Chapter 2:Soul Hunter
1433 Words
The night dragged on, carved by the wind like shards of glass.
Elias had walked until his feet were raw and bleeding, yet he dared not stop.
Every time he slowed, he heard echoes that weren’t there—
his mother’s breath, the crackle of a dying fire, the whisper of her soul being drawn into that white flame.
Sometimes, he thought he could feel her calling his name inside his head.
He tried not to listen. Thinking about souls made his heart tremble.
Before dawn, the wind fell silent.
The forest loomed ahead—tall, black pines heavy with frost.
Through the haze of snow, he spotted a small cabin, half-collapsed under its roof.
A miracle, he thought. At least somewhere to rest.
He pushed open the door. The hinges groaned.
Inside, the air was as cold as a tomb.
A few burlap sacks lay piled in the corner, leftovers from loggers long gone.
He rummaged through them and found a piece of bread—stiff as stone.
“Thank the Light,” he muttered, biting down.
His teeth almost broke. He coughed, tossed it into the ashes, and sighed.
“Maybe it’ll soften up when it burns.”
When the small fire finally caught, the world regained color.
He curled beside it, half asleep, half numb—
until he heard it.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Measured. Metallic.
Not an animal.
Elias froze.
The flicker of firelight revealed a sliver of white through the c***k in the door.
The same kind of light that had devoured his mother.
Collectors? They can’t have tracked me this far…
The footsteps stopped.
The door creaked open.
Snow swept in, snuffing half the fire.
A man stood framed in the doorway—cloaked in gray, armor black beneath it.
On his chest was a broken version of the Church’s symbol, a sigil twisted and incomplete.
A Soul Hunter.
Elias’s pulse hammered.
Hunters were not priests or knights.
They answered only to the Judgment Tower.
Their work was to erase whatever the Church couldn’t cleanse—
whether living or dead.
The man said nothing. He lifted a lantern.
The pale fire spilled across the room, brushing over Elias’s hiding place.
The flame pulsed twice, hesitating.
“No soul-trace?” the man murmured.
Elias pressed himself behind the sacks, breath locked in his chest.
No soul-trace?
Did that mean he had none?
He remembered that flash of light from the night his mother vanished—
a stray beam that had touched him too.
Maybe part of him had been taken.
The Hunter lowered the lamp and stepped inside.
Elias clamped a hand over his mouth.
Above him, something rustled.
“Caw!”
The sound cracked through the silence like a whip.
The Hunter’s head snapped up.
A raven perched on the rafters, black feathers gleaming with blue frost.
“Death’s shadow?” he muttered.
He raised his hand. A circle of pale blue light formed around his fingers—frozen fire.
“Oh no, no, no—” Elias thought.
The light shot upward. The beam smashed into the rafters.
Wood exploded. Muffin shrieked and dove straight into Elias’s chest.
The Hunter turned toward the sound.
“Come out.”
Elias leapt up from behind the sacks, hands raised, voice cracking.
“Wait—! I can explain! I don’t even like birds!”
Another flash of blue light flared.
Elias panicked, grabbed the sack, and hurled it forward.
The beam hit the fabric—and vanished, sucked away as if swallowed.
The Hunter frowned. “A soul-veil? How—?”
Elias had no idea what that meant.
He only knew he wasn’t dead yet.
“Thank you, old sack. You’re my hero.”
He bolted through the door.
Snow exploded under his boots.
“Left! Left!” the raven shrieked overhead.
Elias dove left just as another bolt scorched the ground where he’d been.
The snow hissed and turned black.
He tumbled down a slope, rolling until a dead tree stopped him.
Pain screamed through his ribs.
“I’m still alive,” he wheezed, half laughing.
Then he heard it—the whisper of chains sliding through snow.
Footsteps again, slower this time.
He clenched his teeth, grabbed a branch, and held it in front of him.
“All right,” he muttered, voice shaking, “if I’m going to die, I’ll at least look brave.”
The Hunter emerged from the mist.
The lantern’s glow bent around him like a living thing.
He moved with a calm born of inevitability.
“Mortals aren’t meant to bear two souls,” he said.
“What?” Elias blinked. “Two what?”
The lantern flared, and Elias saw it—
his shadow split in two.
One normal and dark. The other lined with faint blue fire.
“Found you,” the Hunter said softly.
“The disturbance that night—it was you.”
Elias didn’t understand a word.
Then pain lanced through his chest.
Not in flesh—deeper.
Light bled through his shirt, forming a small circle that spun like a heartbeat made of glass.
“I don’t want to die!” he shouted.
The ring burst.
Wind and snow blasted outward.
The Hunter staggered back, eyes wide for the first time.
“An Aether Breath? Impossible—!”
The light around Elias dimmed, pulsing like a frightened animal.
He stared down at it, shaking. “I wasn’t trying to fight! I’m just really scared!”
The Hunter raised his hand again—
but distant hooves thundered through the trees.
A pack of riders emerged from the blizzard, black armor glinting, wolves snarling beneath them.
Banners of the Judgment Tower.
The Hunter cursed under his breath. “Damn it. Inquisitors.”
Elias didn’t wait. He turned and ran.
Branches whipped his face as he tore through the forest.
The wind screamed between the trunks, and the raven followed, flapping frantically above him.
“Stop shouting!” he hissed.
“Caw!”
“I mean it! They’ll hear us!”
“Caw.”
“I swear I’ll feed you bread every day!”
“Caw!”
“…Fine, I take it back!”
They stumbled deeper into the woods.
The world blurred—snow, breath, panic.
Then came the river.
A sheet of ice stretched across it, thin and glistening.
Elias ran straight for it—
and the surface shattered beneath his weight.
The shock of cold hit like a knife.
He gasped, lungs burning, clawed his way to the opposite bank.
When he dragged himself out, the light in his chest flickered again, humming faintly under his ribs.
He lay there, trembling.
“So this… this is the path of cultivation? Great. Freezing to death is the first lesson.”
A low growl cut through the wind.
Across the river, shadows moved.
Not human. Not animal.
Their bodies were made of mist, their eyes burning with cold blue fire.
Muffin’s feathers bristled.
Elias whispered, “Dead souls…”
One of them lunged onto the ice.
Its feet shattered the surface with each step, yet it didn’t fall—
the mist held it together.
It was fast. Too fast.
In seconds it reached the bank.
Elias snatched up a branch and swung.
The stick passed straight through.
“Oh, come on!”
He stumbled backward, slipping in the snow.
The creature opened its mouth; a wave of freezing air poured out.
And then, once again, the circle on his chest lit up.
Not from courage, not from will—just from pure, primal fear.
The energy burst outward.
A shockwave rippled through the air, blasting the wraith backward.
Its body tore apart, shrieking as blue mist scattered into the wind.
A glowing sigil lingered in the air for a moment before fading—
the same symbol that burned on the Hunter’s lantern.
Elias stood shaking, staring at his hands.
“What… what did I just do?”
Muffin landed on his shoulder, eyes bright.
“Caw.”
“Yeah,” he said weakly. “Not exactly the survival plan I had in mind.”
He looked east.
The horizon was softening to gray, light bleeding into the world.
He didn’t know what he was, or what he had awakened,
but he knew one thing.
He was still alive.
The wind rose again, stirring the snow.
Beneath his feet, faint trails of light shimmered where his footprints lay,
pulsing like breath—like the rhythm of something ancient and waiting.
Elias watched the glow stretch ahead and whispered,
“So this… is the breath of Aether.”
- Writer
