Grace wakes

---Grace---

My back presses against the wall's strange smooth surface, a position that gives me clear sightlines to all three exits from this chamber. The small dog—Dawson—watches me with unblinking brown eyes, his curly white and brown fur rising and falling with each breath. The involuntary trembling in my legs has finally ceased, the bone-deep cold receding like tide water pulling back from shore.

The man—Jason—sits across the room in a cushioned seat unlike any chair I've encountered. He keeps the full width of the chamber between us, a tactical choice I approve of, though I suspect his reasons differ from what mine would be. His movements follow a peculiar pattern—confident when navigating familiar territory, yet uncertain when responding to new stimuli. Those pale blue eyes never quite settle on me, instead drifting slightly above or beside where I stand.

"You know naught of necromancy?" The question escapes before I can contain it, pushing past my lips like a trapped bird suddenly freed. Each word forms crisp puffs of vapor in the still-cold air around my face. "How can you not know of necromancy? Where do you live that you know not of necromancy?"

My gaze sweeps his form while I speak, cataloging details my survival-focused mind missed during my half-conscious state. The fabric covering his body holds no practical purpose I can discern—no reinforced seams for protection, no layers for insulation, no pockets for tools or weapons. The surfaces around us emit steady light without flame or apparent fuel source. Heat radiates from metal structures along the walls without visible fire. Each observation adds to the growing certainty that I stand in a place far beyond my experience.

"Not the deserts or the mudlands, not with those clothes," I continue, my fingers tracing the worn leather of my belt for reassurance. "And you look nothing like one of the Jade Empire, not the bearing when looking upon one how I look."

"I mean, you see it in movies and that, but in RL?" His hand waves through the air, the gesture dismissive yet oddly graceful. Those long fingers slice through space with unconscious precision. "Also, we're in Canada and I'm Canadian. No idea what this 'Jade Empire' is, though it sounds cool? Like the name does, anyway."

His head tilts slightly, the movement birdlike. "Also, how does you looking different change things if I was of this empire thingy?"

His lack of reaction to my earlier drawn blade strikes me as either remarkable courage or profound foolishness. The lack of tension in his shoulders suggests he truly doesn't perceive me as a threat—a novel experience that leaves an unfamiliar taste in my mouth.

"R.L?" The unfamiliar arrangement of sounds feels strange on my tongue. My fingers press harder against my belt, the worn leather grounding me as my eyes flick again to the strange illumination sources. "What is, R.L?"

I inhale slowly, sorting through the complex tapestry of scents—the dog's animal musk, the man's sleep-sweat, strange artificial aromas unlike anything in the forests or fields I know. "I have never heard of a... Canada."

My tongue stumbles slightly over the foreign word, and I straighten my spine in response to this moment of weakness. "And it matters as they dislike those with my pale flesh, though I know naught why."

The memory of Jade Empire traders averting their eyes from my skin flashes unbidden. My hand drifts closer to my blade's hilt—a reflexive movement. "I do not care much, either, as if one were to attempt to harm my kin without provocation, they would become the enemy, and the enemy exists only to be destroyed."

The words exit my mouth with practiced precision, but they ring hollow against these soft walls and cushioned surfaces. The druid's teaching voice echoes in my memory: *Context determines appropriate response. The forest does not use the same language as the mountain.*

"Real life," he explains, his voice softening. "It's, RL means real life."

"Aah." I file this information away, one more piece of this strange puzzle. My chin dips in acknowledgment. "Thank you for explaining that to me."

Something about this man strikes a discordant note against my experience. Most people sense what I am without being told—something in my movements or the flatness behind my eyes triggers an instinctive withdrawal. Even Baldric, who'd trained beside me for three seasons, maintained a careful distance. Yet this Jason speaks directly to me, his words carrying none of the careful neutrality I've come to expect from interactions. The absence of fear creates a strange hollow sensation beneath my ribs, like missing a step when descending a hillside.

"What's your name?" He shifts in his seat, the cushion sighing beneath his weight. "Since I don't want to keep thinking of you as 'the strange woman in my house,' so, yeah." His shoulders rise and fall in a casual gesture that somehow communicates both apology and resignation.

My tongue presses against the roof of my mouth. Names hold power where I come from—to give yours freely is to offer a potential weapon. But practical considerations outweigh caution. He's already shown me kindness without apparent motive, and I need something to be called in this strange place.

