The wind had changed.
It carried the scent of ash and frozen earth, of pine and something fainter beneath it, something old. It wasn't just the road that changed as I moved north. It was the air itself, as if the land were holding its breath.
I hadn't stopped walking since I left the village.
No one followed. I'd made sure of that.
The further I went, the quieter the world became. Only the sound of boots on dirt, the occasional crow overhead, and the steady churn of thoughts in my head kept me company.
I should have felt relief. I was alone again. That used to be enough.
But Lyra's voice clung to me.
I stood beside you because I chose to.
I'd tried to forget words like that before. Failed every time. Now they followed me like a shadow, quiet and constant.
Not guilt. Not exactly.
Hope.
That was the problem with hope, it didn't let you go back to sleep.
By midday, I came across the remains of a burned wagon just off the road.
Charred wood. Scorched earth. Crows picking at what was left. A boot. A torn sleeve. Bits of bone. Not much else.
It hadn't been raided. There were no signs of looting. Just fire and the silence that comes after.
I crouched, fingertips brushing the blackened ground. Still warm, barely.
Whoever had done this wasn't far.
I didn't need to feed, not yet, but I closed my eyes anyway and reached out. Not with sight or sound, but with that other sense. The one that had no name, only instinct.
There were people nearby. Four, maybe five. Scattered through the trees.
Watching.
Waiting.
Not bandits. Not peasants.
Hunters.
They were moving fast and coordinated. They knew someone would pass through here and they weren't after coin. They were after blood.
I slipped into the treeline, soundless.
The hunters weren't close, but they were closing in. Whoever they were, they moved with purpose. Not reckless like bandits, not defensive like frightened villagers. They knew how to move through woods without being seen. That made them dangerous.
I stayed low, keeping the wind at my back. My senses stretched outward, drawing in every detail, the soft crunch of damp leaves, the subtle shift in scent when one of them paused to adjust their grip, the tension in their breathing.
Five of them. Armed with bows and axes, dressed in mismatched leather and fur, faces partially hidden by scarves and hoods. One wore a mail hauberk that had seen better days. Another had blood on his gloves, dry and cracked.
They didn't speak.
Not even to each other.
But they were tracking something.
And from the way they moved, the way they checked trees for marks, knelt to examine soil, sniffed the air like dogs, I realized it wasn't just a trail they were following.
It was me.
They didn't know it yet, but they were hunting me. I moved to higher ground, crouched behind the gnarled roots of an old pine, and watched them pass below. They didn't look up. Their eyes were fixed on the road behind me.
I could've stayed hidden.
But I didn't.
Something about the way they moved, the silence they kept, it felt rehearsed. Like they'd done this before. This wasn't the first body they'd left smoldering on the roadside and if they were hunting something like me… or worse… then I needed to know.
I leapt down from the ridge without a sound.
The one in the rear turned just in time to see me land.
His eyes widened. But before he could shout, I grabbed his collar and dragged him behind the tree line. One hand clamped over his mouth. The other pressed him into the trunk hard enough to make his bones creak.
His pupils dilated and he froze as I let the hunger show in my eyes.
The man trembled beneath my grip, his breath catching in shallow bursts. I could feel the pulse beneath his skin, frantic and uneven. He was young, no more than twenty, but his eyes had the look of someone who had already lived too many lives.
I leaned closer, and he flinched.
"I don't need much," I said. "Just a drop."
He didn't understand. Not until I brought my mouth to his neck and let the tip of one fang pierce the skin quick and clean.
A single drop welled up.
As I tasted it, the forest vanished and in its place, memory poured into me.
Fire, controlled and calculated. Not from accident or chaos, but purpose. Burning out homes, barns, bodies. The same ritual at each site: kill, torch, bury the ashes. Not just destruction, cleansing.
Faces appeared through the smoke. Captured villagers, bound and interrogated. Some fought. Some cried. All were silenced in the end.
And always, just behind the flame, were men dressed like him. Leather and mail, black scarves over their mouths. Working under banners with no sigil.
Hunters.
Not of wolves. Not of rebels.
Of the unnatural.
Then came the voices, cold and disciplined. "There are things walking now that never should have. Magic that should have died with the old kings. We find them. We cleanse them. And we burn the ones who stand with them."
I saw the maps, rivers inked with red. Circles drawn around rumors. Signs.
