The morning dawned with a sense of unease. Something felt wrong as I stepped outside the pub into the crisp winter air. Fresh snow had fallen overnight, but my eyes were drawn to a set of strange marks leading from the stone shed where I'd stored the Sirin's remains. The impressions were narrow and deep, with three distinct toe marks—more like bird tracks than human, but much larger than any normal avian.

  My heart rate quickened as I rushed toward the shed. The wooden door hung askew, torn partially off its hinges as if something had burst out from within. Frozen splinters littered the snow where something had wrenched it open with considerable force.

  "That bloody bird just won't stay dead," I muttered, drawing my knife as I approached the damaged entrance.

  Inside, the shed was in disarray. The bundles containing the preserved bodies from the Sirin's tree remained untouched, but where the Sirin's corpse had lain was torn cloth. I approached it and saw that the cloth wasn't entirely empty—resting atop it was a large, cracked shell of emerald crystal, shaped roughly like a humanoid figure.

  I knelt beside it, my breath forming clouds in the cold air. The shell was hollow, its interior smooth and glistening with residual moisture. It resembled the shed skin of an insect, or perhaps more accurately, the inside of an egg after the occupant has hatched. Her head was still there, detached from the shattered shell-body.

  "Argh," I breathed, examining the cracked edges. "What is she, a freaking phoenix? Chop off her head and she just gets back up the next day fine and dandy?”

  The crystalline material was identical to the samples I'd examined the previous day—the same substance that had been growing inside the Sirin's victims, that had infused the massive oak, that had flowed through her veins.

  She clearly hadn't died. She had... molted. Transformed. Became reborn from her own corpse. Without a head.

  It was good that I didn't store her body in the pub or she'd probably tear apart my home base and lab in the middle of the night and potentially disembowel me as revenge.

  A trail of footprints led from the shell to the doorway, then outside. I followed them, my knife clutched tightly in my fist. The marks were different now—smaller than before, with more defined talon impressions. They led across the ruined village, toward the north where a limestone cliff face rose starkly against the gray sky.

  I stood at the cliff's base, staring up at the sheer wall of stone that loomed at least thirty meters high. The scratch marks disappeared here, but a series of small gouges in the limestone suggested something had climbed directly up the nearly vertical surface.

  "Of course she can climb," I muttered. "Why wouldn't she?”

  Returning to the pub, I gathered supplies. If the Sirin had survived—then I needed to finish what I'd started.

  Stormy watched from atop my soil mound as I assembled my gear: a coil of strong rope salvaged from the village, several Molotov cocktails stowed carefully in my pack, my sharp sword, and the arbalest with a quiver of bolts strapped to my back. My magical soil sat in my backpack like always—it had proven effective at hiding me from the Sirin's awareness before.

  "Guard the fort," I told the kitten, who merely blinked her milky eyes in response. "I'm going Sirin hunting!"

  The limestone cliff presented a formidable challenge. I'd never been much of a climber in my past life, and Ioan's body, while somewhat improved by my increased Persistence of Body stat, was still that of a scrawny teenager. Nevertheless, I had little choice.

  If the Sirin recovered fully, she would undoubtedly return for revenge, and next time she might bring friends.

  I examined the cliff face carefully, noting small ledges and crevices that might serve as handholds. The limestone was rough enough to provide some friction, but the winter cold made the stone slick in places where moisture had frozen.

  Using the stuff I'd found in the smithy, I fashioned crude climbing aids: iron spikes driven into the softer portions of the rock, loops of rope to create secure anchor points, and a makeshift harness that would at least prevent me from plummeting to my death if I slipped.

  Testing each iron spike with a firm tug before trusting it with my weight, I began my ascent. The climb was arduous, my muscles burning with the effort. Every few meters, I'd drive another spike into the cliff, hammering it into the stone and creating a slow but relatively secure path upward.