"My name is Grace." The syllables hang between us, an offering that can't be retracted. "Those who are my kin call me Grace, and all I know well are kin, so Grace is my name and I have no other to be called."

"Jason," he responds, extending his hand into the space between us, his arm holding the peculiar angle suggesting he's not quite sure where I am. His eyes drift vaguely leftward of my actual position. "Now, how the fuck did you end up half-dead on my porch, Grace? Do you know?"

My shoulders drop fractionally before I can control the reaction. His question summons the memory with vivid clarity—my bowstring's tension against my cheek, the perfect arc of my arrow, the sound of impact as it struck the druid's skull with lethal precision. The old man's eyes finding mine across the clearing, not with hatred or surprise but with terrible understanding. Then light erupting from his falling form, swallowing me, followed by endless falling through cold so intense it burned.

Something constricts in my throat, an unfamiliar pressure building behind my eyes. I've killed so many times—warriors, hunters, a mage whose fingers trailed fire—yet never felt this peculiar hollowness afterward. But the druid was different. While others saw a weapon when they looked at me, he alone saw something worth teaching.

"I..." The words stick in my throat like pine sap. My nail digs into my palm, the sharp pain focusing my thoughts. "I was... there was a fight. A necromancer. I tried to help someone and failed."

Sweat beads along my hairline despite the lingering cold. "Then light, and falling. Then waking here."

My eyes fix on a point beyond his shoulder, unable to maintain even the pretense of meeting his unfocused gaze. "I killed someone I... respected." The admission costs me something vital, though I cannot name what. "Someone important. I think."

Jason reaches toward me, his hand extending into the space between us. Every muscle in my body tenses, coiling for action. Ancient stories whispered around firelight flood my memory—tales of those who could bind your will with just your name and the touch of skin against skin. My hand flies to where my longbow should rest against my back, finding only empty air.

Before I can retreat further, Jason lowers his arm, his scent shifting from neutral to something sharper—embarrassment mixed with apology. "Guess you don't want to shake hands, huh? Fair enough, waking up in a strange house with a strange dude probably not... well, I get you might be a bit out of sorts and all."

He folds his hands in his lap, fingers interlacing with practiced ease. The dog—Dawson—abandons his position near me to press his head against Jason's knee. The man's expression softens instantly, tension melting from his face as his fingers find their way behind the animal's ears. Dawson's eyes close in evident pleasure, and Jason's mouth curves upward, revealing teeth unnaturally straight and white—the kind of dental perfection I've only seen in nobles who can afford specialized healers.

The corner of my mouth twitches upward without permission, a reflexive response to their obvious bond. I force the expression away before asking, "Shake... hands?" The unfamiliar phrase feels awkward in my mouth. "That is why you had your hand out toward me?"

"Yes?" Both his tone and the sudden spike of confusion in his scent betray genuine bewilderment. "Why else would I have my hand out when I'm like, this far away?" His finger points vaguely in my direction, missing my actual position by nearly half a meter. "We're across the room from each other, or what did you think I was trying to do, Grace?"

Heat creeps up my neck at the implication that I've misunderstood a harmless social gesture. Such mistakes can be lethal in unfamiliar territories. I redirect to more practical matters.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"You put the blankets upon me, yes?" The heavy coverings still lie in a heap where I abandoned them upon waking, their warmth lingering in the fibers.

"Yeah," Jason shifts his weight, the chair creaking beneath him. "Couldn't think of how to warm you up other than pile a fuck-ton of blankets on you, and try to rub the circulation back into your arms and legs."

His scent transforms as he speaks, the chemical composition shifting to something I recognize instantly—fear, pure and uncomplicated. The smell triggers an autonomic response in my body, my pupils dilating, muscles tensing for the hunt. I force myself to remain still, recognizing that pursuing this prey would be counterproductive. He possesses knowledge I need, and consumption, while satisfying my immediate hunger, would eliminate a potential resource.

"Didn't actually touch your legs, just your arms," he adds quickly, the words tumbling over each other in his haste. Dawson nudges his hand again, and Jason's entire demeanor softens as he presses his lips briefly to the top of the dog's head before resuming his gentle scratching between Dawson's ears.

"Hypothermia?" The clinical term emerges from some buried knowledge I didn't realize I possessed. The syllables feel foreign on my tongue, yet I understand their meaning perfectly—a dangerous lowering of core body temperature leading to death if untreated. I'm attempting to comprehend what happened to me while simultaneously helping him relax. His fear-scent creates an uncomfortable tension in my chest, not because it bothers me directly, but because it reminds me of countless similar reactions to my presence.

