Pence hunched at the caravan’s slapdash bar, palms caging his skull, a saw of pain grinding like sand in wood. He drained the last pale, gritty sip. His dog-curled back uncoiled a notch. He lifted a hand and slurred for another. The barkeep snorted, dry as dust. "Dream on. That’s today’s ration, chick."

"Fuck... you... you’re the chick!" He snarled. He slammed the glass with all he had. Only a middling clank rang, like damp tin on stone. The table didn’t dent. The glass didn’t crack. The barkeep rolled his eyes, plucked the cup away, and drifted off like wind over dunes.

Laughter buzzed, faint as flies. Pence couldn’t form a word; knives throbbed at his temples. He sagged to the wood and bit down till blood tasted like rusty rain. How did a man end up a target anyone could kick? His liquor-fogged mind wheeled once, a mirage turning in heat.

Blame that damned black‑haired bitch. If not for her, he’d wake between two naked bodies and walk in a halo of hungry eyes. He’d hold food in a starving desert. He’d be king here.

But once the rumor spread—him lifted like a chick, limp in a woman’s grip, choked till he soiled himself—every mouth clucked at him. Chick, chick, chick. Damn it. Damn, damn, damn.

Yes. She was the root of his misery. All his pain came from that bitch—right? His iron thought blurred, a cloud torn by hot wind. Doubt needled in. If the torment of his mind began that day, what about his body? What about the dread that woke him at night, like teeth gnawing him hollow, like something replacing him from bone outward? When did that start?

At first he still tried to save face with the caravan. When did he start drinking all day and let everything rot? If he remembered right, it was... the first supply town.

Memory rose like heat shimmer. He’d gone in and seen a street girl, bare skin catching sun. She winked, lifted her top, a pink coin against tan. He didn’t know that, elsewhere, the black‑haired woman he hated and the brown‑haired one were fighting a man turned monster. He only knew this was a chance to prove he was a man.

He followed the street girl into a tight alley. In a dark room, her body coiled like a snake. One hand traced circles on his chest. The other pried his jaw apart, cool fingers like hooks. At the peak of male instinct, she opened her mouth, and—

"—Ugh!" The sound ripped out of him. He panted. His pupils pinned. And then? Then what? Why couldn’t he remember? What happened? Since that day, something crawled inside him, itching to hatch. No—something was wrong. Nausea climbed. He jabbed his fingers toward his throat, trying to dig it out—

—What she gave you was bliss, the dignity you deserve as a man.

The voice rose from the deep of his skull. He froze. His gagging hand dropped like a stone. —All your pain is because of the woman named Mira.

The voice was unhurried, like a soft shape leaning over his shoulder, whispering by his ear. —You want to take revenge on her. Prove you’re a real man. Don’t you?

Mira... Mira. So that’s her name. Yes. That bitch is the source. Beat her and—

Beat... her? A buried terror bit down. His temples throbbed like they’d burst. He clutched his head and moaned, a beast under a boot. He didn’t dare. He couldn’t face that woman. He wouldn’t be dangled in the air like a chick again—

—But she isn’t here now, is she?

...?

—Revenge comes in more than one shape.

—There’s another way. It’ll make you happy.

His groan cut off. His eyes went wide. Right. There was that brown‑haired woman.

Black threads of thought spun and knotted. They braided to a point. Pin her down. Defile her. Own her. Do that, and he’d prove he was the only man that mattered here.

Something inside him brewed, fermented, swelled. This time, it tasted like joy. Yes. He wanted her body. He wanted to rip open those soft, beautiful mounds on her chest before everyone, and use a female’s blood to prove himself—

"Hey, hey, you okay?" The barkeep’s voice dropped like a pebble on a pond. Pence’s twitching had spooked the room. Faces shed their smirks and tightened into the fear you save for strange shadows.

Pence lifted his face and felt their wavering eyes. He smiled, slow as a knife unwrapped. Then he stood. He walked, step by step, following the voice in his skull.

**

Adelaide burst into the carriage where the little girl waited. She didn’t speak. Her palm smacked the girl’s belly. Skin met skin. Red light flared like a cut ruby.

