Vincent woke to smoke, pain, and voices he did not know.
Not loud voices.
Camp voices.
People working while pretending not to watch him.
The world came back in layers: rough hide beneath his shoulder, a woven blanket that smelled of resin and old ash, low firelight flickering through stitched seams of tent cloth, and the cold ache of a body that had been chased, clawed, drowned, bound, and judged within the same stretch of time.
His eyes opened fully.
The tent ceiling was low.
Good.
Not a healer's pavilion, then.
No waste.
No comfort meant to flatter him into gratitude.
He pushed himself up on one elbow and immediately regretted it.
Pain flared through his side where the red predator had caught him. His shoulders ached from the river. His lungs still felt lined with cold water. The gauntlet on his left hand sat dark against his skin, the gem dim but awake.
A voice from the tent entrance said, "If you tear the stitching, I let the cold finish you."
Vincent turned his head.
The Shaman sat just outside the tent flap with one knee drawn up, bone charms hanging still against layered cloth. Morning had deepened since his last clear memory, though the light filtering through the camp remained subdued beneath the trees.
So he had slept longer than he liked.
The old man did not look at Vincent first.
He looked at the gauntlet.
Then at Vincent's face.
"You lived," he said.
Vincent leaned back carefully against the rolled blanket behind him.
"So far."
The Shaman's expression suggested this answer had placed him neither higher nor lower in the old man's estimation.
He handed a wooden cup through the opening.
Vincent took it with his right hand.
The liquid inside was bitter, hot, and medicinal in the blunt way of people who treated effect as sufficient apology for taste.
He drank it anyway.
The warmth reached his stomach and stayed there like an argument.
"Where is Julia?" he asked.
"Alive."
Not enough.
Vincent waited.
The Shaman sighed once, as if younger men mistook brevity for mystery too often.
"Under watch."
That tracked.
"Serya?"
The old man glanced at him then, properly.
"You learn quickly."
"I prefer names to surprises."
"That is wise in forests," the Shaman said. "Less useful in people."
Vincent finished the bitter drink and set the cup down beside him.
His breathing had steadied somewhat, but the weakness remained. That mattered. The gauntlet had not fed since the river chase and the surge from the larger dungeon creature had long since faded. What remained now was the ordinary poor baseline of this body—slightly improved from when he first woke in Aldebaran, still nowhere near what survival demanded.
Temporary, he reminded himself again.
Always temporary.
The Shaman watched him watching his own hand.
"You feel the difference."
"Yes."
"And the absence."
"Yes."
The old man nodded as if confirming something he had expected.
"Good."
Vincent looked up. "Good?"
"If you could not tell hunger from strength, there would be no point speaking to you."
That was fair.
Outside, feet moved past the tent. Someone laughed briefly, then stopped when they remembered where they were walking. A pot lid clinked near one of the fires. Somewhere farther out, a spear haft knocked twice against wood.
The camp was working.
Which meant they had not decided he was urgent enough to stop living around.
Useful.
The Shaman shifted slightly, enough to show age in the joints before stillness hid it again.
"The woman asked about your servant."
"Taliah."
"Yes."
"And?"
"She wanted to know whether you could stand before she decided how much trouble you were worth."
Vincent almost smiled.
A competent leader.
Unpleasant.
Reliable.
Good.
He moved the blanket aside and swung his legs toward the tent opening.
The world tilted slightly.
Manageable.
The Shaman noticed.
Said nothing.
Vincent stood in stages rather than all at once, which was the sort of concession to weakness he despised and obeyed anyway.
Cold morning air met him at the flap.
The Dayakan camp was already in motion.
Low tents ringed the fires. Meat racks stood on the far side beneath watchful eyes. Two hunters repaired snare cord. A child no older than ten carried kindling without being asked twice. Several adults looked up when Vincent emerged, not with curiosity but with the same controlled wariness given to wounded animals and unstable tools.
Julia was seated near the second fire with her wrists untied but a spear planted in the earth close enough to make the arrangement clear. Serya sat opposite her, cleaning a knife with exaggerated attention that fooled no one.
Julia looked up first.
Their eyes met.
She did not smile.
He did not ask if she was all right.
Neither gesture would have improved anything here.
Serya noticed the exchange and clicked her tongue once.
"So the river didn't keep you after all."
Vincent stepped fully out of the tent.
"No."
Serya's gaze dropped at once to the gauntlet.
Suspicion first. Then dislike remembering itself.
"Pity," she muttered.
Julia's expression sharpened.
Before she could answer, Vincent said, "Your camp seems kind."
Serya looked up, caught the dryness in his tone, and narrowed her eyes.
Good. Better that way. Hostility was easier to map than forced civility.
Taliah approached from the far side of the central fire. No one announced her. The camp simply made room around the fact of her movement.
