Morning broke reluctantly, as if even the sky regretted waking up in this part of the world. Pale light peeled across the horizon like a wound splitting open, leaking weak gold into a place that deserved none.
Kael woke me in his usual way.
"Up."
One word.
Somehow both a command and an insult.
My favorite combination.
Pried my eyes open. They stung like I'd been crying in my sleep — I hadn't, of course. I was simply… adjusting. To the lack of pillows. And dignity. And the general absence of things that make life worth living.
A noble upbringing had prepared me for many things — public disgrace, arranged expectations, the occasional duel — but not this.
Not mornings that smelled like dead leaves and despair.
My lower back felt like it had been repeatedly introduced to a hammer. My legs were stiff ropes soaked in cold water. Dirt had become my bed so thoroughly I was starting to suspect the ground wanted custody.
Velvet sheets. Feather-stuffed comfort. Warm baths scented with herbs.
Memories now — worse, memories that belonged to someone else.
The "old" Arlen.
The one they buried when they chained me to this exile.
I ran a hand over my hair and It felt like abandoned straw left out during a storm. Another triumph.
Dragged myself onto my horse. Every joint protested. My spine made a noise I'm certain wasn't human, Gods I miss my bed.
The Bond with Lirael pulsed faintly in the back of my mind — cold, irritated, like someone tapping a fingernail inside my skull.
Still better than the first week, when her pain felt like it had claws.
Small victories.
Sad ones.
Kael didn't look at me. He rarely did in the mornings. That was when his silence sharpened — when he turned into a wall with muscles.
He rode and I followed from behind.
The world around us died a little more with every mile.
Trees grew sparse, twisted, leaning away from the path as if ashamed to be seen nearby.
Birdsong vanished.
Even the wind lost its voice, moving in silence, brushing cold fingers across my face.
The air tasted metallic.
Old.
Like the world was rusting from the inside.
Kael's shoulders tightened. Those shoulders were their own language — and right now they spelled danger in capital letters.
The ground dimmed beneath us.
The sky pressed low, as if burdened by memory.
Something watched us.
I didn't see it.
But felt as its choice settle on my skin.
By the twelfth dawn, even the earth looked exhausted.
Then we reached the clearing.
Two ridges leaned inward, forming a broken jaw around a small open space. In the center sat a wagon — iron-braced, rune-marked, and pretending to be a carriage even though everyone could see the cage beneath.
Three Banewall soldiers stood stiff beside it, carved from frost and sleepless discipline.
And inside the wagon sat the condemned.
Humans.
Two dwarves.
A scarred boy around my age whose glare was so intense I considered asking if he needed a hug. His eyes locked onto mine immediately — sharp, hungry, sizing me up as either threat or entertainment. Possibly both.
And then—
Her.
The elf.
Hood pulled low, cloak heavy enough to bury half her frame. She sat perfectly still — eerie still — save for the gentle rise of her breath. A silver thread of hair escaped the hood, catching the morning light with a quiet defiance.
Something clicked faintly in my chest.
Not emotion — Maker forbid.
Not curiosity either.
Just something unwelcome.
A question forming where none should.
Kael slowed the horse. Then, in an act of affection only he could invent, he shoved me off.
Face first . Hard.
I glared up at him. "Really?"
"Walk."
Kael: master of conversation, wielder of overwhelming apathy.
"I'm beginning to suspect our dramatic bonding moment meant nothing to you."
He ignored me with professional skill.
The days after that sharpened into something colder.
Fear had its smell here — stale sweat and hopeless breath.
The dwarves smelled of soot and iron.
The soldiers of steel and sleepless duty.
And me?
Like smoke, horse, regret, and the faint, bitter scent of someone becoming a stranger to himself.
Once, lukewarm bathwater would have been an outrage.
Now I'd trade a limb for soap.
Nights came early in this part of the world.
Whispers around the fire carried weight:
"Fog breached again."
"Runes flickered."
"Something in the dark."
"Damned too close."
No one laughed.
Joy died before crossing into this territory.
Three weeks later, everything changed.
The air thickened.
The fire shrank.
Even the shadows pulled closer, like spectators leaning in.
My skin prickled.
That stare again.
