The Lord of Veins | Shadow Slave

Zerin drew a long breath, the cold air hitting him sharply. The clouds overhead were a gradient, from dark away from him to light, with the moon revealing itself—the comforting light that spilled across stone, washing over the white pelt of the Howler. 

The beast froze. 

A low huff escaped its snout—short and disbelieving. Its head tilted. Its glowing sockets widened.

It was locked onto him, and for that moment nothing moved. 

Maybe whatever faith it had become so meager it had nearly withered to nothing.

Then a whine escaped the creature.

"I'm alive," Zerin said softly, voice steady as he gazed back at the beast.

That was all it needed.

The Howler lunged, but not to strike, but to reach. It towered close, snuffling at his face, its breath warm and ragged.

He turned away, enduring the creature's inspection, but the beast was relentless.

He let the Howler greet him, tolerating its eager affections for a few seconds. Then with a gentle hand on its muzzle, he pushed it back slightly, signaling that enough, was enough.

Evan was the second to emerge from the depths of the tunnel.

"Oh, what the hell is the big guy doing here?" he said, eyes landing on the fanged beast.

His voice drew both Zerin's and the creature's attention, and he barely managed to suppress a grin when he saw them.

"This means we'll be back on track in no time!"

Zerin opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word, his gaze drifted upward. Past Evan, just a few feet up the hillside. The storm's winds whipped.

He froze, eyes locked on the terrible gray mass. It was too dense to see through and too alien to ignore.

Beside him, the Howler stepped away to inspect Evan, but Zerin was indifferent.

He was transfixed.

The silence hit him the hardest. After the noise on the other side, this stillness was jarring.

His eyes were taken up higher, following the spiraling winds as they disappeared into the thick dark clouds.

Still, there was no sound, not even a pull. Just motion.

In those few moments, Cain and Serenity were the last to emerge from the tunnel, stepping into the world beyond.

They, like Evan, were completely oblivious to the storm—

until they followed Zerin's gaze and saw the anomaly themselves.

Serenity staggered back, eyes wide chest rising sharply as she craned her neck up to the towering disaster.

In contrast, Cain barely offered a reaction. Only sparing a glance, stepping forward toward Evan, who was scratching the Howler's chin as it licked his face.

"What had gone with you, big guy?" Evan laughed while getting his face slobbered on before finally separating himself from the Veinborne, wiping the creature's saliva off his face.

After finally cleaning himself off, Evan noticed Zerin was looking away from them, staring at the storm.

"Another strange thing in the Dream Realm?" He asked.

Zerin lowered his gaze and nodded.

He had seen far worse, hadn't he? but this, this felt different.

Cain growled, "What the fuck do you want?" He raised a gray brow at the beast, that was frozen mid-step. Its glowing blue sockets fixed on him.

"Go bother her and leave me the hell out of it," he added, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. 

Serenity turned, catching sight of the Howler. Her brows raising timidly as the beast approached her. "Wha—?"

Cain shook his head, ignoring Serenity's struggles as he stepped over to join Zerin and Evan.

"Control your damn pet... if you want it to keep its hide," Cain spat venomously at Evan.

Evan frowned in confusion, turning his head to Zerin, surprised Cain had misplaced ownership for the beast on him.

"Hey! The thing isn't even min—"

Zerin sighed shaking his head, stepping away from them. He wasn't offended, not in the slightest—he still remembered quite the outcome of their last clash, even if Cain did not.

"Ew... quit it."

Zerin turned hearing Serenity's voice. She stood with her hands up, trying to shield her face as the Howler licked her insistently, to the point even her brown hair was damp.

With a sharp command, Zerin called the Howler to his side.

"Oh Serenity, You still have it?" Zerin asked.

Serenity nodded, tucking a damp strand of hair behind her ear. "Here..."

She held out the bloodied cloth—the crucial piece needed to track Ecluida.

Accepting the cloth, he turned to face the Howler. He held it out in front of the Veinborne.

The Howler lowered itself, its glowing sockets narrowing as it sniffed deeply at the bloodied fabric.

Then, shortly after, a low rumble echoed from the Howler's chest.

Then its eyes widened.

It had found the scent.

The Howler rose, ears twitching, nose aiming toward the source.

Evan patted the beast's shoulder. Its body was rigid as stone, unmoving beneath his palm—a clear testament to the creature's raw strength.

"And... he's good to go," Evan declared.

Yeah, well, I'm running on fumes here," Zerin admitted.

With his Aspect Ability long faded, the energy it once gave him was gone. Now, a heavy exhaustion from everything they'd been through was settling in.

"We can take a couple of hours off. You should get as much rest as possible," Serenity said, with a bit of concern creeping into her voice.

"I think I'll be fine, thanks," Zerin replied. "Just don't let me nod off or anything."

He patted the Howler's shoulder, urging it to start trailing.

In hindsight, maybe this was a terrible idea. But for now? He needed to make time and he wasn't dragging himself along quite yet. He was almost certain he could still keep up.

Evan shrugged and fell in behind the Howler. "Alright... knock yourself out, then."

The others followed as the creature moved, leading them onward.

The path was already carved.

The storm had done it, with force so violent it tore trees from the ground, dug up snow, and flung boulders across the landscape.

What laid in their path was no trail, but a trench gouged into untouched snow by the cyclone.

Absolute devastation.

By all logic, surely no one should have survived. Everything in its path had been obliterated.

Everything—but them.

They continued along the path carved for them, treading upon the trench left behind by the storm. Something that Zerin couldn't deny, left them all equally shaken... yet grateful.

The path unfolded before them like a red carpet, leading up a hill. And once they usurped that minor obstacle they saw the full scope of the destruction. 

They could see where the storm had been born—deep in the expansive forest just down the hill.

They also could see its development—it had grown rapidly, its widening diameter evident in the trench it left behind.

But the most unsettling of all was its final trajectory: a deliberate shift, as if it had chosen them.

To Zerin, it felt naive to call this just another random anomaly of the Dream Realm. 

But what did he really know?

No one else seemed to care anyways.

"You... you see that?" Evan asked, pointing toward the sky. 

Zerin turned slowly, the hairs on his neck rising as he followed Evan's finger aimed at the sky. 

Five pillars of smoke were drifting above the distant treetops into the night sky. 

"Other survivors?" Serenity's voice lifted with hope as she turned to Evan—but her expression faltered when she saw Zerin.

His gaze had dropped, brows knit, as though piecing together some truth he wasn't quite ready to speak.

While they stood there, the Howler didn't. It continued following the scent, trudging forward down the slope toward the distant smoke.