EMPIRE OF THE CASTAWAYS

Chapter 2: The Breath Uncategorized

Arc I: The Nameless Child

Ravindra woke before sunrise, as always, as Auratigris had taught him.

Cold bit at his exposed face, the only part of his body not protected by the thick polar bear fur he wore. His breath emerged in small white clouds, dancing in the air before vanishing. Five years living in Frostreach had taught him that sleeping too long meant death, a small body could not store heat like the giant guardian who lay in the corner of the cave, wings folded, breath slow as distant waves.

He sat up slowly, small hand touching the stone beneath him. Still warm. Auratigris always ensured that, her massive body lying on the same stone each night, heating it with Aether flowing through flesh and bone, creating a bed that would not kill a human child in his sleep.

"You're awake." Auratigris's voice rumbled low, gold eye opening though the blue remained closed. "Good. Today you hunt alone."

Ravindra didn't answer. Unlike other human children who might complain or be afraid, though he had never met other children, he knew from Auratigris's stories that they were weak, pampered, useless. He simply stood, checking the bone knife at his waist, ensuring the laces of his boots, sewn from ice fox leather, were still tight.

"Remember the rules." Auratigris raised her head, blue eye now open, both eyes staring with intensity that made even adult predators retreat. "Don't return before you bring meat. Don't kill more than you need. Don't..."

"Don't underestimate anything still breathing." Ravindra finished her sentence, his small voice hard in the quiet cave. Five years hearing the same rules had made them as familiar as his own heartbeat. "I know."

Auratigris snorted, a sound that seemed like a mixture of amusement and approval. "You're too confident for a human your age."

"I'm not a normal human." Ravindra pulled the bear fur hood over his head, steel-gray eyes staring at the guardian without blinking. "You said so."

"I said you are a child cast out by normal humans. That's different." But there was something in Auratigris's tone, pride perhaps, or something approaching it. "Go. The sun won't wait for you."

Ravindra walked to the cave mouth. Morning light was blinding, snow reflecting light with painful intensity, and he had to squint until accustomed. Wind immediately assaulted, trying to tear warmth from his body, but he had already learned to breathe in a special way, short breaths through the nose, hold three seconds, exhale slowly through the mouth. A technique Auratigris taught to conserve body heat.

He stepped out, and the world became endless white.

Frostreach in morning was a painting by mad gods, beautiful and brutal in equal measure. Ice peaks jutted like fangs piercing the sky, their shadows cutting the snow in sharp lines of deep blue. In the distance, he could hear wind howling through chasms, sounds like lost spirits, and occasionally, very rarely, the harsh crack of ice breaking under extreme temperature pressure.

Ravindra began walking, each step calculated. Your feet are too light, Auratigris always said. You leave tracks like a rabbit. Predators will see you from miles away. So he learned to walk like the guardian, foot landing flat, weight distributed, steps making no sound despite the deep snow beneath.

His gray eyes scanned the landscape, searching for signs. Tracks. Droppings. Blood. Anything indicating something lived here besides himself.

One hour passed. Then two.

The sun rose higher, but warmth did not come, Frostreach knew no warmth as normal humans understood it. Only gradations of cold: cold that could be endured, cold that killed slowly, and cold that killed fast.

Then he saw it.

Tracks. Four feet. Small claws. The distance between tracks irregular, animal running or fleeing from something.

Ravindra crouched, touching the track with his finger. Snow around it slightly darker, blood, but already frozen. Wounded, but not fatally. He followed the tracks with his eyes, seeing direction. East. Toward rock formations where wind was less harsh.

Ice fox.

He stood slowly, hand touching the bone knife at his waist. The knife he sharpened himself every night with special stones Auratigris found, the knife that had already killed three snow rabbits and one small eagle, all under the guardian's supervision. But today was different. Today he was alone.

Today, if he failed, he didn't eat.

Ravindra followed the tracks, moving slowly, each step placed carefully to avoid making sound. His breath he controlled, short, measured, minimal mist. Eyes focused. Ears listening. Every sense he possessed stretched taut like a pulled rope.

The rock formation appeared slowly, black volcanic stone jutting from snow like giant fingers reaching for the sky. There was a gap between stones, a place wind could not enter, where small animals hid to survive.

And there, moving slowly at the gap's edge, an ice fox with white fur nearly invisible in snow.

But something was wrong.

The fox was limping. Right hind leg dragging. Blood dripping slowly from a wound on its hip, a gash from a larger predator, perhaps a wolf or ice eagle. This animal was dying. Perhaps would survive one or two more days before infection or another predator finished the job.

Ravindra felt something tighten in his chest. Not pity, Auratigris taught him that pity was a luxury Frostreach did not possess. But recognition. He saw himself in that fox. Wounded. Alone. Fighting to survive in a world that didn't care.

His hand gripped the bone knife tighter.

Auratigris said: Don't hesitate. Hesitation kills you before the enemy can.

Ravindra moved.

He slid from behind the rock, feet landing soundlessly in snow. Ten steps distance. The fox hadn't noticed yet, too focused on the wounded leg, too weak to be alert.

Five steps.

The fox turned, yellow eyes meeting steel-gray eyes.

One second frozen in time. Predator and prey. Child and animal. Two creatures equally struggling not to die in a world that wanted them dead.

Then Ravindra leaped.

The bone knife came down in one swift motion, no hesitation, no pause, straight to the fox's throat. Blood exploded, warm on his small hands already numb from cold. The fox shrieked, a sharp, pitiful sound, then went silent.

