The woods were quiet—too quiet.
My bare feet padded along the dirt path. Strange marks pressed the soil—too wide, too deep, not written by hand. Something heavy had passed through here.
Then a scream cut the morning.
High. Young.
I ran. Branches whipped my face as the path broke into a clearing.
A girl—nine at most—stumbled against a fallen log. In front of her, a beast prowled, jaws wet, ribs jutting hard enough to slice skin. Its fur was patchy, eyes glowing a sick violet. Juvenile… but wrong.
People whispered about things like this. Demon hound but not even those looked so sickly.
Between the beast and the girl stood a boy with a stick. Lucen Vale.
He held it like a knight's blade—stance wide, trembling, not yielding an inch. His clothes were fine even caked with dust; the blue sash at his hip screamed noble. The girl clutched his cloak with both hands, knuckles white.
The beast lunged.
Lucen met it. The stick cracked across its muzzle—a heartbeat bought, not victory. Claws raked his shoulder. He grunted, set his feet, didn't move.
"Stay behind me!" he shouted.
The beast lowered its head, growling, ready to spring again.
"Don't."
My voice came out calm. I stepped into the clearing—plain tunic, rope belt, no steel, no crest. Just eyes on the beast.
"It's not hunting," I said. "It's starving."
Lucen flicked a glance at me, sweat in his eyes. "What difference—"
"Don't fight it. Feed it."
I nodded at his satchel. Bread. Dried meat anything would be better than human flesh
He hesitated, then pulled a strip free and tossed it low.
The beast snarled… then snapped it up in one bite. Another strip. Another. The growl faded. Hackles lowered.
It sat. Tail thumped once. The violet in its eyes dulled into a calmer blue.
"…What in the—" Lucen panted.
I crouched, studying it. Too thin for its age. Mana-sick. Not a demon hound after all, but twisted by something it couldn't survive.
The girl peeked around her brother's cloak, sniffling. "M… Mr. Rib," she whispered.
Lucen blinked. "Mr. what?"
She pointed at the jutting bones. "That's his name."
He huffed a breath that might've been a laugh, ruffling her hair even as blood ran under his torn shoulder. "Fine. Mr. Rib."
The beast licked its chops, then nudged into Lucen's side like a dog expecting praise. His hand found scruffy fur almost on its own.
"Looks like he's yours," I said, standing.
Lucen gave me a look like I'd handed him a storm. "Great. A half-starved monster for a pet."
"Not a monster," I said. "Just hungry."
He glanced at me properly then—at the plain clothes, the empty hands—and nodded once. "Lucen Vale."
"Lioren Thalen."
The girl tugged his cloak. "I'm Elira. And this is Mr. Rib." She said it like a queen knighting a soldier, certainty and all.
Mr. Rib butted her gently, careful even with those wrong bones.
We walked back together: noble, peasant, and beast. Lucen kept himself between Elira and everything else, bleeding through a proud grin. I kept my eyes on the ground, tracing the too-deep marks that led into the trees and away again.
By the time we reached the village, the morning had shaken itself clean.
Lucen looked at his sister, then at me. "Thanks."
"Don't thank me," I said. "Feed him."
He snorted. "Right. Add 'hound' to the list of things I'm protecting."
He said it like a joke. But the way he squared his shoulders—like he'd found a promise and put it on—wasn't a joke at all.
That night, with Elira asleep against Mr. Rib's warm side, I lay awake on the floor of the Vale storeroom and stared at the ceiling. The beast's breathing was rough, but steady. Outside, the wind pressed the shutters like it wanted in.
I thought about the marks in the dirt. About eyes that glowed where they shouldn't. About hunger that wasn't natural.
And about a boy who'd stand in front of all of it with a stick and no plan but don't move.
Some people break the world because they want to. Some because they have to.
Lucen felt like the latter.
And I—just a peasant with sharp eyes and empty hands—was already walking beside him.