The Váracis Erva was void of adversaries that night, so I regaled Seren with tales of various creatures. She was most fixated upon the tale of the Vámpír, bloodsucking creatures of twilight and death.
“Are they human?” She asked, torn between disgust and curiosity.
“They once were, but Vámpír lose their humanity when they turn.” I stopped her with a light touch at her wrist, and we turned back in the direction of home. We had gone far enough for one night.
“Turn?” Seren tilted her head so she could look at me as she walked.
I smiled, pleased by her interest in my world—in the world we now shared. “The Blood Countess is the leader of the Vámpír. It’ssaid that she turns humans into her companions through the fatal sharing of blood. A rather morbid way to make friends, I imagine.”
Seren laughed loudly into the white night.
Our first opponent came days later in the form of a Lidérc, a ghostly creature of malicious and nightmarish intent. The beast flickered in and out of its corporeal form as it shuttered toward us in a flash of brilliant firelight. When it paused its movement, the Lidérc took on an almost human shape which was somehow far worse.
Seren lashed out prematurely. A wave crashed over the underbrush—sending wildlife scurrying—but it did not touch the creature.
“Lidérc cannot be harmed in their incorporeal form,” I explained. “We must wait until it is still and then bind it with our mágik. They cannot be killed, but they can be banished with an impossible task. It will be condemned to wander until it has found another victim to terrorize.”
The Lidérc reached us in a wash of flame, and Seren raised her arms to shield us with a wall of cooling water. The creature backed away, considering. As it stilled, it shifted back into something resembling a man—though its limbs were disjointed, head cocked too far to one side.
We struck in tandem. Bands of silver power wrapped around its limbs like chains and a focused wind battered it to the ground.
“Alright,” I panted, muscles shaking from the effort of holding the Lidérc. Blood rushed through my veins, overthick with adrenaline. “Give it an impossible task.”
“Like what?”
The creature bucked, the jagged bone of its arm slicing through my shoulder with ripping force. I cried out.
“Be creative,” I grunted through the pain.
Seren huffed—eyes wide—and I laughed despite the position in which we found ourselves. Despite the blood which dripped off my elbow into the snow and earth below.
“Lidérc,” Seren called, voice loud with false confidence. “I order you to find a dragon and ride upon its great back.”
The creature shuttered and shifted, reaching for me one more. It lurched toward me, sinking its teeth into my wound for one blindingly painful moment, before jetting off into the night in an arc of blazing fire. It disappeared into the distance, a shooting star of sorts.
“Fuck,” I muttered, cradling my bleeding shoulder.
We trained for days in this manner, battling all sorts of minor beasts. I could not help but admire how well we fought together, especially as our opponents grew more fearsome, and I could not help but look forward to the way we bandaged each other's wounds in the warmth of the firelight.
On our final night in the Váracis Erva, a chilled breeze cut through the trees. Heavy clouds drifted across a full moon. The forest wasalive with activity in the early hours of the evening, until it wasn’t. Bone deep silence settled over us, and the world went dark.
Light bled from the moon, sucked away in a leeching attack as a hound-like figure crossed its path.
“Markoláb,” I whispered, resting my hand against Seren’s forearm as we came to a halt. “We must be cautious.”
“What happened to the moon?” Seren asked, unnerved. Her eyes darted back and forth as she attempted to track the creature in the new dark.
I kept my voice low as we crept forward, approaching the place we had last caught a glimpse of its furred hindquarters. “The Markoláb is a rare beast known to consume the moon and the sun when hunger gnaws at its belly. I have never come across one before, but I have heard tales.”
“Consume?” Seren appeared distressed as she considered this, and I did my best to stifle my laughter.
“It’s only temporary,” I assured her. “The Markoláb returns the moon or sun to its place in the sky when it has absorbed enough energy to continue on.”
“How often does this happen?”
“A handful of times a year.” I shrugged. “The lapse only lasts a few moments.”
Seren hummed a thoughtful sound. I could not tell if she was more impressed or disturbed. She summoned a wisp of silver mágik to light our path, and when the moon returned to its rightful place above us, she did not release her hold over her power.