Ravindra knelt in snow now red, breath rapid, heart pounding like war drums. His small hand still gripped the knife embedded in the fox's neck, and for the first time since he could remember, he felt something strange in his eyes.

Warm. Wet.

He wasn't crying, Auratigris said crying was a waste of water and heat. But his eyes were damp, and he didn't know why.

"Sorry," he whispered to the fox no longer breathing. A word Auratigris never taught, a word he didn't know where it came from. "Sorry."

He pulled the knife out, cleaned the blood on the fox's fur, then began the taught process: cut the belly, remove organs, save what's edible, discard the rest far away so as not to attract other predators. His hands moved automatically, following instructions repeated thousands of times.

But his mind was not focused.

He kept seeing the fox's yellow eyes. The way it looked at him in that last second, not with hatred, but with acceptance. Like the fox knew this would happen. Like the fox had already surrendered long ago.

Like the infant who didn't cry in the snow five years ago.

Ravindra lifted the fox meat, wrapped in its own skin, tied with gut string, and began the journey back. The sun had already passed zenith. He walked faster now, not caring about tracks, just wanting to return to the cave, to warmth, to Auratigris who might say he did good work.

Or might say nothing at all. The guardian didn't speak much about feelings.

The cave appeared in the distance, a dark mouth in the ice cliff face, like a frozen scream. Ravindra quickened his pace, breath emerging in thick mist, feet almost running now.

He entered within, and warmth greeted him like an embrace.

Auratigris sat in the center of the cave, blue and gold eyes already watching him before he was fully inside. The guardian was silent for a moment, scanning the small body covered in frozen blood, seeing the bundle of meat in his hands.

"You succeeded." Not a question. A statement.

"Yes." Ravindra's voice was hoarse. He placed the meat on the flat stone always used for food preparation, then sat heavily, legs no longer able to support.

"Why were you crying?" The question came suddenly, Auratigris's voice softer than usual, or perhaps Ravindra just wanted to believe so.

"I wasn't..." He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, seeing the wet trace on his fur glove. "I don't know."

Auratigris was silent for a long time. Then, with slow movement, the great guardian moved closer, massive head lowering to the height of the small child sitting on stone. Warm breath smelling of sea and lightning enveloped Ravindra like a blanket.

"Killing for the first time is always hard." Voice like distant thunder, but something in it, understanding perhaps. "Even for predators born for it. For humans with soft hearts, even harder."

"I'm not soft." Ravindra stared at those blue and gold eyes, small jaw tight. "You said I must be hard."

"Hard and soft are not opposites, child." One great claw, which could tear through steel, touched Ravindra's head with impossible gentleness, stroking tangled black hair. "You can be hard in action but soft in heart. That's what separates true warriors from common killers."

Ravindra didn't fully understand. But he nodded, because nodding was what children did to their teachers.

"The fox was wounded," he said quietly. "It was already dying. I only sped it up."

"That's what you tell yourself to make it easier." Auratigris pulled her claw back, eyes not leaving the child's face. "But the truth is you took a life. That's not easy. It shouldn't be easy. The day you kill without feeling anything is the day you stop being human."

Those words sank into silence. Outside, wind howled, a sound already as familiar as heartbeat. Ravindra stared at the fox meat, seeing white fur now stained red.

"Did I do wrong?" His voice small, smaller than he wanted. "Killing it?"

"No." Auratigris's answer was firm, no room for doubt. "You killed to eat. To survive. That's Frostreach's rule. That's the world's rule. What's wrong is killing without purpose, killing for pleasure, killing because you can."

The great guardian stood, turning toward the small fire in the cave corner, fire always burning, maintained with Aether and wood rare at this altitude.

"Tomorrow, you will hunt again. And the day after. And every day after that. Until killing to eat becomes as automatic as breathing." Auratigris stared at the fire, blue and gold eyes reflecting orange light. "But never forget the weight of today. Never forget the weight of the life you took."

Ravindra nodded slowly. He stood, took the fox meat, and began the cooking process, skewering meat on a stick, placing it over fire, waiting for the aroma to rise.

They ate in silence. Fox meat was tough, fatty, with a slightly bitter taste, not pleasant, but filling. Ravindra chewed slowly, tasting each bite, forcing himself to remember that this was the fox he saw running, the fox he killed, the fox now becoming part of him.

As Auratigris taught: Honor what you eat, because one day, you too will be eaten by the world.

Night came quickly in Frostreach. Ravindra lay on the warm stone, small body wrapped in bear fur, head resting on Auratigris's great front paw. The guardian's heartbeat echoed like a drum, constant rhythm always there, always calming.

"Auratigris?" His voice sleepy, half in dreams.

"Hm?"

"Why did you save me?" The question he had long wanted to ask but never dared. "Back then. In the snow. Why didn't you let me die?"

A long silence. So long that Ravindra thought the guardian wouldn't answer.

Then, voice like underwater thunder, so soft:

"Because I saw myself in you. Rejected. Alone. Unwanted by a world too blind to see value." Warm breath enveloped the small child. "And I thought perhaps we who were rejected could create something better than those who rejected us."

Ravindra smiled, a small smile, barely visible in the dark.

"Will we? One day?"

"One day, Ravindra." Gold and blue eyes closed, voice growing quieter. "One day, the world will see its mistake."

And the child who had no nation fell asleep at the foot of the guardian who had no place, both dreaming of the day when they would no longer have to hide at the world's peak.

The day when they would descend. And make the heavens tremble.