Theo didn't remember deciding to leave.
One moment he was lying on the narrow bed in his room, the sword propped against the wall, the faint blue lantern Magda had given him casting a thin glow across the floorboards.The next, he was standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the gatehouse, boots laced, scabbard strapped to his side, the hum of the blade thrumming up his arm like a pulse.
The keep was silent. Not just quiet — silent, as if all sound had been pulled inward and smothered. Even the wind had gone.
The gatehouse door stood open.
The wards carved into its frame should have burned with a soft glow, but they were dark. Theo hesitated at the threshold, the hairs on his arms lifting. His breath came out in white clouds.
Past the gate, the field lay in silver frost under the moon.And there — halfway between the wall and the first thickets — stood the figure.
It wasn't moving. Not until Theo stepped through.
Then it smiled.
The air beyond the gate felt heavier, as though he'd walked into water. The grass crunched under his boots, brittle and sharp. His breath was louder here, the sound of it echoing faintly in a way that made no sense in the open air.
Halfway across the field, the hum in the sword became a steady, resonant chord. The figure tilted its head, just as before.
But this time, it spoke aloud.
"You're late, little wolf."
Theo swallowed, trying to keep his voice steady. "Why do you call me that?"
The figure's eyes — pale and rimmed in frost — fixed on him. "Because you carry teeth you haven't grown yet."
Up close, it wasn't quite human. The proportions were wrong — its arms too long, its neck a fraction too thin to hold its head comfortably. Its skin was the color of ice at the bottom of a deep lake, and faint cracks ran along it as though it were porcelain.
"Who told you my name?" Theo asked.
"You did," it said.
"I—"
"When you touched the seam," the figure continued, "you brushed against what listens. It heard your name in your blood."
Theo's grip on the sword tightened. "And what do you want?"
The smile widened — not cruel, not kind. Just… endless. "I want to finish the story you started before you were born."
The wind rose suddenly, cold and sharp. Frost spread outward from the figure's feet, crawling toward Theo. The hum in the sword sharpened into a note that bordered on pain.
"Careful," it said. "That one will bind me if you let it."
Theo drew the blade. The air seemed to recoil at the sight of the steel, and for the first time, the figure's expression flickered — not fear, exactly, but recognition.
"You've been given a hunter's tooth," it murmured. "And not by the keep."
Something moved behind Theo.A shadow across the frost.He turned — and saw Magda, sprinting toward him, axe in hand.
"Back!" she shouted. "Theo, get back inside the wall!"
But the figure stepped closer, and its voice was suddenly inside his head again, soft as breath:
If you go now, you'll never know why they sent you here.
For a moment, the field seemed to stretch — the wall receding, the frost deepening, the moonlight sharpening to silver blades across the ground.
Then Magda's hand slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around, and the keep's gates loomed right in front of him as if they'd never been far at all.
The doors slammed shut behind them.
Theo staggered back, the hum in the sword dimming to a faint echo. His breath came ragged.
Magda rounded on him, eyes blazing. "What in the name of the old stones were you thinking?"
"I didn't—" Theo stopped. "I thought I was dreaming."
Her expression hardened. "You weren't."
Somewhere beyond the wall, the figure's voice carried faintly through the night.
"Next time, little wolf."