Luna's POV
I muttered to myself as I pulled back the carriage door, "Was this their idea of making me feel better?"
The inside gaped like the dark cavity of some beast. Its hollow belly reeked faintly of aged wood, touched with something sweet, like syrup gone stale. The shadows clung to the corners, greedy and unyielding. I had no lantern, no candle, no spark—so I entered blind, crawling as if I were a beggar feeling through another's home, hands extended before me like the cane of the sightless.
My palms traced splintered planks, worn leather, and bundles that smelled of herbs and hay. Anything, I thought. Anything that could serve as a weapon, even if only at arm's reach.
My hand brushed metal. Cool, smooth. A shaft, long and steady, as though it had been waiting for me all this time. I followed it upward, fingers whispering along the grain. It ended not in the sharp point of a spear, but in something else—broad, curved, and honed.
A glaive.
The realization bloomed slow, almost hesitant, but once it settled, I gripped it with both hands.
Stepping out into the night with my chosen weapon, I spun it once, twice, to test its weight. My arms remembered Rose's voice, sharp as the crack of a whip: Again. Grip tighter. Don't let it sing you into laziness. Again. She had thrust all manner of weapons into my hands during training, though I had favored none enough to master them. Even so, the glaive felt natural. Not mastery, not yet—but familiarity, like recognizing the face of a cousin.
The air outside was thick, the forest wrapped in a silence too heavy to be natural. Even the crickets had hushed, as if waiting for the curtain to rise on some dreadful act.
I glanced down. My borrowed garb—the Sister's attire—was no mere ornament. Sewn into its fabric was chainmail, thin and cunningly worked. Whoever had stitched it had loved both beauty and pragmatism. Their art was now my shield.
I walked back toward the fire where Omega and Mésos lingered. The meat we had been roasting now smoked unattended, fat hissing into the flames. My companions were armed, but in a manner that suggested more playacting than readiness.
"How are we going to defend ourselves?" I whispered, my voice low, as though the trees themselves might betray me if I spoke too loud.
Omega tilted her head, eyes thoughtful. "We fight with our backs to the rock. Three sides, three of us. Covering one another."
Mésos frowned. "Are our backs not already cornered?" she asked with her usual calm, and then paused, as though remembering something trivial. Her lips curved faintly. "Ah, yes. Luna, the cause of all this… carnage was that stranger in odd clothes, wasn't it? What was his name again?"
Her tone was so light it stung. I turned to Omega, my jaw slack with disbelief. My hands clenched hard around the glaive, knuckles burning white. Omega was staring into the flames, her gaze distant, lost in some thought I could not follow.
"That was not really anything to go off of," I muttered, irritation ebbing like the tide.
Mésos only shrugged.
"From my point of view," I added bitterly, "everything is strange in this world."
The thought should have ended there. But already, another filled the hollow: revenge. I felt it forming like ice in my chest. Clear. Sharp. A weapon of its own.
The forest shifted.
I froze. Every nerve screamed at once, my skin prickling. The fire crackled on, but the night around us had gone taut, strained like a bowstring pulled to breaking.
Then—
Rustle.
The crunch of twigs underfoot.
"Clip-clop. Clip-clop… Neigh!"
Horses.
"Run!" Omega snapped, bolting into the dark without hesitation.
Mésos blurred after her, silent and swift.
My heart lurched. The horses we had owned had died days ago, their bodies bloated and blackened by the toxins of strange mushrooms we had stumbled across. These hoofbeats, then—no salvation. Only ill omen.
I snatched up my glaive and ran. The night embraced me, smothering me in pitch, the fire's glow shrinking behind me until it was no more than a wound in the dark. My legs moved without rhythm, my path without reason. Branches tore at my arms, my face.
And then the hounds.
A bark. A snarl.
The forest reverberated with their cries.
I stumbled, nearly losing grip of my weapon, my left arm numb from carrying it. I hauled it closer, using the blade to hack away the brush, clearing my path. My chest burned, lungs aflame. My throat was dry as sand. The drumbeat of my heart hammered in my ears until I thought it might split my skull.
I broke into a clearing.
Stillness.
No breath of wind. No chorus of night creatures. The moon was absent, hiding her face behind a veil of thick cloud. The world had gone blind.
Then—
"Woof! Bark!"
The silence cracked.
From the treeline, they emerged.
The hounds came first, slavering beasts with eyes lit like coals. Behind them thundered the horses, skeletal frames draped in tattered flesh. Ghostly blue flames licked their sockets, casting pale halos in the dark. Their hooves struck the earth without sound, as if they belonged more to dream than to soil.
And upon them rode men.
No—creatures.
One sat foremost, his helm black as the void, crowned with jagged iron so dark it bent the pale light around it. His presence pressed down like a storm, regal yet suffocating. His hollow eyes bored into me, and though his lips never moved, I felt him peel me open, strip me down to marrow.
The others flanked him, armored shades bearing weapons I could not name. Their movements were precise, disciplined. Predators closing in.
I staggered back, planting the glaive's butt into the ground to steady myself. My sweat was ice down my back.
The hounds snarled, circling, teeth glistening.
Where were Omega and Mésos? My eyes darted to the treeline, searching for a sign. Nothing. Only the Riders.
The leader's gaze pinned me. I tried to meet it, though my knees shook. My body screamed to kneel, to crumble, but pride kept me straight. If I must die here, let it not be on my knees.
We stood locked in silence, the air thick as congealed blood.
The clouds shifted.
Moonlight spilled into the clearing, silver and sharp, painting the grass and the Riders alike.
And in that moment, I understood. Not by logic. Not by word. By instinct alone, old as fear itself.
Run.
Permission. That was what his silence meant. He would allow it. A head start. The game must be played.
The hounds froze. The Riders did not move.
But my body did.
Every muscle screamed, every nerve burned, and I ran.
Not a word was spoken, yet everything was understood.
The hunt had begun.