Brannok came back to the realm of his den with the stink of men still burning in his nose. The weight at his belt swung wet and heavy, a fresh ear among the others. He touched it once, almost idly, and his mouth curved at the memory of the screams. High, broken sounds, torn out of the loner as he stumbled blind into the fields, half his face left to the forest.
Good. Let them remember. Let them keep to their stone halls and their plowed fields. They would whisper now of Fenrathi shadows, of claws in the dark, and they would chooseâwiselyânot to come again.
This stretch of woods was his. He held it because he was strong enough, and strength gave him the right. To enter it without leave was to trespass against him. To harm or steal within its bounds was to answer to his teeth. That was the law here. His law.
The claw-marks on bark, the bones left clean at the kill-sites, the ears swinging from his den wallâthese were his decrees. Proof, plain and bloody, that this land bent to his will.
And he was content. He had made his claim, and he would guard it. Any who tested it would learn the same lesson.
He loped northward, shifting easily from man to beast, paws striking earth with the certainty of one who knew every hollow and break in the land. His den lay ahead, the borders behind secure for now. No man would dare cross again for weeksâhe had seen to that.
At his side rattled the spoils of his journey: salt and iron, oil, the things the cold moons would demand. Necessary, but already forgotten in his mind, replaced by the thought that circled closer with each stride.
The girl. Ari.
When first he had seen her stumble into his woods, he had done nothing. Hadnât needed to. The forest itself was trial enough, and he had been content to let it chew her bones and spit her out. Easier that way. Cleaner.
But she had not broken.
Instead she had carved space for herself, hollowed out a bubble within his claim that the trees themselves now seemed to bend around. Fire. Shelter. Food. Her camp had become part of the land as surely as claw-marks on bark or skulls at a kill-site.
For a fleeting moment, he considered what it would be to leave something for her. A pouch of salt at the treeline, a tool dressed up like a godâs offeringâlet her think herself blessed, watched over by spirits. He smirked at the thought, a curl of teeth in the dark.
But no.
He would rather see what more she could make of herself without his hand at her back. She had already spun life out of nothing, and he hungered to see how far she could go before the forest bent to her completely.
She was already halfway there.
He reached the den at last, the earth hollowed with his scent, the stone walls lined with his proof. He dropped the sack of salt and iron, the oil jars, the other things that would see him through the lean moons ahead. The goods were stowed in their place, forgotten as quickly as they were set down.
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The fresh ear he strung with the others, a damp and curling token swinging from the wall. The line of them stretched like a row of withered fruit, each one a mark of trespass punished. His trophies. His warnings. His law made flesh.
For a while he stood in the stillness, listening to the bones of the forest shift around him, the quiet creak of branches overhead. He might have settled, content in the hold of his den, but a thought pressed at him, insistent.
The girl.
It had been days since he last set eyes on her. Days since he had watched the fire curl against her shelter and seen her move with that stubborn, unyielding purpose that was fast becoming her scent.
Curiosity gnawed at him. How far had she gone in his absence? Had the forest taken her at last, or had she dug her heels deeper, carved herself further into its heart?
With a growl low in his chest, he turned from the den and set out again, paws silent as he slipped back toward her hollow in the trees.
He told himself it was nothing more than curiosity. Nothing but the want to see if she still breathed. But the truth curled deeper, hotterâhe wanted to see how she fared, how much further she had bent the wild to her will.
He crested the rise with the care of habit, every step placed to keep him unseen, his breath drawn quiet and low in his chest. The ridge gave him its view as it always did, the hollow below laid bare in firelight and shadow.
And then he saw it.
A rack of antlers rose above her shelter, pale and wide as a crown, the tines catching what little light bled through the canopy. Not some meager scrap, not a half-grown beast snared by chance, but the broad crown of a stag in its prime. Its shadow crowned her dwelling like a banner, a declaration hammered into the bones of the forest itself.
The scents reached him a heartbeat later. Rich meat carried on the drift of smoke, salt-slick fat hissing as it dried, the musk of hide stretched taut upon a frame. The kill was fresh, clean, well-taken. Not scavenged, not stumbled into â but won.
His lips peeled back, not in threat but in a rare grin, teeth glinting in the dark.
Grand. This was grander than he would have given her credit for. A kill worth boasting of, even in a Fenrathi camp.
A hunterâs kill.
The girl who had come into his forest empty-handed, noisy and clumsy as prey, now stood marked by the stagâs crown. She had crossed the line that separated scavenger from hunter. No longer a child scratching at roots or lucking upon scraps â but one who could take life cleanly from the wild and wear it openly.
The forest had not broken her. It had shaped her. Hardened her.
He drew in her scent again, deep and steady, and the truth of it struck him sharp and sure: the girl had become a hunter.
He lingered on the ridge, eyes fixed on the movement below. The girl bent over the stretched hide, hands working steady and sure, pulling the flesh clean, scraping in long strokes that rang with rhythm. Her shoulders carried the work without falter, her face set to the task with the calm of one who knew what she was about.
Smoke curled from her fire, carrying the sharp tang of fat to his nose. Meat hung in strips to dry, a careful spacing, a careful eye. No waste, no careless ruin. Each part of the stag had been taken, each part given its place.
He huffed, low and pleased, the sound lost to the trees.
How far she had come. When first she stumbled into his land, she had been little more than prey wrapped in thin skin. He had thought the forest would swallow her, grind her down to bones and silence. And he had let it try. That was the law. The strong endured. The weak did not.
But she had endured. Moreâshe had thrived.
The bubble she had carved within his territory no longer looked fragile. No longer a hollow waiting to collapse. It stood with its own shape, its own teeth, crowned by the stagâs rack and fed by her hard-won skill.
He sat back on his haunches, satisfied, golden eyes narrowing as the hide stretched taut beneath her hand.
Her bubble in his woods was worthy.
She had done well.