She stopped in front of Vincent and considered him the way one might consider a blade that had not yet proved whether it would keep its edge or shatter on first impact.
"You're standing," she said.
"Yes."
"That makes you useful enough to question."
Vincent inclined his head very slightly. "Then question."
Taliah's eyes cut once toward the Shaman.
He rose without visible hurry and came to stand beside the fire, close enough for the others to hear without making this look like a ritual.
That meant it was worse than a ritual.
It was practical.
Taliah folded her arms. "You said that thing drinks taint."
"Yes."
"You said it stabilized you."
"Yes."
She nodded once, accepting the consistency.
The Shaman crouched by the fire and used one stick to pull a small clay bowl from the coals at the edge. Black sludge clung to the inside.
Vincent smelled it before he understood it.
Taint.
Not fresh like the dungeon creatures.
Stored.
Concentrated.
The gauntlet pulsed once.
Hungry.
The camp noticed.
Several hunters shifted at the same time.
Serya half rose before Taliah's glance pushed her back down.
Vincent looked at the bowl, then at the Shaman.
"You keep it."
The old man answered calmly, "We study what tries to kill us."
Reasonable.
Also dangerous.
The Shaman set the bowl on a flat stone between them.
No one stepped closer.
Good.
This part they took seriously.
Taliah said, "A boar caught one of our perimeter snares three nights ago. Half its body had already gone wrong. The meat twisted before death. The blood tried to move after it spilled."
Julia's mouth tightened.
Serya did not look surprised.
So this was normal enough here to be named without drama.
Taliah continued, "We burned the body. Kept a little of what clung to the trap. The Shaman said it might speak if the right thing touched it."
Her gaze dropped to Vincent's hand.
"Now we see if your mouth can eat smoke."
Straightforward.
Brutal.
Useful.
Vincent looked at the black sludge in the bowl.
The gauntlet wanted it.
That was the most immediate truth in the camp.
Not because the gem brightened. It didn't.
Because the cold in his arm sharpened, and beneath that cold something in the sealed metal leaned toward the thing like a starving hound scenting blood.
This was different from killing corrupted creatures.
No body.
No strike.
No fight to justify the feed.
Just choice.
Julia saw it in his face.
"My Lord," she said quietly.
Every head in the camp turned to her for using the title.
Serya's knife stopped moving.
Vincent did not look away from the bowl.
Interesting, he thought.
Even now she chooses the old world for him.
The choice mattered.
He filed it away.
The Shaman watched him too closely to miss the thought passing through.
"Does it need death?" the old man asked.
Vincent answered honestly. "I don't know."
"That is why we test."
Serya stood this time despite herself. "Or we could not feed camp poison to the stranger's curse."
Taliah did not turn toward her daughter. "If you have a better answer, offer it."
Serya's mouth tightened shut.
None came.
There it was.
Need over disgust.
Vincent crouched slowly by the stone.
His side pulled. His legs complained. The camp around him tightened into silence so complete the fire's soft crackle sounded immodest.
He extended the gauntlet.
Stopped an inch above the bowl.
Cold struck first.
The gem pulsed.
Hard.
The black sludge in the bowl trembled.
The entire camp saw that.
Someone inhaled sharply through the nose. Someone else muttered a word Vincent didn't know and did not need translated to understand meant bad omen.
Julia's hands had gone still in her lap.
Serya's knife no longer moved at all.
Vincent touched the surface.
The reaction was immediate.
The sludge recoiled upward as if boiling backward, lifting in thin twisting strands toward the scales. The gauntlet drank them greedily, not in one smooth pull but in a series of hard, ugly pulses. Each pulse drove a line of ice farther into Vincent's forearm. The metallic taste flooded his mouth again, harsher than before.
Too concentrated.
No buffer of flesh, struggle, or kill.
Raw taint.
The bowl cracked.
A dark vein ran through the clay and split it in two.
The remaining sludge shriveled instantly into dry black flakes.
The gem at Vincent's wrist flared under the dark surface, deepening from dim ember to a denser, more awake glow.
Then the backlash hit.
His breath locked.
The camp blurred for half a second. The cold in his arm shot to his shoulder. A tremor ran through his hand hard enough that the scales clicked faintly against each other.
Julia was up before anyone else.
"My Lord—"
Serya moved too, but toward Julia, not Vincent, one forearm snapping out to block her path.
The Shaman grabbed Vincent's wrist.
His fingers pressed at the pulse point above the spread of scales. His eyes sharpened.
Taliah said, "Well?"
The old man did not release him immediately.
Then, slowly: "It worked."
That landed heavily.
Taliah's expression did not soften. It became more dangerous.
"What did it do to him?"
The Shaman looked from the gauntlet to Vincent's face.
