"The ego as a shapeshifter, you get onto it in one form, and the ego goes."
Athel's POV
"Damn, that felt good," I thought to myself as I stood over the cooling corpse of a vampire noble, my heavy boot pressed firmly into its shattered chest. The creature's eyes, once a terrifying crimson, were now dull and glazed, staring up at the bruised purple sky with a frozen shock.
The silver-etched blade of my Shriven Stake-Blade was slick with black, viscous ichor that hissed as it hit the frosted ground. I didn't bother to clean it as I liked the weight of the kill clinging to the steel, the drying blood a testament to the fact that I was the apex predator of these woods. To a Thorne, blood was the only currency that mattered, and today, I was wealthy.
"Is that the last of them, Athel?" Lyra asked, her voice tight and hovering on the edge of a tremor. She was staying back, her horse shifting uneasily beneath her as she took in the carnage I'd left in the clearing.
There were four of them in total, scavengers who had thought the Ravine's fog would protect them. They were wrong, as nothing protects you when a Thorne is on the scent. Lyra was a Thorne by name, but she lacked the stomach for the scouring. She still clung to the delusion that there was a difference between hunting and total annihilation. She looked at the bodies with a flicker of something that resembled pity; I looked at them and only saw the filth that needed to be scrubbed from my kingdom.
"It's the last of the trash," I said, finally lifting my boot and turning to face her. My slate-grey eyes were cold, scanning the treelined for any lingering movement. "But the real prize hasn't shown his face yet. The prince is late, again, and procrastinating like a coward while we do the work of men. He's probably waiting for the sun to hit the right angle, so his armor glitters properly for the historians."
I spat into the dirt, the copper tang of the vampire's blood still sharp in the back of my throat. The ozone I had sensed back at the Citadel was gone, replaced by the honest, metallic tang of death, but the memory of it burned in my sinuses like lye. Malakor Vane was somewhere behind us, likely preening in his white silks, hiding behind his title while I bled for his father's borders. The thought made my blood boil, a toxic, simmering rage that demanded a target more substantial than these bottom-feeders.
"Maybe he's taking the Whispering Pass," Hakan suggested, wiping his own blade with a rag. The veteran scout looked as weary as I felt energized. "The Royal Guard usually favours the high ground to avoid the muck of the ravines, and they like to see the enemy coming from a mile away."
"The Royal Guard favours whatever keeps their boots clean and their lies intact," I snapped, my voice echoing off the jagged rock walls of the ravine. I walked toward the edge of the clearing, my senses expanding, pushing past the stench of the dead. I wasn't looking for vampires anymore. The thrill of the kill had faded into a dull thrum, replaced by a much sharper obsession. I was looking for a leak. I was looking for a golden boy who smelled like pomegranates and forbidden magic.
I could feel my father's expectations, the crushing weight of being a Thorne, like a physical collar around my neck. Find the crack. Wedge the blade. My father didn't want a report; he wanted a scalp. He wanted the Vane dynasty to stumble so the Thorne legacy could finally rise from the shadows of the North and take what was ours. And I didn't just want to find Malakor's secret for the family name. I wanted to find it for me.
I wanted to see the exact moment the golden prince realized he was nothing more than a beast in a crown. I wanted to be the one to break the mask, to peel back the alchemical lies, and watch him crawl in the same dirt I had spent my life defending. There is a specific kind of pleasure in watching something "perfect fall apart, and I intended to savor every second of Malakor's disintegration.
"We move further south," I commanded, mounting my horse in one fluid, aggressive motion. The animal sensed my agitation and reared back, but I brought it to heel with a sharp yank of the reins. "If the Prince wants to play games and delay the hunt, he can find his own way through the Blackwood. We're going to find the source of this 'taint' and burn it out before he can arrive to claim the glory for the crown. I'm done playing vanguard for a man who won't even show up to the fight."
"But the King's orders were to stay together, Athel," Lyra started, her horse dancing nervously away from mine. "If we separate now, and something happens to the Royal Vanguard, it falls on our heads. My father wouldn't want us".
"The King is miles away, Lyra," I barked, turning my horse so sharply its hooves kicked up a spray of frozen mud that hit her cloak. I leaned over, my shadow looming over her. "In these woods, I am the law, the Iron Wolf, and I don't wait for permission from a Vane. My father wants results, not a babysitting report. Now move or stay here and rot with the leeches. I have no patience for followers who can't keep pace with the pack."
I didn't wait for her response and spurred my horse into a gallop, the Thorne Sentinels falling into line behind me out of fear rather than loyalty. They knew the look in my eyes. They knew that when Athel Thorne was on a trail, anyone standing in the way was just another obstacle to be cleared.
We rode hard, the forest blurring into a haze of grey and black. The trees grew tighter here, their gnarled branches reaching out like skeletal fingers to snag at our cloaks. This was the dead zone, a place where the barrier between our world and the abyss was thinnest. The air felt heavy, charged with a static that made the hair on my arms stand up.
I pushed the pace, ignoring the horses' protests. Every mile we covered brought us closer to the Whispering Pass, the very place Malakor would have to cross if he wanted to reach the heart of the hunt. My mind was a loop of violent imagery: the sparring match, the balcony, the smirk. I wanted to tear that smirk off his face. I wanted to see if his blood was as pure as the priests claimed, or if it ran dark and sweet like the pomegranate scent that haunted my dreams.
As we reached the mouth of the Pass, I signalled for a halt. The silence here was absolute. No birds sang; no wind whistled through the pines. It was a vacuum, and I dismounted, my boots crunching on the frost-covered needles. I walked a few paces ahead of the group, my nose twitching, and caught on a jagged thorn bush at the edge of the trail, where a strip of fabric was caught. It was silver silk, fine and expensive, completely out of place in this graveyard of trees, and I reached out and snatched it, the fabric feeling unnaturally soft against my calloused palms.
I brought it to my face, and the scent hit me like a physical blow; it wasn't just pomegranates. It was a concentrated explosion of it, mixed with the sharp, ozone sting of magic and something else, something primal, musk-heavy, and intoxicatingly wrong. My wolf surged forward, my vision swimming for a fraction of a second as my eyes threatened to shift. The scent was domineering, challenging my own authority. It was a trail, but it was also a lure.
"He was here," I whispered, my voice thick. "He's alone."
"Athel?" Hakan called out, his hand on his sword. "What is it?"
I shoved the silk into my belt, my jaw locking. The toxic need to find him, to pin him against the stone and force the truth out of his lungs, was almost overwhelming. He had been here, hours ago, bypassing his own guards, and he was playing his own game.
"He's heading deeper into the Pass," I said, turning back to my men. My face was a mask of cold, predatory intent. "Lyra, take half the men and circle back to the main road, and if anyone asks, tell them we found a high-priority trail."
"Athel, you can't be serious," she said, her eyes wide with realization. "You're going after him alone?"
"I'm going to do what I was born to do, Lyra," I said, mounting my horse and looking down at her with a sneer. "I'm going to catch the fox that thinks it's a wolf, and when I'm done with everyone will know never to mess with the Iron wolf."
I didn't wait for her to argue and spurred my horse into the darkness of the Pass, leaving my sister and my men behind. I didn't care about the vampires or the damn crown. I only cared about the moment Athel Thorne would finally have his hands around the throat of the Vane legacy and feel the exact moment he turned into dust.
The hunt was no longer about survival, and I was going to make sure Malakor Vane knew exactly who his master was before the sun went down.