"Yeah," he confirms with a short sound that's half-grunt, half-word. "Fell over you on my front porch a few hours ago. You were about the temperature of the rocks, not even shivering anymore." His voice softens slightly. "Wasn't just going to leave you out to die since I hope I'm a decent human being and all."

Another shrug lifts his shoulders before he adds, "Even if you're wearing stitched together furs, well..." The sentence trails into silence as he raises those long-fingered hands to rub across his face, palms scraping against stubble with an audible rasp.

Something in his simple explanation—the matter-of-fact way he describes saving my life as though it were the only reasonable course of action—creates a peculiar sensation in my chest. Not gratitude exactly, which I've been trained to regard as a weakness, but a recognition of a debt that now exists between us.

"You," I say slowly, needing absolute clarity, "to confirm, brought me into a shelter where I otherwise would have frozen to death, yes?"

"Well, your skin wasn't much warmer than your clothes like I said, so yeah?" He shifts position again as Dawson settles more fully against his legs, the dog's head coming to rest on his lap. The tension visibly drains from Jason's form as his fingers work their way through Dawson's curly fur, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth beneath his reddish-blond beard.

I nod once, decision made. With a single fluid motion, I draw my blade from its sheath, the bone handle cool and familiar against my palm. The edge glints dully in the strange artificial light as I draw it across my palm with practiced precision. Blood wells instantly, but instead of dripping to the floor, it's drawn into the blade itself, absorbed completely without leaving a trace of its passage. The bone knife must taste blood once drawn—it's the price of wielding such weapons, the bargain that keeps them keen.

I slide the carved bone back into its sheath at my hip, the sound of bone against tanned leather barely audible even to my enhanced hearing.

"What was that?" Jason's head turns sharply toward the sound, his unseeing eyes widening slightly. "Sounded like bone on leather? That your knife?"

"Yes," I confirm simply. "I sheathed it."

"Sheathed it." The muscles across his shoulders and neck visibly tighten as concern replaces the lingering fear in his scent. "So you had it out earlier?"

"Yes," I state matter-of-factly, seeing no reason to lie. "I had it pointed at you when you moved toward me when I first woke up."

"Oh." The simple syllable carries complex undertones as the muscles in his shoulders and upper arms flex slightly beneath his strange clothing.

I change the subject, genuinely curious about the loyal creature that seems to bring him such comfort. "Your companion," I gesture toward Dawson, though I realize immediately Jason cannot see the movement, "what is he? As you said, it is better to have a name, and I do not wish to simply think of him as, to copy you, 'the small furry thing that you pet frequently.'"

"He's a dog?" Jason's face contorts in obvious confusion, eyebrows drawing together, head tilting slightly. "Where the hell did you come from that you don't recognize a dog, Grace? Even if he's a small one?"

The question deserves a direct answer. "Dogs pull sleds. They guard and protect campsites, and they hunt prey." I watch Dawson's absolute contentment under Jason's touch, a relationship entirely different from the working partnerships I've observed. "Only packmasters keep them as companions, though you are the strangest packmaster that I have ever laid eyes upon, and all of the packmasters know of the wakeners of the sleepers, yet you said they are not in your real life."

"Uhm," Jason begins, his tone cautious, uncertainty threading through his scent. "What's a packmaster, exactly? Also, you mean necromancers when you say 'wakeners of the dead,' right?"

The question's simplicity momentarily throws me off balance. It's like being asked the color of the sky or the wetness of water—so fundamental I've never considered it might need explanation.

"One who is the master of a pack of beasts. What else would a packmaster be than a master of a pack?" I can hear the slight edge entering my voice and consciously soften it. "Also, yes, that is our name for them, where 'necromancer' is a common name used for reference between far-off clans and hunting packs."

"Well, I'm not one of them," Jason says with another of his frequent shrugs. "Would be cool if I was, but I'm not part of either lot. I just feed Dawson and pet him. I don't even have a pack, just Dawson?" His voice lifts at the end, making the statement sound almost like a question.

So the dog is called Dawson. I catalog this information alongside the growing list of peculiarities. My gaze lingers on the animal's behavior—the way he leans into Jason's touch, the absolute trust in his posture. This bond speaks of something deeper than utility, a connection I've witnessed only between the most skilled rangers and their animal companions after years of working together.

