The cold night air bit into Kairos's new flesh like a thousand needles, each breath misting under the moonlight as he slowly moved his new fingers, testing the limits of this fragile human vessel.
Pathetic.
His skin was too soft, his muscles too weak. This body had never known suffering, only the comfortable life of a noble.
Aerion's hands had never gripped a sword hilt with intent to kill, never scrabbled in dirt and blood for survival.
Yet, beneath this physical weakness, he sensed something intriguing, an innate magical talent not fully unearthed.
Disappointing… but fixable, he muttered to himself.
With a rough movement, he tore off the tattered remains of Aerion's tunic, revealing a thin, scarred body. The axe wounds on his shoulder and his shattered collarbone had healed, leaving strange, glowing crimson scars under the moonlight.
Kairos closed his eyes, delving into the chaotic sea of Aerion's memories. Images flashed through his mind: ceiling-high bookshelves at the Lyceum Arcana, Therion's cynical smile behind a gripped wine glass, a secluded old hunting lodge in the border forest of Veridian and Vaelgard…
Got it!
The lodge, a dilapidated wooden structure in no-man's-land. Isolated and untouched. The perfect place to recover his strength while planning his next move.
With a steady gait, vastly different from Aerion's hurried pace, Kairos began to walk. Each step left glowing footprints on the damp ground; the grass he trod turned to ash.
But Aerion's emotions continued to disturb him—the pain of Therion's betrayal, the longing for his mother and father, even his childish fear of the dark.
This weakness is truly unbearable, he grumbled, clenching his fists. All these emotions must be crushed.
Suddenly, this human stomach rumbled, as Aerion had not eaten during his escape. Kairos frowned. Six centuries without physical needs had made him forget how annoying hunger could be.
He swiftly caught the first rabbit he saw with his bare hands. Without hesitation, he bit directly into the animal's neck without skinning or cooking it, warm blood filling his mouth.
The taste was... disgusting, but sufficient to quell his hunger. For now.
***
As dawn broke, the hunting lodge from Aerion's memories finally appeared. A rickety wooden building, almost crumbling.
Its door hung crookedly on its hinges, creaking as Kairos pushed it open with his shoulder.
Inside, dust swirled in the stale air. A rusty iron stove dominated a corner of the room, surrounded by decaying animal hides and worn-out hunting tools. A journal with yellowing pages lay on a wobbly table.
With a mere wave of his hand, Kairos ignited a fire in the stove without needing a spark or approaching it. The flames leaped high, glowing blue-green, emitting an intense and unnatural heat.
He then tore one of the animal hides into long strips, wrapping them around his hands and feet like bandages. This human body was too vulnerable to cold and injury, and this was the temporary defense he could employ.
A blunt axe hung on the wall. He tested its weight; its blade was worn, but it could still split bone if swung hard enough.
Suddenly, an image of a woman with eyes as blue as Aerion's, his mother, reappeared in his mind. A strange longing seized him again, so piercing it made his hands tremble.
"No!"
Kairos hit the wooden wall a little too hard, making the entire wooden lodge tremble, and the wood he struck crumbled.
"You are dead. Leave me!"
Gritting his teeth, he once again suppressed the remnants of Aerion's rebellious consciousness within his mind. But he knew this was only a temporary solution.
***
By the time the sun fully rose, Kairos had finished mapping the surrounding area based on Aerion's memories. A small river lay half a mile to the east. Animal tracks stretched north towards ancient temple ruins.
He gathered whatever usable items he could find in the lodge: the axe, a rusty dagger, dried herbs that could be concocted into poisons.
Reshaping his index finger into a claw, he etched a rough map onto the wooden floor.
Today, he would focus on recovering basic energy within this human body.
Tomorrow, he would hunt for food and animal hides. Even their sinews could be made into rope.
In three days, he would journey to the ancient temple ruins to the north. If the legends in Aerion's memories were true, ancient artifacts might still be preserved there.
But time was not his ally.
Therion's forces hunted him, accused as a rebel. Vaelgardian border patrols would mercilessly slaughter refugees from Veridian.
Even the graduated mages from Lyceum might track his residual magical energy, if he wasn't careful.
Kairos smirked.
Let them come. This body no longer belonged to Aerion, a weak prince.