The snow whispered secrets beneath their boots — not in words, but in the hush between branches, in the sighs of frost disturbed, in the memory of steps long since faded.
Rei followed in Kaia's shadow, her silhouette a pale flame flickering through the winter-thick wilds. They walked beneath the eaves of the Northwood — trees older than grief, black-barked and bone-thin, their branches clutching at the ashen sky like the fingers of giants lost to time.
The world here was not silent.It listened.
Each footfall echoed too far.Each breath lingered too long.And somewhere beyond the pines… something waited.
Kaia moved like snow-shadow — all quiet edges and purpose. Her body, lean and honed by hardship, flowed between trees with the grace of a predator. Her ears twitched with every shift in wind or crack of wood. She didn't flinch. She didn't pause. But now and again, she glanced over her shoulder.
Not because she distrusted him.Because he was changing.
Rei felt it too — in his marrow, in his breath, in the way the wind sometimes whispered not around him… but to him.
They had walked since dawn.No words.Only the rhythm of footsteps over frost.The cold rasp of breath.The sound of snow falling through branches like dying stars.
Rei's thoughts wandered.
To pain — dull now, but constant.To the voice that once whispered feed me beneath his skin.To a memory frayed at the edges, slipping like smoke:
Fluorescent lights.A store door chiming.The cold weight of a bottled drink in his hand.City night reflected in the glass.A sudden light — violent, violet.Then… nothing.
This world had taken everything from him.
Except her.
He looked up. Kaia had stopped.
They stood at the cliff's edge, the forest falling away beneath their boots. Far below, a river carved through the land like a silver wound — its surface half-frozen, its heart still running cold. On the other side, the pines thickened again into wild, unbroken green. Snow dusted the ridges. Mist drifted like breath between the trees.
Kaia crouched low, scanning the far bank. Her body tensed — shoulders drawn, every muscle ready. Her nose caught something. So did her silence.
"They'll come soon," she said at last. Her voice didn't rise — it lowered, as if the trees themselves should not hear.
Rei stepped beside her, careful not to break her line of sight.
"The Order?"
Kaia nodded. "They don't leave loose ends. Especially not ones like you."
A pause.The wind stirred.
Rei's breath came out in fog.
"…What am I to them?" he asked.
Kaia didn't answer right away.
When she did, her voice was quiet.
Measured.
"Bait. A mistake. A question they can't answer."
She stood, snow scattering from her boots.
"Or maybe proof.""Proof of what?"
"That the Rift still chooses.
And that it remembers."
Rei looked at her — really looked.
The morning light split across her face — stark and pale, without the warmth of fire to soften it. Her golden eyes shimmered with something old. Her cheekbones were high, skin kissed with faint scars.
She turned to him.
"Listen, Riftborn," she said, and for a heartbeat, the title didn't feel like a curse.
"Whatever's inside you — the mark, the void, the hollow in your memory — it will kill you. Or worse…"
She stepped forward.
"…it will use you."
Rei swallowed.
She was close enough now that he could smell her — pine sap, frost, and something metallic beneath it. Blood that hadn't yet faded. Truth that had yet to be spoken.
"You need to own it," she said. "Name it. Shape it. Or someone else will."
Rei didn't answer right away. But the frost in his shoulders shifted. He exhaled slowly, the mark on his chest pulsing faintly beneath cloth.
For a moment, Kaia thought he might collapse again.
But instead, he stood straighter.Not defiant.But ready — if only barely.
Then… movement.
Above
High in the trees above them, where no branch should bear weight and no breath should stir the frost, a figure crouched like a second shadow.
Cloaked in white.
Face masked in silver glass.
One hand on the trunk.
The other holding a blade — not of steel, but of moonlight caught in obsidian. The edge pulsed with a heartbeat not its own.
He watched them from above — the beastkin girl and the boy marked by void.
Below, Rei was speaking.
Asking.
Changing.
The figure tilted his head.
A sigil glowed beneath the leather wrappings on his palm — a burn etched in geometric lines, faint and precise.
The hunter smiled.
"The hunt begins," he whispered.
And then he vanished — not with movement, not with step. Just absence. As if he had never been.
**
After
They moved again, soon after.South, along the river's curve, toward where the old bridge stones broke into ruin. The mist followed them like memory. The trees grew thicker. And behind them…
The Order watched.
Not all of them wore cloaks.
Some wore trees.Some wore wind.Some were already there.
But the Rift had moved.And the scent of the Seal was not far now.
Not yet.But soon.
The Void did not hunger.
It waited.
And the world… held its breath.