"Whatever's behind us doesn't want to capture us. It's guiding us like a sheepdog to a slaughterhouse."
Mokko's voice was low and dry.
The wind shifted again—this time toward them.
The moment it touched Lucy's surface, she recoiled with a squelch so sharp it sounded like tearing silk. Her body flared gold, then green, then a sickly gray. She let out a soft chiming whimper Marron had never heard before.
It wasn't fear or pain, but recognition.
"Lucy?" Marron stepped forward.
The translucent blue slime oozed backward from the trail ahead and flattened herself across Marron's boots. She was trying to stop her from walking. Lucy's aurora-light trembled across mulch, painting flickers of color into the undergrowth.
She was often impressed at how impeccably clean kitchen slimes were. They just absorbed organic matter and it melted inside her.
"I think she smells something," Mokko murmured.
"No," Marron said, crouching. "She remembers something."
Then Marron caught it, too.
Something sharp and sweet. A spice with a backbite. Familiar—but wrong. It was like biting into a childhood dish and tasting someone else's mouth.
She whipped her pack off her shoulder.
A jar—amber-stoppered, sealed with wax thread—was warm against her palm. It shouldn't have been warm.
Not after three days on the trail, and no fire since morning.
"Did you open this?" she asked, without looking up.
Mokko didn't answer. He was scanning the trees now, nostrils flaring.
"No. I would've smelled that."
Marron stared at the jar's seal. It looked intact. Her fingers hesitated on the string, then pulled.
Click.
The wax gave way with a dry pop. A thread of steam coiled upward—not hot, not physical. An emotional scent—wet paper, waiting, and something else.
Something watching.
Mokko growled. "Close it."
She did.
+
Lucy had gone completely still, her surface black-violet, her lights dimmed into a pulse. The forest ahead of them was utterly silent.
Then Marron saw it: the path changed.
Roots spread outward in a radial fan. Moss thinned in crisp lines. The rocks had shifted—no, arranged. There were no leaves in the center of the circle. No animal scat. No insects. Like the earth was holding its breath.
"We're not in the trail anymore," Mokko said softly.
Marron scanned the glade. Her gaze landed on a cluster of leaves that had arranged themselves into a spiral—tight, clean, deliberate. Underneath was a symbol on the ground.
"Do you see that pattern?"
Mokko held up a hand. "Don't move your foot."
She froze.
"You're standing in a pack-scent threshold," he said.
"What does that mean?"
"One of the beastkin clans is nearby. And they already smelled us."
Lucy whimpered, pressing tighter against Marron's boots.
Mokko leaned close. "These runes don't just stop people. They read them."
Marron swallowed. "What does it read?"
"Everything you've cooked in the last day. Everything that cooked through you."
The jar in her pack seemed heavier now.
The wind changed again.
And something clicked beneath her.
Lines of faint light snapped into place in the roots below her boot. They threaded outward like veins in flame—up trees, through bark and moss.
Glyphs. Hundreds of them. Activated.
Marron stood frozen.
Lucy whimpered.
Mokko cursed.
And high above, in the canopy—something moved. A footstep. Then another. Heavy. Deliberate.
They weren't alone anymore.
+
The footsteps didn't hurry. Whoever—or whatever—was above them moved with the pace of a creature already in control.
Then a thump.
Bark scattered. A beastkin dropped from the canopy—wolf-formed, heavy with scent-cloak ash. His face was streaked with dark resin in careful patterns. He landed silently, crouched low, nostrils flaring.
A second followed—female, shorter, bearing a staff of bone-bound wood.
Neither drew weapons.
Both of them looked straight at Lucy.
"That one's leaking," the woman said, voice flat as scraped stone.
Lucy trembled.
The tall male stepped forward, sniffing. Then he tilted his head at Marron.
"Who cooked last?"
"I did," she said.
He sniffed again. "Trail-soup scent. Panic in the starch. Regret under the salt. But this—" He turned to Lucy, recoiling. "This is feral echo. Unaged. Unbound. Carried wrong."
"She's not dangerous," Marron said quickly. "She's—"
"Slimekin aren't allowed into Whisperwind unless they pass cleanse-fire," the woman cut in. "Or unless their echo has been spoken for."
"She didn't cook," Mokko said. "Marron did. I was present."
The two sentries turned to Mokko.
"Ghostmane line?" the man asked.
"Born-bonded."
"Your scent's real."
Mokko jerked his chin toward Marron. "She's under my watch."
The woman narrowed her eyes. "And her signature?"
"Blurred," the man said, circling her. "Masked. Path-cooked. Traveler's weave. But something else in there."
He moved behind Marron.
"There's a question in her. It hasn't been answered yet."
Then: a second impact.
A jackal, golden-coated, smaller than the wolves, dropped from the branches. No scent-cloak. Jewelry of lacquered wood. Confidence like fog.
"You scold him now," he said, "but he brought her alive. That matters."
He paced toward Marron.
"You've cooked duskmeat recently."
"Yes. For a client."
"Hooded?"
"…Yes."
The jackal nodded. "Snake-men. They use duskmeat to track scent. Especially fresh cooks like you."
He leaned closer.
"They tell newcomers, 'if you cook good food, we'll protect you.'" He grinned, baring his teeth. There was no humor in it.
"But they don't. They learn your scent and your cooking. It's easier to watch you then. They wait until your guard's down. And then..."
The jackal snapped his jaws shut.
"Move in for the kill."
One of the wolves growled. "Is she tainted, lord?"
"I think she's cooking through it," the jackal said. "Not with it. But we'll see."
He nodded. "Now we cleanse the trail."
Two wolves peeled off with bags of salt ash and resin. One of them had their claws retracted--possibly to draw runes.
Marron didn't flinch, though the burn behind her ears nearly buckled her.
The jackal looked back once. "You cook like someone mid-conversation."
Then he vanished into the trees.
+
They moved forward in silence, past a sign labeled "scent-ring boundary." The air inside Whisperwind wasn't just thicker—it was textured. Marron felt it roll against her skin like damp fabric, brushing her wrists and her throat.
As if the forest wanted to know what she tasted like before it let her speak.
Lucy pulsed quietly at her heels, glow dimmed to dusk-blue. A pale ring circled beneath her surface like waves around a sinking island.
"We keep moving," Mokko muttered. "If we stop, someone less polite's gonna come sniffing."
But they didn't make it far.
Lucy stiffened.
She made a sound like a bell cracking in half—and then burst.
Aurora light shattered across the underbrush. Images formed.
Memory light.
Marron beside her spice jar.
A pot boiling—steam rising like an open throat.
A hooded figure, fingers in the steam.
A breath. Hungry. Grateful.
"Lucy—stop!" Marron reached out, but her hand passed through light.
The images kept coming.
"This one cooks with memory still alive…"
The voice had no mouth.
Mokko stepped forward. "Lucy—pull back. Now."
But it was too late.
An elder stepped into the clearing—beastkin, scent-blind, ribbons of pine-dye trailing behind her.
"You brought a predator echo near Whisperwind," she said.
Marron's voice caught. "She didn't mean—"
"Intent doesn't matter. Signature does."
Beastkin gathered. One bore a sash: Taster's Voice.
Mokko stood tall. "Let her cook."
The blind elder tilted her head. "If her food speaks clean, we'll listen."
She pointed. "But if it smells like that memory again…"
She didn't finish.
Marron got the point.