Rayne lowered her hand slowly her breathing hard against her chest like heart was going to rip out. "Whatever this place wants," she said, with her eyes focused on him now. "It is not just after me anymore, is it?"
Kael sheathed Veindrinker, his jaw tight at the realization of what he knew they both felt. "No, it is after both of us now."
And deep beneath the frozen roots of the Vale, something old stirred and turned in its sleep, slowly awakening.
The forest returned to its silence after the attack but Kael felt the weight of unseen eyes on his back and every step he took forward felt like trespassing into something older than kings and gods.
Rayne moved ahead with her torchlight glinting off the black runes carved into the nearby sones. She tried her best to keep her voice steady but Kael could hear the tension beneath her words.
"The Vale test bloodlines. It remembers who comes from which house and what crimes they carry."
At her words Kael's hand drifted to the mark burned across his collarbone. It still pulsed faintly with each step he took as if the forest itself was reading his veins.
Rayne stopped at a fallen obelisk tangled in roots, the surface bore the faint carving of a crown split by fire.
"It knows both of us, and it doesn't forgive," she murmured, tracing the edge of the symbol with her gloved fingers.
Before Kael could respond a distant horn echoed through the trees, low, mournful, growing ever closer.
Rayne stiffened at the sound. "The hunt! It has begun," she said. Her voice sharp now.
Kael unsheathed Veindrinker again. "Then we do not have much time."
The horn's echo faded replaced by the thud of pounding hooves somewhere beyond the trees. Kael and Rayne moved quickly, weaving through the undergrowth where the path narrowed between walls of stone. Frost crunched under their boots and above, branched tangled together so tightly that the moonlight barely touched the ground.
"The hunt doesn't stop, not until it tastes blood," Rayne said without looking back.
"Then it will have to settle for disappointment," Kael replied, tightening his grip on Veindrinker.
Rayne gave him a sharp look.
"You don't understand. These things chasing us are not men. They are creatures bound by oath and curse. The more you fight them, the stronger they become."
They broke into a clearing where the remains of an ancient altar jutted from the earth with stone surface that bore the same split-crown symbol Kael had seen before.
Rayne spoke, studying the carvings. "Your mother's line, the Vale keeps whispering her name for a reason." Her fingers brushed the runes carved deep into the altar's edge.
Kael kept his eyes on the treeline. "She was a queen, she died when i was ten and that is all there is to know."
"The Vale disagrees," Rayne replies. "We need to move. If they catch us out here, there won't be enough left of you to bury." Rayne turned away sharply.
Another horn blast split the night, it was closer now, followed by the incessant pounding of hooves and a sound that wasn't entirely human, like a scream twisted into laughter.
Kael looked once at the altar before following her into the dark, unease prickling the back of his neck. The Vale was keeping secrets, and everyone of them carried his mother's name. The first rider broke through the tree like as shadow ripped from the night.
Kael caught only fragments, antlered helms, armor scorched black, eyes burning with a silver fire not born of man, their horses were nothing but bone wrapped in smoke, hooves leaving no prints in the frost. The Hunt had come!!!
Rayne shoved Kael towards the ruins at the clearing's edge. "The heart of the Vale will shield us," she snapped, " if we survive long enough to reach it."
The riders split apart circling like wolves. One drew a spear of ironwood tipped in obsidian and hurled it through the air. Kael twisted aside as it shattered stone where he previously stood. He moved without thought, Veindrinker flashing in the moonlight. The blade sang as it met the first rider's strike, sparks burst, the impact nearly driving him to his knees.
Another came from behind, Rayne's fire answered first. Blue-white flame ripped across the clearing scattering two of the riders back into the mist. The Hunt's leader reined in his skeletal steed at the altar, tilting his head as he regarded Kael through the slit of his helm. His voice was a low growl:
"Blood of the Hollow Queen. The Vale remembers."
Kael tightened his grip on Veindrinker, "Then it will remember my steel."
The leader dismounted, the Hunt closed in. Rayne threw another wave of fire as Kael stepped forward to me the first strike. Steel clashed, the altar's runes flared red beneath their feet as if awakened by the fight.
The hunt had not come to kill, it had come to test. And before the night ended, Kael would learn what price the Vale demanded for his mother's blood.