Not from the scarred boy.
No — someone worse.
One of the soldiers.
Broad shoulders, jaw cracked by an old blade, eyes built solely for boredom and cruelty. He'd been watching me since the wagon — the way a starving dog eyes a bone it shouldn't have.
He approached at last.
"So," he drawled. "What's it like?"
I sat on a log that tried to stab me through my trousers. It succeeded.
"What's what like?" I replied.
His grin bent into something crooked.
"Raping an elf princess."
The world stopped breathing.
Kael's head snapped up.
Now — a wise man would have swallowed that insult.
A wiser one would have stayed silent.
Unfortunately, I was raised noble.
"You're stupid," I muttered, warning my hands over the fire.
A soldier choked on ale.
His smile twitched.
"Explains the question," I added. "I've always wondered how someone with a face that unfortunate could produce thoughts that unfortunate."
Laughter burst through the camp.
Then another laugh — deeper, heavier — rolled from behind him.
A man stepped into the firelight.
Gods help me.
He was enormous.
Shoulders like siege towers.
Arms carved from stone.
A face shaped by war and boredom with both.
A man whose mere presence convinced nearby problems to give up.
He studied me the way one eyes a meal before smashing it with a hammer.
"You want to lose those noble teeth?" he asked.
Standing hurt.
Everything hurt.
But pride lifted me anyway.
"Please," I said. "Knock them out. Maybe then I'll finally stop being prettier than you."
Another surge of laughter.
Then—
A shift in the air.
Not loud.
Not sudden.
Just… precise.
The kind of movement that belongs to a creature that knows exactly where every leaf is before it steps on it.
The elf lifts her head.
And for the first time, I truly see her eyes.
White.
Pale.
Reflecting nothing back.
Blind.
She isn't looking at me—she can't—but the way she tilts her head feels like she's listening to threads in the air the rest of us don't even know exist.
Every part of her stillness is intentional.
Measured.
A blade pressed lightly against silence.
The camp quiets without being told.
The fire gutters low.
Even the wind folds itself thin, as if afraid to disturb her concentration.
Her presence presses into the space around us—quiet, sharp, unsettlingly certain.
It makes the scarred boy across the flames sit straighter, eyes widening like he's watching a prophecy he wasn't ready for but absolutely expected.
Kael watches her too.
His tension hides well, but not well enough for someone who has learned to study him.
The elf turns again, head angled just slightly—toward a sound we cannot hear, toward a direction the firelight cannot reveal.
The camp stills further.
The shadows hold their breath.
The forest stops pretending to be alive.
Her head tilts again.
Listening.
Measuring.
Hearing more than sound.
The scarred soldier shifts behind me, suddenly eager to be anywhere else.
Good.
He should be uneasy.
Kael steps forward before the moment can rot into panic.
"That's enough."
Soft voice.
Too soft.
A softness that means danger wearing a polite face.
Everyone looks away.
I sink back onto the log that thinks it is a torture device. My cloak tightens around me, trapping the scent of smoke, sweat, and what used to be my pride.
I miss my bed,miss warmth. And most especially miss not smelling like a dying campfire.
Across from me, the shaved-headed boy keeps staring.
Unblinking.
Unnerving.
Very sure he's training to intimidate the sun.
I raise an eyebrow.
He doesn't flinch.
Fine.
Let him watch.
The cold deepens as night thickens its grip.
The river groans beneath a sheet of forming ice.
Far off, something cries—a hollow, starved sound dragged across bone.
Not a wolf.
Wolves sound alive.
This does not.
Kael stands at the edge of the firelight, runes glinting faintly along his forearms like tired stars.
I watch him because the alternative is thinking about tomorrow. And believe me it's not an option i want to try.
Then—
Footsteps.
Soft.
Measured.
Too precise to be accidental.
The elf moves toward the fire.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Like she maps the world through pressure and air.
Her hood stays low.
No one speaks.
She stops just outside the ring of flame.
For a heartbeat, the fire leans toward her—curious, as if wanting to see the face she hides.
I force myself upright.
"Cold?" I ask.
A ridiculous question, but my mouth has always been ambitious without consulting my brain.
She tilts her head—not toward my voice, but toward the shape my voice makes in the air.