  About halfway up, I discovered a narrow ledge that ran horizontally across the cliff face. Following it carefully, I found what I was looking for—a dark opening in the rock, a cave entrance partially hidden behind a jutting spur of limestone. Fresh scuffles in the snow near the entrance confirming that the Sirin was hiding inside. For some reason she didn't head to the forest when she escaped from the shed.

  I secured myself to a final spike and paused to catch my breath. The cave loomed before me, its mouth a black void against the pale stone.

  I listened in. From within came a soft, melancholic humming that gradually formed into words—a sad, haunting melody that echoed through the stone:

  "

  Burned to cinders, ash and bone.

  My wings scorched, my domain razed,

  Torched alive, now lost and dazed.

  Severed from the forest thread,

  Songs unheard, my presence dead.

  No sister feels my fading cry,

  Trapped beneath dry stone so high."

  The water dripping across the cavern somehow matched her tune, sounding almost like an eerie background piano.

  How the hell was she doing this? Maybe her song wasn’t even language-based, maybe it was just vibrations that somehow twisted my mind into imagining the song, sort of like an auditory hallucination.

  Drawing my crossbow and winding it, I edged into the darkness. The temperature dropped immediately, the cold intensifying as I moved deeper into the cave. My eyes adjusted slowly, revealing a twisting passage that descended into the heart of the cliff. The scratch marks continued, becoming more frantic and deeper the further I ventured.

  “A Witch-thing haunts me, an empty skin,

  A Void that makes my blood run thin.

  Neither living, neither dead,

  A hollow shell of stolen thread.

  Walking unseen by Astral sight,

  Earth-magic shields it from my might.

  Parasite from worlds unknown,

  Wearing flesh that's not its own.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. That was a bit too much on the nose. I kept moving, holding my breath.

  The passage opened into a larger chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow. Stalagmites rose from the floor like jagged teeth, while water dripped steadily from above, creating an eerie percussion that echoed through the space. The air smelled damp, tinged with that same sickly sweet chemical scent I'd come to associate with the Sirin.

  “Power wanes with every breath

  Each rebirth worse with each death

  Trapped in stone, most miserable night

  Cut off from her shadow's pure delight.”

  A faint glow emanated from a narrow fissure at the far end of the chamber—a crack in the rock barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through. The eerie humming led directly to it.

  “Ancient words I softly sing,

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Faltering as my strength grows weak,

  Gathering what power remains,

  To mend these scorched and broken wings.”

  I approached cautiously, arbalest raised, my free hand clutching one of the Molotov cocktails. As I neared the fissure, the singing grew more defined. I peered into the crack, angling myself to see what lay beyond.

  “Weaving song through searing pain,

  Coaxing life to flow again,

  Every ember, every flame,

  Healing wounds too deep to name.”

  She sung-hummed, the song beginning to repeat itself.

  In a small, curved chamber beyond the fissure, illuminated by that eerie emerald glow, crouched the Sirin—or what she had become. Her form was smaller now, more compact, the majestic wingspan considerably reduced.

  Her head suddenly jerked up, tilting this way and that. She seemed to look directly through me, her golden eyes tracking something invisible.

  "You… you're here, I can see the edge of your moving domain," she uttered, her voice a harsh hiss. "The Astral betrays you, abomination. You are no Dyrkjarl of Perun, no Yaga of Zemlya—you are something new and vile, a… a stillwalker!”

  I kept very still, my backpack of magical soil heavy against my spine. Her gold, glowing eyes continued to track movements I wasn't making, as if seeing disturbances in some field invisible to my eyes. A field that extended beyond my location.

  "Abomination! You think you can hide behind the stillness of Earth-magic, but nothing hides from my Astral gaze! You leave eddies in your wake!” Her rage seemed to build upon itself, her voice rising to a shriek that reverberated through the cave. "You destroyed my home! Devastated my domain! Three hundred winters of careful cultivation, reduced to ash by your foul hands! The souls I tended, the blooms I prepared—all gone! I curse you foreve…"

  I didn't wait to hear more curses. Pointing the arbalest at her head, I pressed the trigger. She didn't move fast enough out of the way.