Then: a memory fresh and sharp.
A village by the woods.
A woman with a broken arm.
Me, walking away.
I saw it through the hunter's eyes. Watched as he and another crouched in the trees, observing.
Lyra had stood beside me. Had survived me. And that, to them, was unnatural.
Because monsters didn't spare people.
So if I had spared her, it meant I wasn't a beast.
It meant I was something worse.
Something aware. Controlled. Corrupting.
In their eyes, her survival wasn't mercy. It was evidence.
I pulled back from the memory.
The hunter sagged in my grip, dazed.
"You've been watching me," I said.
He gave a small, reluctant nod.
"There are more of you."
"Two dozen," he muttered. "Maybe more."
"North, past the hills. I'm just a scout, the others are waiting."
"For what?"
His voice was barely a whisper now. "For the sign. For proof. Then they come. Then they burn it all."
I loosened my grip. The hunter slumped against the tree, gasping. He didn't try to run. Maybe he knew it wouldn't matter.
I watched him for a moment, watched his hands tremble, the sweat on his brow. He looked young. But his memories hadn't lied. There were screams behind his eyes. The kind that linger.
He wasn't a man who'd seen horror. He was a man who'd caused it. Not in self-defense. Not in war. In cleansing.
That word echoed through me again. Cleansing. As if the people they burned, children, the sick, the old were stains to be scrubbed from the world.
He was a part of that. Just one link in a chain of fire and silence, but chains break the same way bones do. I crouched in front of him.
"You're going to tell me exactly where your camp is," I said. "Then you're going to scream."
His breath caught. "Please…"
I didn't bare my teeth. I didn't need to.
"I won't kill them because I enjoy it," I said. "I'll do it because you left your dead in a ditch and called it holy work."
He whimpered.
"And I'll do it because one day, you would've come back for her."
His eyes flicked toward the trees, toward where the road dipped south, back toward the village.
That was all I needed. I ended it quickly. Not painlessly, just quickly. Then I stood and wiped the blood from my hands onto the dirt. It wasn't feeding. It wasn't fury. It was justice, cruel and cold. And it didn't feel good. It didn't feel bad either. Just necessary.
I moved silently through the woods, tracing the path he and his men had taken. Their tracks were clean. Too clean. They knew how to cover their movements. But I knew how to read what others missed.
A snapped branch here. A footprint hidden under a loose stone. The scent of burned leather.
It led me north.
And this time, I didn't walk away from the fire.
I carried it with me.
Night fell heavy by the time I found their camp.
It sat low in a ravine between two ridges, sheltered from the wind and hard to spot unless you were above it. Clever. Secluded. The kind of place someone might pass within yards of and never notice. Unless they were looking.
A fire crackled low at the center, ringed by bedrolls and stacked packs. Weapons leaned in a neat line beside a fallen log. These weren't raiders. They were organized. Professional.
I counted ten men. Some sat beyond the firelight, cloaked in shadow. Some slept. Others talked quietly. One sharpened a blade with slow, practiced strokes.
I waited in the trees. Studied them. Let their voices drift to me like smoke.
"Scout didn't come back," one of them muttered.
"Probably ran," said another. "Saw something and turned tail."
"No," the first replied. "He was loyal."
They hadn't sounded concerned. No panic. No raised alarms. Just cold patience.
That made them more dangerous. I moved at the edge of silence. One shadow between others. The first man I reached never saw me. His throat opened like parchment, warm and red. He collapsed without a sound.
The second reached for his axe too slow.
The third had time to shout.
Not enough time to finish the word.
Steel rang out. A few of them scrambled to their feet, weapons raised, eyes wild. I was already among them. A blade grazed my side. I felt the sting, but not the wound.
One lunged. I broke his arm and drove his face into the dirt splitting his head open.
Another screamed, but this time, I let them.
Let the sound carry through the trees.
Let it warn the others.
Let it be proof that the fire was coming for them, too.
It didn't take long. When it was over, the fire still burned. Ten bodies lay strewn across the camp. Some intact. Some not.
I stood among the wreckage, blood drying on my sleeves, breath steady. This wasn't fury. It wasn't hunger. It was prevention. They would have kept hunting. Would have spread farther, moved south. Found Lyra.
And maybe others like me, if there were others.
I didn't feel good, but I didn't feel regret.
Just the quiet weight of my choice.