Shadows on the Path

Aga - The Road to Seda

The silvery, shimmering restraints were the true source of his misery. They were not cold metal, but felt strangely alive, humming with a low, constant, parasitic energy that leeched the magic from his very bones. His innate connection to the world, the thrumming life-force of the Maw that he had always felt in the soles of his feet and the marrow of his bones, was gone. Muted. He couldn't feel the network of roots beneath the soil or the distant flow of underground water. The world was silent.

He was hollowed out, frighteningly mundane. A creature of the deep forest, now chained and paraded across the open, rolling farmlands of men. He had never felt so naked, so exposed. The sun, a rare visitor in the Witchwood's dense canopy, was a harsh, unforgiving tyrant in the open sky. It beat down on his head and neck, stinging his skin, a blunt force he could not escape. He was a singer struck deaf, a painter struck blind. The world, once a vibrant symphony of hidden energies and subtle, green-scented truths, was now a flat, silent, and colorless landscape.

His captors were a puzzle he turned over and over in his mind. He studied them with a hunter's patience, the same patience he used to track a shadow-lynx for days. He watched for the flaw, the weakness, the moment of inattention. He observed how they walked, how they spoke to one another, how they reacted to the snap of a twig. He was searching for the gap in their armor, the hesitation in their eyes, the crack in their united front.

The soldier, Gaidan, was the jailer. He was a man carved from hard stone and cynicism, his face a map of old battles. He rode with a rigid, disciplined posture, the leather of his saddle and the steel of his armor groaning quietly with every step of his horse. His hand never strayed far from the pommel of his longsword, and his gaze constantly swept the horizon, assessing every dip in the road, every group of trees, for a potential ambush. He was a wall of quiet, professional menace. He saw Aga not as a man, but as dangerous cargo to be delivered, and it was clear he would put down any threat—including Aga himself—with brutal efficiency.

The woman, Elara, was the scientist. She rode beside Gaidan, but her attention was almost entirely on Aga, her expression one of fierce, analytical curiosity. She stared at him with an unnerving lack of self-consciousness, as if he were a rock formation or a strange insect. "The resonant frequency is unlike any documented catalyst," she would murmur, consulting a strange, brass-and-crystal device that whirred softly. "The Institute will need to dissect his entire methodology." Dissect. The word hung in the air, clinical and cold. She saw him as a remarkable specimen in a jar, a problem to be solved, not a person to be understood.

And then there was Faren. He was the weak link - Aga was certain. The reluctant participant. He walked beside Aga, his scholar's robes already dusty and trail-worn, his face pale and perpetually troubled. He refused to meet Aga's eyes, focusing instead on the ruts in the road or the distant horizon, as if ashamed to be seen. He was a man at war with his own conscience. Aga could feel the guilt radiating from him like heat from a forge, a tangible, suffocating aura. Faren was not a jailer; he was an accomplice, and he hated himself for it. This, Aga knew, was the weakness. This was the crack he might be able to exploit.

On the afternoon of the first day, Aga decided to test that crack. Gaidan and Elara were riding a few yards ahead, deep in a technical conversation about "Etheric gradients." Aga slowed his pace almost imperceptibly, forcing Faren to slow with him, creating a small pocket of isolation.

"The air is cleaner in the woods," Aga said, his voice quiet, meant for Faren alone. It was not a question, but a statement of fact.

Faren started, his gaze snapping from the ground to Aga's face, surprised he had spoken. "I... I suppose it is."

"You do not belong here," Aga said, his voice a low, rough growl. "You are a man of books, not a kidnapper."

Faren flinched as if struck. A flush of anger, shame, and fear warred in his eyes. "I am a scholar of the Institute," he said, his voice tight, defensive. "It is my duty to—"

"To put men in cages?" Aga interrupted. He held up his bound wrists, the silvery restraints glinting with a sickening, vibrant light in the sun. "Does your 'Institute' teach this? To hunt men like beasts?"

Faren's gaze fixed on the restraints, and his resolve seemed to visibly wither. He looked like a man forced to stare at a wound he had inflicted. "We... we didn't hunt you," Faren retorted, his defensiveness a thin, brittle shield. "You nearly leveled a hectare of forest with a chaotic energy discharge. We are trying to understand what you are. To prevent you from hurting yourself, or others."

"I am a father," Aga snarled, taking a half-step closer, forcing Faren to either stand his ground or retreat. The scholar held his place, but his hands were clenched at his sides. The words were ripped from the core of his being, a raw, jagged truth. The thought of Luka, alone with Yaga and her new, terrible belief, was a fresh twist of the knife in his gut. "I need to get back to my son."

Faren’s defensive anger seemed to crumble, collapsing inward. The word 'father' had struck a nerve, a deeper, more personal pain that overshadowed his professional duty. His face went pale. He looked away, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on the smoke of a distant farmhouse.

"I... I have a family," Faren stammered, his voice barely a whisper. "In Seda. My duty is to them."

He refused to say more, turning his face away and quickening his pace to rejoin the others. But his silence for the rest of the day was a wall of guilt, and Aga knew, with a hunter's certainty, that the crack had widened.