A new understanding forms. "You were concerned," I say carefully, testing this theory, "that I would harm your companion with my blade earlier. Yes? That is why you rushed forward to assist him?"

"Something like that," Jason admits, his voice softening. "He's part of the family, and, well—" His mouth closes suddenly, though the aborted sentence hangs in the air between us.

His evident care for the animal touches something unfamiliar within me—perhaps a recognition of what it means to protect those in your care, a responsibility I understand even if my methods differ from his.

"I," I say, deliberately softening my tone, "have no desire to harm this Dawson. Dogs are friends, and those who harm friends without provocation are the enemy, and the enemy exists only to be destroyed."

I inwardly wince at my phrasing, hearing how it must sound to him. Threatening one whose shelter I currently occupy, without having established any tactical advantage, violates basic survival principles. But to my surprise, Jason's expression clears, tension dissolving from his features.

"So, limbs not tingly anymore? Legs or arms?" he asks, smoothly changing the subject.

"No," I reply, grateful for the redirection. My fingers flex experimentally, confirming what I already know. "My vigger has fixed any issues from being almost frozen." I find myself adding, to my own surprise, "Although I thank you for asking, and for assisting in my recovery."

The gratitude feels foreign on my tongue, but not entirely unpleasant.

"Vigger?" Jason's head tilts to one side, curiosity evident in every line of his body. "What's, well, that? Also I see a pattern here, and don't know if I like it."

"Pattern?" My brow furrows slightly. "Of what pattern do you mean?"

"I keep asking what stuff is," Jason grumbles, running a hand through his hair in evident frustration. "And, well, don't want to look stupid."

His concern strikes an unexpected chord of recognition. I too have found myself in situations where my lack of understanding marked me as vulnerable, where others possessed knowledge I lacked. The memory of my first days with the druid surfaces—how many questions I asked, how patient he remained through each one.

"Questions are not stupid, as you put it," I tell him, my voice firm but not unkind. "If you just pushed forward without asking what you were getting into like a child who knows no better, however, then I would consider you, to take your words, stupid."

Jason laughs then—a sharp, sudden sound that transforms his entire face. The noise startles Dawson, whose head jerks up momentarily before settling back onto Jason's lap. The laughter fades as quickly as it appeared, but something of its warmth remains in his expression.

"Okay, fair enough." He nods once, decisively. "Now, the hell is Vigger?"

"Vigger is Vigger," I respond automatically, then realize the circular explanation helps nothing. I try again, searching for terms he might understand. "It is physical energy that can be used to heal the flesh, give strength and speed, and other physical benefits."

My fingers trace the now-healed cut on my palm, where not even a scar remains. "Now, how have you not heard of it? All use vigger, or vigger by another name, though Vigger is the common name for it."

"So, like chi?" Jason asks, his eyes widening with sudden interest. Even unfocused as they are, they seem to brighten with excitement, pupils dilating as his scent shifts to something sharper, more alert.

I blink slowly, reassessing my assumptions about his origins. I have never heard of this "Canada" before, though my knowledge of distant lands is limited. I've never traveled more than 200 kilometers from my birthplace in all my twenty-one summers.

"What is Chi?" I probe, testing boundaries. "It sounds like something the people of the Empire of Jade would use, though I know little of the internal workings of that realm."

"It's pretty much what you said about Vigger," Jason responds, his face scrunching in concentration, forehead creasing with the effort of translation. "Though Chi is... Okay, do you know what a webnovel is? If not, going to have to explain a bunch of foundational stuff before I can actually answer your question."

My gaze sweeps the room again, cataloging details I'd noted earlier but now view through a different lens. The persistent warmth without visible fire source. The steady illumination without flame. The absence of familiar tools and presence of objects whose function I cannot begin to guess. Jason's confusion about concepts fundamental to my existence. The strange clothes, strange speech patterns, strange everything.

Fragments of memory surface—the druid speaking of realms beyond our own, of worlds that mirror ours but follow different rules. Of barriers that sometimes thin enough to allow passage. My mind works methodically through the implications, integrating observation with training. Either I've somehow crossed into a realm beyond my previous knowledge, or the arrow that struck the druid did more than simply end his life. Perhaps both.

Whatever has happened, survival dictates I learn as much as possible about this place. And this strange man—who cannot see properly yet saved me from freezing—might be my only guide.

"I do not know what a webnovel is," I admit, letting my hands fall open in a gesture of deliberate vulnerability. "But I am willing to learn."