A flush swept the girl’s face like dawn. She gagged and vomited. Adelaide, usually fastidious, didn’t flinch. Her gaze pinned the girl’s mouth. A golden flicker flashed. Adelaide grabbed the thing out of the bile like a hawk.

Another red flare. This one burned to ash. What remained in her hand were jagged bits of gold. She stared at the sigil lines etched in the shards, patterns she knew like old scars. Her teeth sank in her lower lip until it went white.

How did I miss it? Same hiding trick as with the draconized man. This time the gold wore a little girl as a cloak. And I fell for it again.

Unacceptable. Not even a flicker of suspicion until now. She’d only seen it because the caretaker woman had been chatty. That woman said someone named Rayati had thrown up three times: once before they went hunting water, once in town, and once the first night after they swapped carriages. Those times matched Adelaide’s own acts: casting a detection sweep, fighting the draconized man in town, and wrapping herself and Mira in protective Blood Magic to surf the dunes.

The pattern tugged an old memory. Some people are born sensitive to chaotic things like Blood Magic. Ripples no one else can feel slam them in waves. The test was simple. Adelaide sacrificed a few hairs. Rayati vomited on the spot. Guess confirmed.

If the girl had thrown up on meeting her too, it meant someone had deliberately layered Blood Magic on the child. But what kind? Adelaide eyed the foul‑smeared gold. The answer sat there. Two arrays hid inside. One was a Silence‑and‑Gag, a net to seal a mind. The other was a short‑range sending spell, a whisper to a chosen ear.

Both were simple, and that was why they’d slipped under her eyelids like sand. The shards were ruined, so she couldn’t read what the whisper said. She turned back to the girl.

"Can you hear me? Do you remember who stuffed these into your belly?" The purple‑haired girl blinked, lost for a heartbeat. Her light‑brown pupils tightened. Clarity came back like a flame catching.

Then Adelaide saw the tears. "Grandpa... Grandma... everyone’s dead... everyone Anta knows is dead!" The dam the sigils had forced on her heart broke all at once. She sobbed, voice raw as scraped skin. Adelaide hugged her tight, a sleeve against wind and grit.

"It’s okay, little Anta. You’re safe with me." When the sobs thinned, Adelaide asked, "I want to help you. Can you tell me what happened in your village?"

Anta sniffed, words snagging on grief. "Everyone went crazy... The dead climbed out of their graves. They killed the living. Then they dragged them underground with them..."

Corpses clawing out... corpse‑refining... and the underground. Did Rayati’s sickness near the village tie to this?

The pieces started to link. Adelaide waited for more. The words died. Anta froze again, body going taut as a bow. She raised a shaking hand and pointed past Adelaide.

"S—someone..."

Adelaide let out a thin, irritated breath. Time was a blade at her neck. She was fitting shards together; she had no room for the naive‑lady act. She stood and turned to drive the intruder off.

She paused for half a beat. She knew him. The man was the food merchant Mira had warned her away from more than once. Why was he here?

Nothing felt off in his aura, but unease pricked like cactus spines. She opened her mouth to stop him. A second figure popped up behind him and grabbed his shoulder first.

"What the hell are you doing! The barkeep said you headed this way and I didn’t believe it. You nuts? Forgot what that lady warned you?" He hauled to drag the merchant back.

The merchant didn’t move an inch. No matter how hard the man pulled, the body was a rooted stake. "What the—"

He didn’t finish. The merchant turned his head to look at him. Creak, creak, creak. Three dry, mechanical snaps ran through his neck. He opened his mouth.

"Watch out!" "You—"

Two cries overlapped. Disbelief blew open the man’s eyes, then terror blackened them. He tried to scream. The sound leaked like a punctured bellows. A long, blood‑tinted spike sheared his windpipe. Blood gushed like a sprung well.

He dropped to his knees. He clutched his throat, fighting off the tide. It was useless. The same spike traced a neat line across his cheek the next breath.

No brittle crack of bone. The spike met no resistance. It parted his skull cleanly into two halves. White matter thudded onto the sand like tofu dumped from a mold. Only then did a child’s scream split the air.

At the same time, a name surfaced in Adelaide’s mind. Bone Eater.