"He took the taint."
Vincent forced his breathing to unlock.
Once.
Twice.
The third inhale came easier.
The fourth steadier.
The weakness in his legs receded slightly. The tearing cold in his side dulled. His thoughts sharpened.
Stabilization.
Yes.
But beneath it—
the hunger intensified.
The raw taint had not simply fed the gauntlet. It had excited it.
Worse, Vincent could feel residue under the gain, something unsettled moving beneath the temporary steadiness, as if the thing inside his arm had swallowed too fast and now wanted more to smooth the first mouthful into place.
He pulled his wrist gently from the Shaman's grip and stood.
This time it was easier than it should have been.
That confirmed the test.
Also worsened it.
Taliah saw both facts at once.
"You look stronger."
"Temporary," Vincent said.
The Shaman nodded as if pleased he had said it before being asked.
Serya's face had gone harder, not calmer.
"So now what?" she demanded. "We keep feeding him taint until he becomes whatever that thing wants?"
Julia snapped, "And your better plan is what?"
Serya rounded on her. "Not bringing it into our fire!"
Julia took one step forward despite the warning spears nearby.
"We didn't come here by invitation."
"Enough," Taliah said.
Both young women fell silent, though neither looked as if silence had improved the conversation.
Taliah's attention returned to Vincent.
"You said it stabilizes you."
"Yes."
"You said it wants more."
"Yes."
She looked at the broken bowl.
Then toward the darker edges of camp where the forest began.
"We have people who come back touched."
There.
The real hook beneath the test.
The camp heard the words and did not react with surprise. That meant the problem ran deeper than one incident.
The Shaman lowered himself to sit on the flat stone again. Weariness showed around his eyes now, not dramatic, just old.
"We cut rot from flesh when we can," he said. "Sometimes it takes. Sometimes it returns. Sometimes it spreads where knives cannot follow."
Vincent's eyes narrowed.
Internal taint.
Wounds.
Contamination.
A tribe surviving inside a sick forest would produce exactly that.
Taliah said, "If the gauntlet can draw it out—"
Serya cut in, horrified. "Mother."
Taliah did not look at her. "If."
The Shaman spoke before the argument could sharpen.
"Not yet."
That stopped more than Serya.
Taliah turned to him. "Why?"
"Because it fed on dead taint and nearly shook him apart," the old man said. "Because we do not know whether it removes corruption or only relocates it. Because mouths that eat filth do not become clean by doing so."
Reasonable.
Annoying.
Correct.
Vincent respected him more for all three.
Taliah absorbed the answer and filed it rather than fighting it.
Good leader, again.
The wrong kind to have as an enemy.
Or perhaps the only kind worth having as an ally.
The Shaman lifted his chin toward Vincent.
"Walk."
Vincent did.
Three paces across the firelight. Turn. Three back.
The camp watched every step.
His body felt better.
That was undeniable.
Too much better for one bowl of captured taint.
The cost hid under the benefit, waiting.
When he stopped, the old man nodded to himself.
"Useful," he said quietly.
Serya looked sickened by the word.
Julia looked like she wanted to demand a better one and knew none existed.
Taliah's eyes hardened into decision.
"He stays," she said.
Serya's head snapped toward her mother.
Taliah continued over it.
"Under guard. Under the Shaman's eye. The maid stays with the women until I decide she is less trouble alive than tied."
Julia stiffened but said nothing. Good.
Taliah's gaze settled on Vincent one last time.
"If your gauntlet can become a sink for what poisons this forest, then you may yet buy your place at this fire."
Her tone did not warm.
"And if it cannot…"
She did not finish.
She didn't need to.
Serya did it for her under her breath.
"Then we kill the mouth before it learns to feed on us."
The Shaman heard her.
So did Vincent.
He met the old man's eyes across the fire.
The Shaman's expression did not change, but when he spoke, his voice carried enough for all of them this time.
"It is not only the mouth we must watch."
He looked down at the gauntlet.
Then back up at Vincent.
"It is whether the man inside it begins to like being fed."
That landed harder than any threat in the camp.
Because it was the correct danger.
The temptation to turn hunger into method and method into self.
Vincent stood in the Dayakan firelight, body steadier than it had been an hour ago, left arm colder than it had any right to be, and understood the shape of the road opening in front of him.
A tribe that needed a cure.
A gauntlet that wanted more.
A forest full of taint.
And one old man wise enough to know that saving others and feeding the thing on his arm might become difficult to separate.
Julia's eyes found his across the fire.
Steady.
Worried.
Still with him.
Good.
He would need that.
Because the test had succeeded just enough to become dangerous.
And tomorrow, or the day after, someone in Dayakan would ask the next question.
Not whether the gauntlet could drink taint.
But whose body should be offered first.