Page 38

I should have been at the Council fire, reporting the day’s progress. I should have been scrubbing the scent of the peat and the Sun-Stinger from my own skin until my flesh was raw. Instead, I was a sentry for a secret I couldn't name, guarding a female who had no place in my world.

Through the gaps in the woven willow-vines that served as my door, I watched her. Lyra on the furs, her hair a pale halo in the greenish, underwater glow of the bioluminescent moss. She looked fragile—frighteningly so. Without the sharp, defiant snap of her tongue or the fire in her eyes, she looked like a creature made of glass, out of place among the iron-hard roots of the Alu’un.

Then, the silence of the night broke.

A thin whimper cut through the air. Her body jerked beneath the heavy spotted furs, her fingers clawing at the empty space above her as if trying to catch a falling star or ward off a descending shadow. Another sound escaped her—a broken, hollow sob that vibrated in the marrow of my own bones.

I was inside the hut before I had consciously decided to move.

I landed silently on the floor, my shadow stretching long and monstrous across the curved walls. I hovered over her, my Pulse erratic, a frantic drumming that matched the distress in her breathing. My hand moved of its own accord, the tips of my claws hovering just inches above her brow. I wanted to smooth the tension from her forehead. I wanted to reach into her mind, pull the nightmare out by its throat, and crush it between my teeth.

What are you doing? A voice hissed in the back of my mind—the voice of my father, of the Elders, of the Hunter I used to be. She is a prisoner. A ghost from the sky. A distraction to be purged soon enough.

As if sensing the predatory heat of my presence, she shifted, her head thrashing against the furs. My hand descended, my palm brushing against the startling heat of her skin. It was meant to be a grounding touch, a warrior’s clinical check for fever, but the moment my skin met hers, the "softening" Sora had spoken of in the past felt like a heaviness, dragging me down into a sea of empathy I was never built to navigate.

Anger, sharp and cold as a mountain spring, flared in my gut. I hated the way my hand trembled against her temple. I hated that her scent—even muted by the mud and the stagnant water of the pools—still made my mouth water with a hunger that felt like a sacrilege.

In a sudden, violent surge of self-loathing, my hand slid from her brow to her throat.

I didn’t squeeze to harm her—I couldn’t. The thought alone felt like a fracture in my Pulse. And yet, my hand did not move away. My thumb pressed against the frantic thrum of her own pulse. I leaned down, my face inches from hers, my breath hot against her cheek. My markings flared an angry violet in the dark.

"What sorcery is this?" I whispered, the words a low, guttural snarl that barely sounded like my own language. "What poison did you lace your skin with, star-woman? I cannot purge the taste of you from my tongue. I close my eyes, and I see you shattering under me. I want to devour you. I want to claim every breath in your lungs until there is nothing left of the sky in you. I want to break you until you are only mine."

I felt the familiar, predatory roar of the Hunt rise in my blood, my hand tightening—not to stifle her life, but to possess it entirely. My claws pricked the soft, vulnerable skin of her neck as the urge to sink my teeth into her shoulder, to brand her as my prey and my mate before the whole of Alu’un, nearly overcame my reason.

"Kaelen..."

The name was a broken mumble, slipping from her lips like a prayer. She didn't wake. She didn't scream. She simply turned her face into my palm, her breathing hitching at the sound of my name on her tongue. It wasn't a cry for mercy; it was a sigh of recognition.

I froze. The anger drained out of me, leaving me hollow and aching. She wasn't fighting me. Even in the depths of her terrors, she was reaching for me. The Huntmaster, the butcher of many, was her anchor.

I let out a long, shuddering sigh, my hand dropping away from her throat as if the skin had turned to molten glass. I reached down and tugged the furs up to her chin, tucking the edges around her with a clumsiness that felt like a betrayal of my rank. I backed away into the shadows, my heart thundering a rhythm that was no longer a war-drum, but a mourning song for the coldness I was losing.

I couldn't stay. If I stayed, I would crawl into those furs with her, and the world would end in the morning.

I found Toren near the armoury platforms, the orange light of a glow-pod illuminating the sharp angles of his face as he worked a whetstone against a set of obsidian bolts. He didn't look up as I approached, but his nostrils flared, catching the scent of the hut on me.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, brother," Toren said, his voice casual, though his eyes were as sharp as the glass in his hand.

"Tomorrow, you will take the star-woman," I commanded. My voice was tight, the authority in it forced. "Take her to the lower canopy. Teach her the basic tracking markers—the broken fern, the scent of the Ghu-to, the way the moss grows toward the Pulse. And ask her questions, Toren. Subtly. Find out why she is truly here, what her people seek, and how she survived the crash when her kin did not."

Toren paused, the shhh-shhh of the stone stopping. He looked up, a slow, incredulous smirk spreading across his face, his blue markings flickering with amusement. "Interrogation and tracking? Was that not your task from the beginning, Huntmaster? To break her mind and her body until she gave up her secrets? I thought you were the one meant to 'mould' her."

I rolled my eyes, the irritation a welcome distraction from the memory of her pulse beneath my thumb. "A lot happened at the start. My methods were... distracted. Besides, as you said yourself, she seems harmless enough. She is skittish. She will talk to you more freely than she will to me. My presence only... agitates her."

Toren chuckled, a dry, knowing sound that echoed through the hanging armoury. "Harmless? You pushed her into a bog to hide her scent, you’ve barely slept, and now you’re delegating your prize to me. Why can't you do it, Kaelen? Afraid you'll trip over your own feet again? Or are you afraid of what she’ll say?"

"I have other matters to attend to," I snapped, my tail lashing behind me. I turned to leave before he could see the gold in my markings flare with the shame of my own lie. "I cannot be around her. Not yet. The Council demands an audit of the southern borders."

"Running from a fight, Kaelen-Thul?" Toren called after me, his voice trailing me onto the swaying vine-bridge. "That’s a first for the Great Huntmaster!"

I didn't look back. I couldn't tell him that I wasn't running from her. I was running from the version of myself that wanted to stay.

Chapter 26

Lyra

Iwoke with a start, my lungs seizing as if I’d forgotten how to draw air. My heart was thundering against my ribs, a frantic drumming that felt less like my own pulse and more like a desperate knocking on a locked door. The moss on the walls had dimmed to a faint, ghostly silver, signalling the deepest part of the night. It was that liminal hour where the world felt thin, as if the shadows could reach out and pull you into them.