By the dying fire, new names are whispered—Orleithe, Deyric, and Orrath. Some arrive with fragile hope, others with doom clinging to their steps. Mael soon realizes that shadows do not simply hide what hunts them… they watch, they judge, and sometimes, they speak back.
Episode 20
The fire burned low, its embers whispering like dying voices. Mael sat apart from the small band of hunters who had brought him here. Their faces flickered between weariness and suspicion, as though they had led a wolf into their camp and were praying its teeth would stay hidden.
The forest pressed in thick and silent, the sort of silence that isn't empty but listening. Mael felt it in his bones. Something old, something waiting, leaned closer with every heartbeat. He clenched his fists, resisting the pull of the beast beneath his skin. His blood had begun to thrum with that familiar ache, the one that whispered of violence and freedom.
Then she stepped forward.
Orleithe.
Her cloak was tattered, not from time but from purpose. Threads of silver-gray cloth fell around her like trailing smoke. Her face was framed by hair the color of night before a storm, and her eyes—too steady, too ancient—fixed on Mael as if she had been expecting him long before this moment.
"You carry the weight of a curse not born, but chosen," Orleithe said softly. Her voice was not commanding, yet it bent the air, making even the hunters fall silent. "The Blood Moon did not break you, Mael. It invited you."
The words struck like a blade twisted in his chest. He had thought of the curse as something inflicted, something forced upon him. The idea that he had answered it clawed at the fragile walls of his sanity.
One of the hunters shifted uneasily. Deyric—the youngest of them—could not keep still. He was tall, lean, with the raw edge of a boy desperate to prove himself. Yet when Orleithe spoke, he looked at her with the awe of a child staring into a storm.
"Then what does he become?" Deyric asked, his voice unsteady. "If the curse invited him… what is he now?"
Orleithe's gaze slid to the fire. "That depends," she murmured, "on which shadows he listens to."
Mael's throat tightened. Shadows. Always the shadows. They clung to him, whispered in moments of weakness, drew him toward things he feared to name.
The fire hissed suddenly, as if answering. Every hunter's head turned. Beyond the glow, the night shifted. Branches bent where no wind moved. The silence was no longer listening. It was breathing.
And then it came.
A figure rose from the dark as though the night itself had given it shape. Its form bent and broke like a reflection on disturbed water. Long, spindled limbs dragged against the ground, and where its face should have been was only a shifting blur of void, filled with whispers that tore through the mind instead of the ear.
Orrath.
The name did not need to be spoken; it arrived in their minds. The hunters staggered back, clutching their heads as the creature's presence pressed into them like cold fingers through bone. One man dropped his blade and began to mutter nonsense to himself. Another retched violently into the dirt.
Mael stood, every muscle rigid, every vein burning. The beast inside him roared for release, demanded he let it out, tear the horror apart. But his humanity resisted, straining against the pull. If he gave in, if he transformed here, he might kill not only the creature but also the men too weak to stand.
"You see it, don't you?" Orleithe's voice cut through the chaos, calm, deliberate. She hadn't moved. "Orrath does not kill first. It shows. It unveils what festers inside each soul. The weak collapse. The proud break. Only those marked by shadow can stand against it."
Her eyes turned to Mael.
"Only you."
The hunters groaned, trembling under Orrath's whispers. One clutched his ears until blood trickled between his fingers. Another fell to his knees, chanting prayers that came out fractured, desperate, meaningless.
Deyric, however, staggered but did not fall. His jaw clenched, his blade shaking in his grip, yet his eyes—burning with fear and defiance—remained on the shifting form of Orrath.
"Don't listen to it!" Deyric shouted, though his voice cracked. "Don't let it inside your head!"
The creature's whispers deepened. Mael heard his mother's scream, the crunch of bone, his father's voice begging, and his own growl when blood painted his hands. The memories weren't memories anymore—they were accusations. Each one pushed him closer to surrender.
The beast clawed at his skin. His teeth ached. His vision doubled.
Orleithe stepped closer, her cloak brushing the dirt. "This is your witness, Mael. The shadows judge you now. If you falter, Orrath will not only consume you… it will consume them." She gestured to the hunters writhing in pain. "And then, the village. And then more. This is not a curse you run from. It is one you answer."
Mael's nails dug into his palms until blood dripped. His body shook, torn between resisting and unleashing the beast.
The whispers rose like a tide.
Monster.
Murderer.
You are no son, no protector—only hunger.
Mael roared—not as a beast, but as a man refusing. The fire exploded upward, embers swirling like a thousand red eyes. His body half-shifted, claws tearing through skin, jaw stretching, yet he forced himself not to give in completely.
"Orrath!" His voice cracked, guttural. "If you want a witness, then see me!"
The shadows recoiled, the whispers faltering for a heartbeat. The hunters gasped, some collapsing, their torment easing just enough to breathe.
Deyric stumbled to Mael's side, blade raised though his hands shook violently. "Then I'll stand with him!"
Orrath tilted its faceless void, the sound of cracking bone and distant weeping filling the air. The forest seemed to bend toward it, trees groaning under invisible weight.
Orleithe smiled faintly—not of joy, but of recognition. "So the Witness is chosen," she whispered.
Mael's breath came ragged, sweat and blood dripping down his face. The beast snarled inside him, still begging release, but he held it back with will alone. For the first time, he realized that resisting was not weakness. It was a different kind of power.
The fire snapped. The whispers retreated. Orrath did not vanish—it merely withdrew, sinking back into the deeper dark as though it had not been defeated, only… waiting.
The silence that followed was heavier than any scream.
The hunters collapsed one by one, groaning, broken, but alive. Deyric still stood beside Mael, panting, his blade lowered but not dropped. His eyes shone with something Mael hadn't seen in anyone for a long time. Not fear. Not suspicion.
Trust.
Orleithe stepped back into the shadows, her figure blurring at the edges as if she had never truly belonged to the firelight. Her final words lingered in the night:
"The shadows have seen you, Mael. And now… so will the kingdom of Kael."
The fire sputtered, leaving only the glow of coals. Mael stood in the circle of faint light, knowing Orrath had not been
banished, only introduced. The Witness of Shadows had been chosen.
And it was him.