  When she fell, I struck my flint a few times until the cloth wick ignited. The flame caught quickly, flickering in the damp air of the cave.

  I hurled the bottle through the fissure. It shattered against the far wall of her chamber, spraying flaming alcohol across the confined space. The fire caught immediately, spreading across her feathers.

  I staggered back into the larger chamber, coughing and shielding my eyes from the acrid smoke. Soon only the crackle of flames remained, casting writhing shadows across the stalagmites.

  When the smoke finally cleared enough for me to approach again, I peered cautiously through the fissure. The small chamber beyond was scorched black, its walls glazed with heat. In the center lay a blackened corpse, curled in a fetal position, still recognizably her but now completely still.

  From my pack, I produced a grappling hook I'd fashioned from scrap metal at the smithy, attached to the end of my rope. With careful aim, I tossed it through the fissure several times, eventually managing to catch it around the Sirin's charred form. Slowly, painstakingly, I dragged her remains through the narrow opening.

  The corpse was light, lighter than before. She was definitely losing mass with each death.

  How many deaths could she restart from until she ran out of body?

  This time, I would take no chances. I wrapped her burned body tightly in the rope.

  With grim satisfaction, I turned to leave the cave. The climb down would be too treacherous with my burden, so I simply threw her body down from the cliffside. She smashed into the rocks below.

  Once I got down at the base of the cliff, I examined the shattered remains of the Sirin's body.

  The impact against the jagged rocks had broken her crystallized jade outer shell into emerald fragments, but I was disturbed to find that the core of her body remained intact—a cocoon-like dense mass of emerald crystal that flexed like rubber when I prodded it with my sword.

  The emerald cocoon pulsed faintly from within, a barely perceptible rhythm like a distant, alien heartbeat.

  "What kind of bullshit are you made of?" I muttered, kneeling to examine the substance more closely.

  I drew my sword and attempted to slice through the cocoon, but the blade sank only a few inches into the material before stopping as if it had hit an impassible soft-hard layer. When I withdrew the sword, the cut sealed itself almost immediately, leaving no trace of damage.

  "Unbelievable," I breathed, trying again with more force. The result was the same—minimal penetration followed by immediate healing. The edge of my sword now had a faint green tinge to it, the blade stained by contact with the strange substance.

  I tried crushing it with a heavy rock, but the cocoon simply absorbed the impact, deforming slightly before returning to its original shape. Even when I repeatedly stabbed at it with my knife, driving the blade with all my strength, I managed to create only shallow wounds that sealed almost instantly.

  "Right," I said grimly. "Let's see how you handle fire."

  I dragged the cocoon back to the village.

  The blacksmith's forge was partially intact, its stone structure having withstood the dragon's assault. It took some effort to get the fire going, but soon I had a respectable blaze roaring in the hearth. Using a rusted large shovel I shoved the cocoon directly into the heart of the fire. The flames licked around it, turning from orange to an eerie blue-green where they contacted the emerald surface. I pumped the bellows vigorously, raising the temperature as high as the primitive forge could manage.

  After nearly an hour of sustained heat, I pulled the cocoon out with a metal hook—it was completely unchanged. Not even a scorch mark marred its surface. If anything, it seemed to pulse more strongly now, as if the fire had somehow invigorated it.

  "You've got to be kidding me," I growled, rolling the cocoon onto the snow where it sizzled briefly before the frost around it melted into a perfect circle.

  I sat on a nearby stump, considering my options.

  Physical damage seemed ineffective. Fire, even at forge temperatures, had no visible effect. What else could I try?

  "Acid," I murmured.

