RAGNA POV...
During those endless, sun-scorched months, I felt as though our rattling carriages had crawled across half the world, grinding their wheels through kingdom after kingdom, always under the suffocating escort of the Black Steel knights who never—not once—failed to loudly announce each border we crossed, as if they were tolling funeral bells meant for my ears alone.
It was almost theatrical, the way they did it, like they wanted the words to echo in my skull: There is no escape. There never was. And the more they repeated it, the more it felt like the idea of freedom had been nothing but a childish hallucination I once clung to.
Eventually—inevitably—we sank into the heart of the desert.
And when I say desert, I do not mean a picturesque sea of sand. I mean an endless, merciless wasteland that swallowed sound and hope alike. The horizon shimmered like a lie. The sun loomed above us like a judgmental god. For miles and miles, there was nothing but dunes—golden, rolling, suffocating dunes—interrupted only by the occasional clawed markings of vicious beasts or the deep gouges left by horse-mounted bandits who roamed like vultures waiting for something to die.
And die they did.
Since we entered that forsaken stretch, danger had greeted us like an old friend. Ambushes. Beasts. Sudden chaos in the night. One or two people perished each time—small numbers, they said, fortunate losses, they said. But I was furious. Not because they died.
No.
I was furious because of the waste.
All that flesh, torn open and ruined. All that blood soaking into the sand where it would nourish nothing. I felt no sympathy, no grief gnawing at my heart. What gnawed at me was hunger. A hunger so sharp it felt like my ribs were turning inward to stab my lungs. If the Black Steel knights had not been watching so closely, I am certain—absolutely certain—I would have done something reckless. Something unforgettable.
Instead, I endured.
But enduring only sharpened my senses.
The scent of the cursed children clung to the air, subtle yet intoxicating. Every inhale felt like drinking a forbidden elixir. Their fragrance coiled into my nostrils and wrapped around my thoughts, sweet and metallic and maddening.
The more I breathed it in, the more vivid my imagination became. I could almost taste them without touching them. My mind betrayed me, painting grotesquely detailed fantasies—texture, tenderness, the warmth beneath their skin.
It terrified me how precise my senses had grown.
I began to distinguish them individually—not by name, but by flavor. One would be rich and thick, I was sure of it. Another, lighter, almost delicate. I caught myself studying the curve of an arm, the fragile structure of a foot, imagining the sound of bone beneath pressure. I hated that my mouth watered.
And then there were their heartbeats.
Gods, their heartbeats.
Each cursed child carried a rhythm entirely their own. Some thumped steadily, confidently. Others fluttered nervously, like trapped birds. I could hear it—the pulse beneath their necks, the dance of blood rushing through veins. It was music. A terrible, irresistible music that seemed to play only for me.
Every time I opened my eyes, I knew they were crimson before anyone else did. I felt it. The heat. The darkness swirling at the edges of my vision. My last shred of reason clung to me like a fraying thread, whispering logic over the roar of instinct.
’If I only took an arm... would the hunger quiet?
If not an arm, then how much? A bite? A limb?
Would the knights cut me down before I even swallowed?’
My thoughts spiraled, devouring themselves.
Unknowingly, I found myself staring at one of the cursed children. And then something strange—something deeply wrong—happened. My vision fractured. Split. Multiplied.
Three perspectives.
Three gazes locking onto a single body.
In that moment, I did not see a child. I saw three perfect cuts of meat laid neatly upon a wooden board, glistening and fresh. My threefold sight burned crimson, and within that red haze, dark glints swirled like smoke in a sealed chamber. Something ancient stirred inside me.
I barely registered Reiner’s chatter fading into nothing. His voice became background noise, like wind brushing against stone. When he stopped talking, I didn’t notice.
But he noticed me.
Apparently, they had once felt guilty—after that incident months ago—about how they’d tried to use me. Yet I had asked no questions about their distance, about their strange behavior. I only wondered why they had grown so quiet. Slowly, awkwardly, they returned to their old selves around me. They stopped acting cautious. Stopped acting afraid.
If only they knew.
Reiner must have sensed something was wrong. I could feel their stares crawling over me. Matthew’s too. They were observing me the way one studies a caged predator—curious, wary.
I heard Reiner think it, almost as if the words drifted through the air.
What is wrong with him?
They saw where my gaze rested.
And then they understood.
The curse.
"You shall never know fulfillment other than insatiable hunger."
"You shall bathe in the blood and flesh of your foes."
Those words were not merely spoken once. They lived inside me. They pulsed with my heartbeat. And when they activated, it felt like someone poured molten iron into my veins.
I know they’ve endured it before. I know they’ve wrestled their own demons when those cursed words awakened. They must have realized that this—this moment—was different. This time it was me.
And helping someone in that state... comes at a cost.
I sensed their fear blooming, thick and sharp. They had been in dangerous situations before, countless times. But never like this. Never with someone they knew. Someone close.
I could feel it building inside me.
The crimson in my eyes flared brighter. I saw their faces pale. They edged closer, perhaps to confirm whether this was still the early stage. I felt their skin prickle as they stared into my eyes.
And then—
They felt it.
That cold, unnatural presence.
"What was that?" Reiner whispered.
I didn’t know what they saw. I only knew what I felt: something stretching beneath my skin, something vast and starving and ancient pressing against the fragile cage of my humanity.
They hesitated. Watched. Waited.
And then they recoiled.
The sound that escaped me—I didn’t mean to make it. It was low. Wet. Not entirely human.
And when they yelped and stumbled backward in fright, I realized with a distant, sinking clarity—
I was no longer sure whether I could stop myself.