Her answer comes soft and steady:
"No."
Her voice is quiet.
Calm.
Wrongly calm for this place.
The shaved-headed boy stiffens at the sound like someone tugged a string in his spine.
The fire cracks sharply.
And the world hushes again.
Something about her presses on the air.
Something listening.
Something aware.
She turns slightly—toward the river, toward the fog-choked horizon, toward whatever waits past the dark.
Then she speaks again.
"Something is coming."
The way she says it isn't a warning.
The words settle over the camp like frost.
Kael doesn't move at first.
He simply lifts his head, the way a veteran lifts his head when he hears a sound he hoped to never hear again.
The others finally understand the weight of the elf's voice.
They rise—slowly, quietly—like people trying not to disturb a sleeping god.
The fire dims, shrinking back into itself.
Even the wind holds its breath.
I stand too, though every instinct begs me to sit back down and pretend the world is not about to worsen.
"What exactly is coming?" I ask,the air tightens in my chest, pulled thin as wire. The fire shrinks to a nervous ember. Even the darkness feels crowded — like something enormous presses its face against the edge of the world, breathing through the cracks.
No one answers.
Not because they didn't hear me.
But because they did.
The elf turns her head toward the treeline.
The way her chin lifts—slow, precise—makes my skin tighten.
She isn't looking.
She's sensing the shape of the silence.
And it's wrong.
Too wrong.
Kael feels it first.
But the elf — the blind one — knew before him.
Her head tilts toward the treeline, pale eyes catching the faintest shift in the air as if they can hear light itself moving.
Then:
A sound.
Soft.
Almost gentle.
Click.
Claws on stone.
Another.
Then two more
Then too many.
The soldiers stiffen.
The scarred boy goes pale.
My pulse decides it wants a new career as a drum.
Kael whispers — so quietly only the front line hears:
"Hunters."
Not wolves, I've seen him take on a full grown bear on the first week, not men that would be too easy for him
So Damned. And he said Hunters with the letter S.
A pack and the worst kind.
Before fear can settle into the bones, a shadow drops from the ridge — silent as snow, sharp as a blade.
Kael
He lands like the earth were expecting him, two curved blades already drawn, one in each hand. Thin, wicked, moon-kissed steel. Runes glow faintly beneath his skin, as if his bones remember the old magic and are waking up.rolled his shoulders, eyes fixed on the dark.
"They've must have been tracking us since dusk," he murmurs. "Time's up."
Fuck, that just great.
One exile stumbles forward, voice shaking.
"W-why aren't you fighting them now? You're stronger than—"
Kael doesn't bother to look at the poor fool.
"I can outrun a Kanirh pack. But you can't."
A beat.
"And I can't fight and defend you."
The meaning punches the breath from my lungs.
We're the reason he hasn't already left.
The guards tense.
"Move!" one shouted, fear was written all over is face, well I don't blame him. "Stay in formation! Keep the wagon between you and the treeline! Don't break!"
Yeah. Right.
Like that was going to hold.
The air sharpens.
Cold slashes across my face.
The forest breathes in.
And then the first of them leaps.
I don't see it clearly — just teeth and smoke and claws shaped wrong, like someone rebuilt a wolf from nightmares and spite.
Kael doesn't flinch. Of course he doesn't , what was I expecting.
His blades blur.
One cuts air.
One cuts bone.
The creature drops in two twitching halves.
I've watched knights train my whole life — my father, my brother, the royal guard, soldiers teaching their squires. None of them ever moved like this.
Kael isn't fighting.
He's dancing with death, and death is losing the steps.
Beautiful.
Monstrous.
And completely beyond anything human.
"Kanirhs run!" a guard cried.
And so we run.
Branches whip my face. My breath burns. The freezing air turns my lungs into raw wounds. Behind us, Kael clashes with another Kanirh — steel ringing, flesh tearing, something screaming that used to be human and is definitely not anymore.
Then it happens. I heard, it we all heard it.
A howl rolls across the forest — deep, layered, wrong.
One voice made of many.
The Kanirh pack calling to each other.
The sound shudders through my ribs, Gods they were more of them.
The guards panic.
