The Winter Wanderer

Determined

The silence inside the medical tent weighed heavier than the rain hammering against the canvas.

Matt stared at the patch of gray frost his finger had left on the map of Sector One. He studied the supply lines from the mines, the patrol routes, and the stronghold where Count Valentin ruled without a care in the world.

His memories twisted, dragging him back two months, to the exact moment when his battered feet first reached the outskirts of the Guild in France.

It hadn’t been an accident that he ended up there.

When Matt left Anadyr in 2016, he hadn’t simply walked to escape the cold. He had walked with a single purpose burned into his mind.

Svetlana used to tell him about her uncle Boris, the only relative who still sent letters from Central Europe. The man who promised her that one day they would see golden summers together.

Matt had crossed an entire continent, begging, fighting, and eating dirt, all for the sake of finding the last connection he had left to the girl who collected polished stones.

But the Boris he found wasn’t some distant relative hiding away on a farm.

Boris was a Transcendent.

A being capable of altering an ecosystem simply by existing. A walking natural disaster who could stitch his own severed limbs back together with threads of Will if an arm were cut off in battle.

He was the undisputed leader of one of the most feared Guilds in the Federation, a titan whom thousands of mercenaries called commander.

When Matt appeared at his borders as a free mercenary—unkempt, a chipped knife hanging from his belt, and the empty stare of someone who had already seen hell—Boris took him in because of Svetlana’s blood and memory.

He gave him a roof, food, and a place among his men.

Matt never truly joined them, though.

He refused to wear the Guild’s uniform. He refused to swear allegiance to the Federation’s cause. And he never accepted payment as one of Boris’s subordinates.

He wasn’t one of them.

He was a lone shadow using the camp as nothing more than a stop along the way before resuming his hunt.

“You got distracted, Matt.”

Boris’s voice dragged him sharply back to the present.

The older Transcendent stood on the other side of the table, his arms crossed. Even restrained, the weight of his aura made the air inside the tent feel as dense as lead.

“You were thinking about how you ended up here,” Boris continued, his eyes fixed on the young man who had only just reached Illumination. “You came looking for a ghost and clung to my name just to keep yourself from dying on the highway. I let you stay because you’re the last witness to what happened to my niece, but you still insist on acting like a free mercenary.

“You’re not one of my people, Matt. If you walk through that door and enter Valentin’s territory, I can’t send the Guild to cover your back. If you fall, the Federation won’t lift a finger for you.”

Matt raised his eyes.

The Illumination in his gray eyes glowed with a terrifying calm.

“I never asked you to send anyone, Boris.”

His hand slowly dropped to the hilt of the kitchen knife strapped to his thigh.

“Valentin killed Svetlana because he was carrying out an order from the Empire. His job was to cause chaos. If you or your Guild get involved, it’ll turn into a faction war.

“But if I go alone… it’ll just be a settling of accounts between an ant and the man who stepped on it.”

Boris stared at him in silence for several seconds.

As a Transcendent, he knew that to the Empire’s hierarchy—to Duke Julio or even King Bastian himself—Matt’s life was worth less than dust on the road.

But he could also see the energy spilling from the boy’s pores: a twisted, bitter, lethal tide forged entirely through pure suffering, without instructors or shortcuts.

“Valentin’s first outpost is guarded by two Illuminated and a dozen Awakened,” Boris said, tapping the map with his knuckle.

“If you’re not one of mine, take whatever you need from the free armory and leave before dawn.”

“I don’t need their weapons,” Matt replied, tightening the straps on his boots.

“I only needed to know where to start cutting.”