  The village's supplies yielded a small stash of vinegar—not a strong acid, but it was something. I poured the entire jar over the cocoon, watching as it bubbled slightly where it contacted the emerald surface. A moment of hope—but then the reaction stopped, leaving the cocoon as undamaged as before.

  "If you can survive falling off a cliff, stabbing, forge fire, and getting crushed, what exactly can kill you?" I muttered. The emerald mass pulsed softly in response, as if mocking my efforts.

  "Right. This is getting ridiculous."

  I wandered through the village, searching for something—anything—that might help contain this seemingly indestructible magical nuisance. After checking several ruined structures, I spotted a large iron cage behind what must have been the village bailiff's quarters. It was sturdily built, the kind used for transporting dangerous criminals or perhaps wild animals.

  "Perfect," I grinned, dragging the heavy cage back to the smithy. "Your new accommodations, Miss Sirin."

  The cage was about one meter cube, constructed of thick iron bars with a locking mechanism that seemed relatively intact. I used the modern tools I'd found to retouch the rusting hinges, working methodically until the door swung freely and locked securely. Then I quickly attached wooden runner skis to its base to make moving it easier.

  "Hotel Svalbard," I announced, unceremoniously shoving the emerald cocoon into the cage and slamming the door shut. "One-star cage for murderous birds. No room service, no refunds."

  I secured the lock with a heavy padlock I'd found among the blacksmith's wares, then stepped back to admire my work. The cage looked sturdy enough to hold the cocoon, at least in its current form. If the Sirin managed yet another miraculous transformation, well... I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

  It was possible that she could use concussive magic to demolish the cage or something, the way she had blown the shed door away and also blasted me during our second night together in Svalbard.

  "I should probably just throw you down a well and be done with it," I told the cocoon. "But scientifically speaking, you're too interesting to dispose of and I don’t feel like abandoning you to full regeneration since you can most likely just climb out of a well. Maybe if I bury the well with a few thousand tons of rocks?”

  I rubbed my chin contemplating how to stop an immortal creature. Could she drown if I submerged the cage underwater? Would she die in a volcano? Sadly, Svalbard lacked volcanoes for this sort of an experiment.

  The cocoon pulsed, its rhythm reminiscent of a heartbeat but too slow, too alien to be human or even avian. Whatever was happening inside that crystalline shell, it was operating on a different timescale than normal biological processes.

  "I suppose," I continued, sliding the cage out of the smithy and toward the pub, "keeping your enemies close seems like good strategy in a world full of monsters."

  Stormy greeted me with a curious mew as I pushed the cage through the pub door. She padded over to investigate, her blind eyes somehow fixing directly on the cage's contents.

  "That's our prisoner," I told her. "Don't get too friendly."

  Stormy hissed and backed away from the cage, her tiny back arched defensively.

  "Good instincts," I nodded. "Though I'm starting to think you're not as blind as you appear."

  I positioned the cage in the corner furthest from my domain soil, just to be safe. The last thing I needed was for the Sirin's strange crystalline structure to somehow interact with or corrupt my witch-earth.

  "Now," I said, retrieving my makeshift microscope, "let's see what you're really made of."

  Using a small chisel, I managed to scrape a minute amount of material from the outer layer of the cocoon. Under magnification, the sample revealed an intricate lattice structure unlike anything I'd observed before, even in the previous Sirin samples. This was more ordered, more regular, as if any chaotic patterns had resolved themselves into a coherent, interlocking system.

  "You're rebuilding yourself," I murmured. “But how? Where is the energy coming from?”

  The cocoon offered no answers, continuing its slow, rhythmic pulsing.

  The contrast between the life-generating properties of my witch-earth and the transformative, alien nature of the Sirin's crystalline seemed like opposing forces—one nurturing and accelerating life, the other reshaping it into something else entirely. Then there was dragonfire that…

  Death.

  Materials aligned with death. Fire that persisted in wood and stone even after the flames had gone out. Magical… radiation.

  Suddenly, I had an idea for what to do with the Sirin.