"Keep the group together! Don't break! DO NOT—"
A blur hits him from the left.
It was fast, too fast. He didn't even get a scream out before the creature slams him to the ground. Its claws sink into his ribs like tearing open soft fruit.
And I see everything.
The ribs split.
The chest opens.
Blood spills hot across the leaves.
Bone cracks.
Then silence.
Real silence. No one moved, shock or probably fear of who would be next.
And then the world explodes.
The line shatters.
Exiles run in every direction.
Someone sobs.
Someone else screams.
A dwarf vanishes into the brush with a streak of red behind him.
Another guard turns—
A Kanirh drops from above, dragging him into the dark.
Fuck I'm fast ,I ran not bravely,not nobly.
Just instinct — pure, terrified forward motion.
The forest stretches ahead of me in a narrow tunnel, vision shaking, edges blurring. My legs burn. My throat tastes like blood. Every heartbeat feels like it's trying to claw out of my chest.
And then—
I saw her.
The blind elf.
She's on the ground, cloak tangled around her legs. Someone shoved her down in the chaos. She tries to rise, hands trembling, breath sharp with fear she's refusing to show.
Another exile slams past her, nearly trampling her again.
She flinches but doesn't make a sound.
Behind us, the Kanirh howl — closer now, hungry, triumphant.
I stop. Why am I stopping?
The forest bends around me — sound warping, vision narrowing, like the world is waiting for my choice.
It should be simple.
Easy.
Obvious.
She's slow.
Blind.
Dead weight.
Not my problem.
I turn away. Take one step.
Two.
Three. See easy
A growl rises behind me — close enough to rattle the leaves.
Four.
Stop, why am I stopping again?
Damn it.
I turn back and sprint toward her.
She hears me before she feels me — tenses, unsure, bracing for claws instead of help.
Grabbed her arm, haul her upright.
"N-no—wait—!"
"No time."
I crouch and pull her onto my back. She gasps — surprised, confused, unprepared. Her arms lock around my shoulders, light but trembling.
Great. First time I've carried a girl in months and she can't even see how heroic I look doing it.
Typical.
Her voice is soft against my ear:
"…thank you."
"Don't thank me," I pant, pushing into a sprint with her on my back. "Pray to the Maker we live long enough to regret this."
A branch snaps behind us.
Loud,Heavy,Wrong
I don't look back, don't need to.
The layered snarl rising behind us tells me everything.
One of the Kanirh has seen us, and it has chosen.
Her fingers tighten on my shoulders.
Leaves blur beneath my boots. The world narrows to a single path, a single breath, a single heartbeat.
I run, not just for me but for both our lives.
And the Hunter runs for us.
The forest blurs into streaks of black and silver as I tear through the underbrush, the elf's breath shuddering against my neck. Every step is a stab of fire up my calves. My lungs scrape raw. My vision shakes. I don't dare look back.
I feel it.
The Hunter isn't chasing us.
Chasing implies sport — maybe even hope.
No, this thing is hunting us.
And frankly? I'm too tired to feel insulted that I'm the prey in this story.
Branches whip my face, tugging at my hair, slicing thin lines across my cheeks. The cold night air doesn't soothe — it bites, sinking into my bones like teeth.
I felt her hold tightened as she senses the shift in my breathing.
"What's behind us?" she whispers.
"A short death," I pant.
It's close. Too close
The ground ahead dips slightly — a shallow hollow choked with dead leaves and broken roots. My footing slips. My knee buckles. I almost drop her, catching myself with a desperate, stumbling lurch.
A scream rips the air — not human. A warning. And it was very close, too close to be exact.
The Kanirh is right behind us.
I can hear its claws carving trenches into the earth. Hear its breath — wet, gurgling, like it's inhaling blood. Hear the way its four limbs strike the ground in uneven, predatory rhythm. I'm too young to die.
Thump—skrrk.
Thump—skrrk.
It's gaining fast.
She whispers something — a prayer? A plea? Not sure i can hear it over the pounding in my skull. But please who ever is listening, answer.
"Hold on," I growl.
I force my legs to move faster. They scream. My back screams. My heart screams. Every thing screams. But I keep moving can't stop, honestly I don't want to.
The path bends right.
I go left.
