Aiden Thorne awoke to a pounding in his skull and thesour taste of blood in his mouth. Morning light spilled through the wooden shutters, casting golden bars across the tattered sheets and scarred floorboards. His limbs felt heavier than usual, and every muscle ached as though he'd fought a bear.
He rolled onto his side with a groan, but the pain in his chest stopped him cold. Gritting his teeth, he sat up slowly and pulled off his tunic. There it was—the mark.
A single scar slashed diagonally across his chest, shimmering faintly in the light. It wasn't a cut, not exactly. It didn't scab or bleed, but shimmered like silver beneath the skin. It pulsed when he touched it, sending a jolt up his arm like a live wire.
"What in the gods' names…?"
He dressed quickly and stepped outside. The air was cool, scented with dew and ash from dying hearths. Glenhollow was awake but subdued. Word of the attack had spread like wildfire. People whispered behind hands and locked their doors in broad daylight. Someone had carved a crude sigil on the village well: a circle crossed by a claw. Superstition bred quickly in fear.
Aiden passed the bakery where Clara and her father stood in silence. The boy—Liam—had survived, though barely. The healer claimed the child wouldn't speak, just muttered nonsense about eyes in the trees.
When Clara saw Aiden, her eyes widened. She reached out, then thought better of it.
"I heard you joined the search," she said. "Did you see anything?"
He shook his head. "Just tracks. Blood. Not much else."
"But you…" she faltered. "You weren't at the meeting this morning. Sheriff Halberd was asking for you."
Aiden hadn't realized he'd slept so late. He mumbled an apology and turned toward the center of town.
At the village hall, a small crowd had gathered. Sheriff Halberd, a thickset man with greying hair and a perpetual scowl, was pacing before them like a wolf in a pen.
"Three sheep dead from the western farms," he barked. "One eviscerated, the others torn clean in half. And before that, little Liam nearly carried off. This ain't foxes or common wolves. This is something worse."
An old woman raised a shaking hand. "We need the wardstones brought from Hollowmere—just like in the old days. The kind that kept the spirits at bay."
Halberd waved her off. "This isn't spirits, Mera. It's a beast. A rabid one, likely."
"But no beast leaves marks like that!" someone else shouted. "You saw the tracks! Big as a bear's, and more like claws than paws!"
As the crowd muttered, Halberd caught sight of Aiden.
"There he is," he called. "Boy, you were closest to the field that night. See anything?"
Aiden hesitated, then shook his head. "Just the girl and her brother. Whatever came out of the woods was gone by the time I got there."
The sheriff studied him for a moment. "Right. Well, keep your ears open and your doors locked."
The meeting dissolved into scattered groups and muttered suspicions. Aiden left quickly.
He returned to the forge where Garrick was hammering away at a bent plow blade. The older man barely glanced at him.
"You look like death scraped over," he muttered.
"I feel worse," Aiden replied. "I didn't just sleep through the meeting. I slept like I was drugged."
Garrick finally stopped and turned. His eyes narrowed.
"You get that scar from the woods?"
Aiden blinked. "You know about it?"
"I saw it last night, when we found you near the fields. Your shirt was torn clean open. Thought you'd been attacked."
Aiden hesitated, then peeled back his tunic to show it again. The silver mark glimmered like a vein of metal beneath his skin.
Garrick paled. "That's no wound. That's a sign."
"A sign of what?"
The blacksmith wiped his hands and motioned Aiden to follow. He led him into the back room of the forge, where dusty books and relics cluttered the shelves.
"This was my father's," Garrick said, pulling a leather-bound tome from a drawer. "He wasn't just a smith. He was a lorekeeper once, before the wars. Wrote down everything he heard about the old magicks, curses, blessings, bloodlines."
He flipped the book open and pointed to a sketch—an etching of a man with a glowing mark on his chest, half-transformed, claws growing from his hands, his eyes white.
"'Moonbound,' they called them. A rare bloodline—warriors gifted and cursed in equal measure. Said to have struck a bargain with the old moon gods to protect the mortal realms from things darker than night. When one's marked, it means the balance is tipping again."
Aiden stared at the page. "You think that's what I am?"
Garrick nodded solemnly. "I've seen stories like this before, but never believed I'd see it with my own eyes. Your father… he may have had the blood too."
"Wait—you knew my father?"
"We weren't close, but I knew him well enough. He came to me once, years before he vanished, asking about the Moonbound. Said he felt something changing in him. I told him to go to the Witch of the Wastes."
Aiden blinked. "The what?"
Garrick leaned closer. "A seer who lives beyond the Ironfen Marshes. Dangerous lands, but if anyone knows what's happening to you, it's her. Your father never came back."
Aiden looked down at the mark again. It throbbed gently in time with his heartbeat.
That night, he dreamed again. He ran through the woods on four legs, wind rushing past. He could smell everything—the rot of leaves, the musk of deer, the sweet tang of blood. Then, he was man again, naked and afraid beneath the moon.
He awoke with a jolt. Sweat soaked his sheets. His fingers still twitched as though clutching prey.
In the mirror, his eyes flashed yellow for a brief moment. He stumbled back, heart thudding.
It was time to find the witch.
Before dawn, he packed a satchel—bread, salted meat, a waterskin, and Garrick's book. He wrote a note and left it on the workbench.
Gone to find answers. Don't follow.
He left Glenhollow behind, following the northern path out of town, toward the old road that wound into the Ironfen Marshes. Mist hung thick over the fields, and distant crows called like warnings.
He didn't know what he would find. But the mark burned steadily against his chest, guiding him onward.
And deep in the woods, something stirred in answer.
Something that had been waiting for him to awaken.