I pushed free of my blanket and rose stiffly, jaw tight, every muscle coiled with the choice I had made. If he wanted my voice, he would never have it.
But he would keep coming. I knew that as sure as I knew the sun would rise. He had already slipped through this hollow four times that I could count, maybe more, always circling, always leaving his little cruelties behind. He would come again.
So I crouched low and studied the ground. Not a quick glance, not the careless sweep of a tired girl, but a soldierâs crawl along the perimeter, eyes hunting every blade of grass, every mark in the soil. I knew my own tracks well enough by nowâthe way my boots pressed a stalk flat and snapped it clean, the way I moved in and out between snare and shelter. I knew where deer cut through, where rabbits scurried, where pinecones fell.
And there, just beyond the stones of my firepit, I found it.
Grass bent heavier than the rest, pressed down into a line too straight for chance, too deep for wind. Not rabbit, not deer. A predatorâs weight. His weight. His path.
A grim smile tugged at my mouth. So thatâs where you slip in, is it?
I dragged a whip-thin sapling into place, bending it until it thrummed, then lashed it down with cord from my kit. A neat loop hid among the bent stalks, invisible unless you knew where to look. If he put his foot wrongâif he came through as he had beforeâthe sapling would snap free and whip across his shin.
Not enough to wound him. No. But enough to sting. Enough to shame. Enough to say: I see you, wolf. I bite back.
I sat back on my heels, breath fast in my chest. This was nothing, reallyâno more than a rabbit snare turned sideways. But it was mine. My move. My answer.
I stood, dusted my hands, and let the clearing look as careless as ever. Cloak tossed by the fire. Pot dangling empty. Bedroll crumpled in a heap. Let him believe I had gone about my clumsy human ways.
Then I slipped into the underbrush with my bow, every step silent, every nerve alight.
Let him come again.
_________________
Brannok came as soon as she left.
The moment her shadow slipped from the hollow, his body surged with purpose, rage still burning hot from the sight of her hands raised high, both fingers stabbing the air. Not one, but two. Twice the insult. Twice the contempt. The little flame had mocked him outright, and he was not about to let it pass unchecked.
His claws itched for retribution. The ruined pelts had drawn nothing from herânot a cry, not a word, not even the gag he had expected. Fine. Then let her scream when she found her firewood gone, her axe missing, her labor stolen clean from her hands. Let her finally curse him for it. Let her finally give him voice.
He stalked down from the ridge, shoulders rolling, jaw clenched so tight it ached. Her hollow lay quiet, careless, as though she had only stepped away for water. The cloak tossed, the pot hanging, the bedroll a crumpled heap. Too easy. Too human.
He prowled straight for the line of bent grass, the path he had always favored, spitting mad and ready to tear the clearing apartâ
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The cord loosed, the sapling whipped, and pain cracked hot across his shins.
Brannok snarled, a sound ripped raw from his chest as he staggered back, claws gouging the earth. The sting was nothing, a childâs lash, but the insultâoh, the insult burned hotter than fire. He had been caught. Caught like prey, like some witless beast in a girlâs snare.
His teeth bared, breath heaving, fury scorching through him. She had set this. She had done this. She had dared.
Brannok wrenched the sapling free in one savage tug and snapped it in half, breath steaming, every muscle trembling with the urge to storm the hollow and drag the silence from her throat.
But still he stood, chest heaving, blood pounding in his ears.
Brannokâs snarl faded into a grin, sharp as a knifeâs edge. The sting on his shins was nothing. What mattered was the insultâthe defianceâand how he would answer it.
She wanted to match him with tricks? Then he would bury her in Fenrathi patience.
His gaze swept the clearing, settling on the earth itself. Roots tangled beneath her shelter, beneath the racks and caches she had scraped together with her soft hands. Vines crept along the tree line, thick and pliant. With a grunt, he tore the first one free.
Then another. And another.
Soon his claws and fists worked ceaselessly, ripping vines from trunks, dragging roots from the ground, piling them in coils. He set to weaving. Over, under, twisting and knotting with the skill of a hunter binding snares. Hours slipped by, each knot tighter, each braid thicker. He wound them around her bedroll, lashed them through the beams of her shelter, coiled them through the handles of her baskets, tied every tool, every scrap, every piece of her meager world into a single snarled web.
By the time he was done, her hollow looked as though the forest itself had grown up and swallowed it whole. A cage of roots and vines, woven with maddening care, every knot deliberate, every twist an insult. She would spend hours, maybe days, cutting herself free.
Brannok stood back at last, chest heaving, hands raw and damp with sap. The clearing smelled of torn earth and green rot, the work of his fury written into every line of her camp. He grinned, savage and satisfied.
Let her come back to this. Let her struggle, silent and seething, until her fingers bled. Let her see what it meant to provoke him.
The girl wanted to play games?
Then he would show her how a Fenrathi played.
______________
I smelled it before I saw itâgreen rot, sap, torn earth.
The clearing stopped me dead. My camp was gone. In its place stood a cage of roots and vines, snarled and braided through every inch of my life. My bedroll lashed like a prisonerâs wrists. My baskets strangled, my cache bound tight, the beams of my shelter webbed until the whole thing sagged under the weight of his fury.
I dropped the rabbits from my belt and stood shaking, fists balled.
Dirty. He was playing dirty now. Not pranks, not teasing games with woodpiles or buckets of frogsâno, this was meant to gut me. To take my hours, my labor, my work and choke it to death right in front of me.
I bared my teeth to the trees. My breath came hard, hot, the sound of it ragged in my ears.
He wanted a war? Fine. He would have one.
I stormed across the clearing, yanking at the knots, testing them with sharp jerks. Tight. Meticulous. Infuriating. He had spent hours on thisâhours tearing the forest apart, weaving it back together, just to spit in my face. The sheer devotion of it stung worse than the ruin.
I wanted to scream. Wanted to throw my fury into the trees, to let him hear just how deep he had cut. But no. No. I would not give him what he wanted.
Instead, I smiled. A thin, savage curve of lips.
Two could play at this.
I dropped the knots and stalked to the edge of the clearing, eyes sweeping the ground. Already ideas sparked sharp as flintâsnares, pits, lashes, things that would sting more than any root. If he thought he could bind me, he was wrong. I would turn his tricks back on him tenfold. I would salt his arrogance with pain until he tasted blood.
Let him come again. Let him prowl and mock and sneer.
I was done playing.
From here on, it was war.