The Hunter doesn't.
It crashes through the brush behind us — too sharp to mistake for anything else. It didn't expect the turn. Good. I bought us half a heartbeat.
Another scream — far behind us.
Not a Hunter's scream.
A man's.
One of the exiles, the sound cuts off too fast.
The elf flinches. Her fingers dig deeper into my collar. I swear she will kill me before the damned get their chance.
"Don't—" she whispers, voice cracking. "Don't let me hear them die."
Her words stab deeper than fear.
But I can't lie to her.
Not now.
Not here.
"You'll hear worse," I breathe. "If we live long enough."
Her breath trembles,mine too.
The forest drops into a narrow ravine — two boulders forming a tight squeeze. I hurl myself through, twisting sideways so she doesn't hit the stone wall. Bark scrapes my face. Rocks tear at my boots and God it hurts.
The Kanirh tries to follow—
—tries being the important word.
It slams into the rocks with a snarl, stone cracking from the force. The impact shakes dust down like falling snow. The scream it lets out is feral, furious, insulted.
I don't stop running, can't stop running to be exact.
But I do risk one glance back.
And that's when I see him.
Kael.
He's staggering down the slope ahead, cloak torn, blood pouring like the forest is trying to empty him.
His arm is simply… gone.
Just gone.
And the worst part?
I'm so shocked I forget to scream.
"You idiot," I breathe. "Who told you to go and be noble?"
A mangled stump of exposed bone and torn flesh hangs where it used to be. He shouldn't be on his feet.
He shouldn't even be alive.
He turns and walks toward the Kanirh wedged between the rocks, his remaining blade trembling in his hand. Not with fear — with exhaustion. With pain. With too much blood lost.
But he still steps toward the monster.
Still chooses to fight not for us but for the oath he swore. Is this how all the others Eidbarks are, if so may the Gods save us all.
"Go!" he snarls at me. "Keep going!"
Before I could answer, the Kanirh lunges forward, ripping itself free with a sound like tearing meat. It launches straight at Kael, all teeth and hate.
raising his blade—
Too slow.
Far too slow.
"No—!" I choke out, useless, too far away, too burdened to reach him.
The Kanirh crashes into him, claws sinking into his ribs. Kael's body bends under the weight. Blood sprays across the stones in a hot arc.
But he doesn't fall. Why, he should have but he doesn't.
His foot planted to the ground, to the roots and what came next was his roar.
And then something shifts.
Not in him. In everything.
The air thickens — heavy, metallic, electric. My teeth buzz. My vision blurs around the edges, like reality is straining to hold shape. I tried my best to hold on, not just for me but for both of us.
She feels it too — she gasps, fingers tightening painfully on my shoulders.
"What is that—?"
"I don't know," I breathe. Or rather trying to catch my breath.
Kael lifts his hand — the one still attached — and slams his palm into the ground.
The world answers.
The sky doesn't rumble.
It groans.
Clouds spiral into existence above us, twisting like something ancient is stirring awake. The air sharpens to a blade. Every leaf on every tree stands rigid, waiting.
Lightning gathers.
Not white.
Not blue.
Silver.
Raw.
Pure.
Living.
It doesn't fall.
It dives — straight down, like a spear thrown by something too big to comprehend.
The bolt hits the ground where Kael and the Kanirh are locked.
Light swallows them both.
The explosion rips through the forest — deafening, blinding, a shockwave of heat and force that sends my legs buckling. I twist, shielding Aris with my body as the blast hurls debris over us.
For a heartbeat,
for a moment longer,
for a moment too long—
everything is silent.
Then a shadow drops from the sky.
Not falling.
Descending.
Wings open like blades — red, fierce, burning with life.
Her talons hit the ground beside Kael's collapsing body. Her eyes blaze molten gold as she takes in the scene — the ash, the blood, the half-charred corpse of the Kanirh.
More shapes sweep in behind her — Eidbarks four or maybe five, gliding down through the clouds Kael summoned, their weapons already drawn, runes burning along their skin.
The forest lights up with blue fire.
She looked at me.
At the elf on my back.
At the blood on my clothes.
And just said one thing.
"Stay behind us."
Then the night bends again —
and the real battle begins.