Chapter 22 – Shadows Beneath the Moon
The night stretched wide and silver, the moons hanging low over the plains like twin watchful eyes. Our campfire had burned to embers, its glow a fragile heartbeat in the endless dark. The others had already fallen asleep—Ren on his side, tail flicking now and then, Luka sprawled with one arm draped over his eyes.
I took the first watch. Nox joined me wordlessly, settling beside the embers. The faint light caught the planes of his face, his dark hair tangled from the wind.
For a while, we said nothing. The silence wasn't heavy. It was alive, full of small sounds—the sigh of grass shifting under the night breeze, the distant hum of creatures too small to see, the steady rhythm of our breaths.
"They're closer," I murmured.
Nox didn't look at me, but his ear twitched slightly. "You can feel it too."
"Yes." My voice was barely a whisper. "The air smells wrong. The earth feels like it's holding its breath."
He studied the horizon where the land curved into shadow. "You have sharp senses for someone new to this body."
I smiled faintly. "Maybe it's not new anymore."
He glanced at me then, his eyes catching the moonlight—pale silver, sharp as a blade and soft as smoke. "You adapt fast."
"Necessity does that."
For a heartbeat, the silence between us thickened. The moonlight painted his scars in faint lines of silver; they looked almost like stripes, old stories etched into his skin.
"You're not what I expected," he said quietly.
"What did you expect?"
"Someone who would break."
I met his gaze. "Maybe I did. But I didn't stay broken."
Something flickered across his face then—something small and honest, gone too quickly to name.
A gust of wind swept through the camp, scattering ash. The scent of dust and iron brushed past my nose. I froze.
Nox noticed instantly. "What is it?"
"Something's moving," I said, rising to my feet. My tail flicked once, my ears tuned to the dark. "Downwind."
He stood beside me, hand on the hilt of his blade, his gaze narrowing toward the shadows. For a long, breathless moment, nothing moved. The world seemed to still. Even the night insects went silent.
Then—a sound. Soft. Barely audible. A scraping in the dirt, too deliberate to be the wind.
"There," I whispered, pointing.
The grasses rippled, but there was no shape. Only the faintest outline, a shimmer that vanished as soon as it formed. My pulse thundered in my ears.
Nox stepped forward, shoulders low, muscles coiled to strike. The moonlight slipped over him like water, silver and dangerous.
But before he could move further, the sound stopped. Gone. As though the night itself had swallowed it.
We waited—long enough for the embers to fade, for the moons to climb higher and begin to wane. Still, nothing returned.
When at last I exhaled, it was slow and deliberate. "They were here."
Nox nodded. "Watching."
He looked at me then, and for a breath, the world narrowed to the quiet space between us.
"We'll find them," he said softly.
I met his gaze and found calm there, steady and unflinching. "I know."
When the dawn came, it was thin and pale, painting the plains in shades of gray and gold. Ren was the first to stir, yawning before he froze mid-motion.
"Maise," he said, his voice sharp now. "You'll want to see this."
We gathered around him. The ground beyond our camp was a maze of prints—half circles, drag marks, claw impressions that overlapped and tangled like a warning written in the dirt.
Luka crouched low. "They were right on us."
Nox's expression darkened. "Close enough to count how many of us slept."
I knelt beside the prints, fingertips brushing the soil. The air still held a faint chill, a whisper of something that didn't belong.
"They're testing us," I murmured. "Seeing how close they can come before we react."
Nox glanced at me, his jaw tight. "Then they'll learn what happens when they get too close."
I stood, the morning wind lifting my hair, eyes fixed on the horizon. The tracks led east, toward the shadowed ridge where the plains turned wild and the forests began.
"Pack up," I said quietly. "We move at sunrise. The hunt starts now."