The morning broke dull and gray, the kind of sky that pressed low against the earth. Rain threatened but hadn't yet fallen, leaving the air heavy with damp.
Elara was up before the rooster's cry, trudging toward the stables with a feed bucket in each hand. The draybeasts usually grumbled and shifted at her approach, their hooved tails thudding lazily against the stall walls.
This morning, one stall stood empty.
She froze in the doorway, eyes darting to the ground. The straw was scattered, the latch undone, the thick wooden door hanging slightly ajar. Outside, the frost-dusted mud showed deep clawed prints leading toward the treeline.
Her pulse quickened. She knew those prints — the wide, taloned paws of the black-scaled draybeast Garrick prized most. The one he'd once bragged could haul half the village's harvest in a single day. The one he'd beaten her for when it had gone lame last winter.
If Garrick found out it was gone, he'd blame her. He always did.
She set down the buckets and ran to the porch.
"Marla!" she called, breath sharp in the cold. "One of the beasts—"
The kitchen door swung open. Garrick filled the frame, his face dark with suspicion before she'd even finished speaking.
"What about the beasts?" His voice was low and dangerous.
Elara's throat tightened. "One's missing. The black one. I think it went toward the woods."
Garrick's jaw clenched. "Then you'd better go bring it back before it ends up as supper for some flea-ridden beastfolk."
Her stomach dropped. "Into the woods? Alone?"
"Did I stutter?" He shoved a length of rope into her hands. "You bring it back before nightfall, or don't bother coming back yourself."
Marla appeared behind him, arms folded. "And don't lose the rope. That cost more than you're worth, girl."
The rope felt heavier than it should as Elara crossed the frost-slick yard. She followed the tracks past the last fence post, into the shadowed green where the trees began. The air cooled instantly, the smell of wet earth and pine closing in around her.
She kept her ears open for the familiar grunt of the draybeast, but all she heard was the soft hiss of wind through branches.
The prints led deeper. The forest here felt… different. Still, but not quiet, as if the quiet was something deliberate, something listening.
A flicker of movement ahead.
She pressed herself against a tree trunk, heart pounding. Through the mossy gloom, she saw it, the black draybeast, standing oddly still. Its ears twitched, head turning toward her, but its stance was wrong. Tense.
It wasn't looking at her.
It was looking past her.
A voice, low and steady, came from behind.
"You shouldn't be here, Elara Vey."
She spun.
The cloaked figure stood in the half-light between the trees. This close, she could see the texture of the cloak, worn, stitched with symbols she didn't recognize. The hood shadowed their face, but the glint of eyes beneath was unmistakable.
The same voice that had spoken to her before.
She gripped the rope tighter. "How do you know my name?"
They didn't answer at first. Their gaze flicked to the draybeast, then back to her.
"Because I knew the woman whose eyes you carry."
The words sank into her like a stone dropped into deep water.
Her mouth opened, but the question tangled in her throat.
A sound cut through the air, distant but sharp. A horn. Then another. Beastfolk hunting calls. The draybeast bolted into the trees, vanishing into the gloom.
Elara cursed under her breath and started after it, but the cloaked figure stepped into her path.
"Leave it," they said. "The beast will find its own way home. You… will not, if you keep following those horns."
For a heartbeat, neither moved. The forest seemed to hold its breath.
Then Garrick's voice — faint, angry, calling her name from somewhere far behind — broke the spell.
She glanced back toward the sound, then forward again.
The cloaked figure was gone.
When she finally returned to the yard, empty-handed and mud-splattered, Garrick's fury burned hot enough to sting even in the cold air.
But that night, lying on her thin mattress in the loft, Elara couldn't stop replaying the moment in the woods. The way the figure had said her name. The way the forest had seemed to shift around them.
And the way they had spoken of her eyes, as if they were something dangerous.
Outside, somewhere past the treeline, a horn blew once more.
Lower. Closer.