voyager" trick—the way Edwin would wink through dimensions like a ghost through walls. Knew those cells beneath Doomsday Clock where supernaturals rotted until Edwin siphoned their gifts dry.

  Knew, too, the horror of the blood doppelg?nger—that cursed false life which rebounded death upon its killer.

  And so he’d chosen this knife that slipped between the ribs of his brother’s defenses.)

  Edwin struck first—a psychic gambit meant to seize and shred imaginary mental bonds. Against a true telepath, it might have worked. Their borrowed powers often outmatched their fragile minds.

  Instead, he grasped at emptiness—and found Yvette’s psychic signature wide open.

  Like a meteor punching through atmosphere, their consciousnesses collided—

  —and in Edwin’s mind, winter’s theater erupted.

  Kievan Rus in deepest frost. The aurora’s emerald veils danced above while black pines stood sentinel. Somewhere, wolves circled.

  "Faster, Ledbetter!" Edwin gasped, knees burning as he hauled his brother through thigh-deep snow. The boy skipped lightly ahead, untouched by drifts that sucked at Edwin like tar.

  (How odd—when had he grown taller than their whip-scarred lord? Why did Ledbetter still wear his childhood face?)

  They spoke of Asgard—of endless summers where trees bled honey. Of divine gifts bought not with gold but blood-purity.

  "Say her name, brother!" Ledbetter’s voice climbed to a shriek between the trees. "Wash yourself crimson to stand stainless before—"

  But the wolves were closer now. Or were those just shadows swaying? The aurora’s light licked hungrily at his resolve.

  He should have sensed the trap. The way Ledbetter’s sermon wove through his fatigue like cyanide through wine. The way winter’s fingers, numb and insistent, pried at his grip on reality.

  Yet even as his pulse hammered warnings, Edwin clung to the dream—because some lies are kinder than the dark.