The forest always felt different at night, but Kaelen had never known it to feel alive.Tonight the trees loomed like silent sentinels, their branches woven together so tightly that the moonlight seemed to drip through like silver blood. Every sound—the crunch of soil beneath his boots, the faint snap of twigs—echoed too loudly, as though the woods themselves were listening.
Kaelen's bow hung ready in his hands. His quiver thumped softly against his back with each step, steady and familiar, yet his heartbeat was anything but calm. The weight of grief pressed heavier than his gear. He had not told anyone, but he was certain: Garrick had not merely vanished. Something had taken him.
And if Kaelen did not follow the trail tonight, no one ever would.
The air grew colder as he pushed deeper. His eyes traced the faint hunting path—an old route he and Garrick had walked countless times in their youth. How often had they laughed here? How many nights had they tracked deer and returned empty-handed, swearing next time would be different? Those memories only deepened the silence now.
The trail bent suddenly, opening into a clearing. Moonlight spilled across it, bright and sharp, illuminating every blade of grass. The brightness was unnatural, too clear, as though no shadow dared to linger. Kaelen slowed, senses tightening. Something was wrong.
At the center of the clearing lay a scrap of leather, half hidden in the grass. Kaelen froze, breath catching. He stepped closer, crouched, and lifted it. His fingers tightened around the torn vest stiffened with dried blood.
Garrick's.
For a long moment, Kaelen couldn't breathe. His chest constricted, his throat burned. But the instincts of a hunter steadied him. Grief could come later. Now he needed to see.
He scanned the soil. At first, the ground seemed disturbed as though by claws, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw something far more deliberate. The marks curved into patterns—lines, arcs, strange runes etched deep into the earth. They weren't the careless trails of beasts. They were symbols, deliberate and unnatural.
Cautiously, he reached to trace one with his finger.
The soil pulsed beneath his touch. Once. Like a faint heartbeat.
He snatched his hand back, knife flashing instinctively into his grip. The clearing seemed to exhale around him, shadows stretching unnaturally at the edges. Kaelen's breath came hard, his eyes darting.
And then he saw it.
At the treeline opposite him, a figure stood cloaked in shadow. Tall, unmoving, its face drowned in darkness though the moonlight touched everything else. Kaelen's stomach knotted.
"Who's there?" he demanded, bow rising, arrow notched.
The figure tilted its head, slow, deliberate.
Kaelen loosed his arrow. It cut the air true and sharp—only to vanish before striking. No sound, no splinter, as if the shot had been swallowed whole.
Cold dread crawled down Kaelen's spine.
The figure raised one hand, pale and long-fingered, and pointed directly at him.
That was enough.
Kaelen turned and ran.
Branches tore at his cloak, leaves whipped his face, but he didn't care. His boots pounded against the earth as the forest blurred past, his breath ragged in his throat. Behind him there was no sound of pursuit, no snapping of twigs—yet the sense of being followed clung to him like a shadow too heavy to shake.
The treeline broke suddenly. Ahead lay the dim lanterns of Black Hollow, flickering like fragile stars. Kaelen sprinted into the open field, nearly stumbling to his knees as he turned back.
The forest loomed quiet, silver and still. No figure. No movement.
Only silence.
But Kaelen knew it had been there. And it was watching still.
Dawn softened the village in gold, washing away the sharp edges of night. Shutters opened, smoke curled from chimneys, and the ordinary sounds of life returned as though the darkness had never pressed so close.
Kaelen stood apart from it all, Garrick's bloodied vest heavy in his pack. He should warn them. Should tell them what he had seen. But how could he? Who would believe a tale of vanishing arrows and faceless watchers? At best, they would call him haunted by grief. At worst, panic would tear through the village like fire.
No. He needed to understand first. To know.
And there was only one man in Black Hollow who might have answers.
Elder Draven.
The thought unsettled him. Everyone trusted the old man—the pillar of the village, wise and calm even in fear. Yet Kaelen had always felt something behind his steady eyes, something too sharp, too certain. The memory of last night's figure and the weight of those strange symbols gnawed at him. Could Draven truly know nothing of them?
Kaelen found himself walking before he had decided. The elder's crooked house leaned tiredly at the village edge, smoke rising in thin spirals from the chimney. Its door hung slightly ajar.
As he approached, a sound drifted out. A voice.
Draven's voice—yet doubled, layered, carrying a rasping undertone that made Kaelen's skin prickle. The words were harsh, in no tongue he knew, scraping against his ears like metal dragged on stone.
Kaelen froze at the threshold.
The muttering ceased.
The door creaked wider, and Elder Draven stepped into view. He leaned on his cane, smile warm and eyes crinkled in grandfatherly calm.
"Kaelen," he said gently. "You look as though the night itself hunted you. Come in, my boy. Tell me what burdens your heart."
Kaelen swallowed hard. His hand twitched toward his bow, then stilled. He nodded and stepped inside.
The elder's home smelled faintly of herbs and old wax. Shadows clung to the corners though sunlight should have filled them. A single candle burned on the table, its flame wavering. And beneath a frayed cloth, Kaelen glimpsed the corner of a scroll—blackened, strange, as if it carried a weight of its own.
Draven gestured to a stool. "Sit. Speak."
Kaelen obeyed, though tension stiffened every muscle. His voice was rough. "I found Garrick's vest. Bloodied. In the clearing. And symbols carved into the earth. They glowed."
The elder's brows rose slightly, but his calm did not break. "Symbols, you say?"
"You know them," Kaelen pressed. "Don't you?"
For a long moment, silence filled the room.
Draven sighed at last, his voice heavy. "Old things, Kaelen. Older than this land. Older even than the moon above us. They are not for hunters to meddle with."
"Then who should?" Kaelen demanded, anger pushing past his fear. "If not us, then who?"
The elder leaned forward. The frailty of his frame seemed to peel away. His presence pressed heavy, like unseen chains coiling through the air. Kaelen's chest tightened, breath caught.
"Those willing," Draven murmured, "to pay the price."
Kaelen's blood ran cold.
The elder's eyes caught the candlelight, and for the briefest instant, silver glimmered in their depths. His smile, still soft, curved sharper.
"Tell me, Kaelen," he said, voice low and dangerous. "What would you give, to know the truth of what hunts us?"
Fear clawed at Kaelen, but grief steadied him. He thought of Garrick's laughter, of the bloodstained vest, of the faceless figure pointing at him.
"As much as it takes," he whispered.
The candle flickered. Shadows stretched. Beneath the frayed cloth, the scroll seemed to pulse faintly, like a chained heart trying to break free.
And Kaelen understood then: he was not merely speaking to Black Hollow's gentle elder.
He was standing before something far older, far hungrier, wearing the mask of a dying man.
And it had just begun to measure the weight of his soul.