It comes fast.
The stag bursts forward like something half-remembered from a dream, all muscle and ruin. Its ruined crown lowers as its body heaves forward – tines black with rot and angled to tear, dripping filth that smokes when it hits the moss. The ground shudders beneath the impact of its hooves, each hoofbeat blooming into small rings of black trembling water. The air buckles around its charge, bowing as if in fear.
I barely manage to raise my sword before the antlers crash against the guard. The collision detonates through my body, rattling me so violently that my lungs empty in a single ragged gasp – just pressure, vibration, and a burst of pain. The steel holds, but my bones do not. My arms jolt back; my shoulder cracks. I stumble backward across the moss, boots skidding, my shoulder searing. The sword trembles in my grip like a living thing desperate to flee, as if it would abandon me.
I am no knight.
The sword knows this.
The stag's breath hisses through the cracks in its ribs, steam pouring from the wound thick, fetid and foul, hot enough to sting. Each exhale reeks of wet iron and decay. Where flesh has rotted away, something else glistens – veins of dull amber pulsing in rhythm with its ragged breath. Its eyes are milked white, yet they find me unerringly. When it moves, it moves with purpose, as though the creature remembers life but it can no longer find it.
The Queen does not move. The world steadies around her. Even the dust seems afraid to fall. She keeps the boy's hand caught lightly in her own. When she breathes, the forest listens. Her gaze drifts between me and the creature, calm and ruinous.
"Stand," she says. The single word folds the air in on itself.
I obey before I realize I have moved. My feet root into the soft earth; the sword finds its place again, clumsy but ready.
The stag lunges again. The sound of its motion tears through the clearing – a single thunderous note of hooves and antlers in the air. It collides with me again, bone scraping against metal, rot slick under my hands. I twist aside just in time. Antlers shear across my pauldron, splitting the steel. The pain is white and immediate, burning down my arm like lightning finding ground.
Instinct–not skill– moves me. My body turns on its own, guided by something older than me. I drag the blade in a crooked arc across the creature's throat. The edge bites deep, parting hide and sinew. The wound does not bleed. Instead, a thick, viscous rot seeps out and crawls up the blade. The steel hums low in my grip, as if uncertain whether to consume or recoil from what it's tasted.
The creature wrenches its head and tears the sword halfway free before I can pull back. The stag thrashes. Its antlers slam into a tree;bark bursts, sap spilling like tears. The ground shakes. A shockwave runs through the clearing, snapping branches, scattering needles like rain. I fall again, catching myself with one hand in the mud. My shoulder screams where the armor split, warm blood sliding down my arm beneath the plate.
"Pain is devotion made visible," the Queen says. Her voice does not rise; it cuts through everything else. "It proves nothing but that you still belong to the living. Rise."
The words land heavier than the stag's blows, though I am not sure why. I still pull myself up. My arms shake with the effort and my vision swims. Every breath tastes of rust and pine. The stag turns again, the rot along its hide spreading faster,consuming it like fire eating oil. Its ribs creak open with each breath, and through them I glimpse something beating – dark, luminous and pulsing like a second heart made of shadow.
The boy laughs once. The sound is small and bright, an innocent sound that does not belong here, cutting the air like a chime before a storm. The forest convulses in response. Trees shiver, branches twist, and needles tremble loose from the canopy. The stag freezes mid-turn, head jerking toward that fragile sound. Its eyes widen. Every muscle tightens with new hunger, or something worse. Its gaze locks on the boy.
The Queen steps forward. Her cape sweeps through the moss like water spreading over stone. The light dims, folding inward toward her shadow. The boy vanishes behind her skirt as she lifts one hand – not to strike, but to draw the creature's gaze. The air thickens, heavy with heat that is unnatural for this time of year. It presses against my skin, a quiet, suffocating weight that crawls beneath the armor. The stag falters, frozen mid-motion, muscles locking, nostrils flaring. Its hooves carve trenches into the dirt, every muscle pleading to move but none daring to.
Her eyes find mine. "Breathe or be buried," she says. "The forest devours hesitation"
The spell breaks. The creature moves.
It comes like a storm without warning. It is faster than anything that size should be. The world lurches. Antlers carve the air. I move without thought – forward, not away. The blade comes up awkwardly, too high. The impact is all I know. Metal meets bone. The sound is like a sky cracking open.
Then flight – violent senseless flight.
The world spins. The antlers hook under my ribs, wrenching me from the ground. I see flashes – the Queen's stillness, the boy's pale face, the endless dark of the trees – before the world slams back into me. Bark bursts against my back. Something inside me answers with a sharp, sick sound. I slide down the trunk of the tree that so kindly broke my fall, ribs screaming, vision flickering black.
For a moment, there's nothing. No air, no thought. Just the forest breathing in my place.
Somewhere beyond the ringing in my ears, the stag bellows– a raw, terrible sound, like grief forced into shape. The Queen calls something, not my name, but another. The syllables scrape against a memory that isn't mine – something ancient, but familiar.
When my vision clears, the stag has turned, lowering its crown toward the boy.
I don't think. I just move.
The body remembers what the mind does not. My feet drag through the mud, heavy, unsteady. My arms lift. The sword hums faintly, its tone threaded with something new – pain, or maybe purpose.
The stag rears back to strike.
I reach it first.
The blade drives into the hollow beneath its ribs, deep between bone and heart. The resistance gives way in a slow, dreadful release. For one eternal second, everything stills. Its body arches, my knees buckle, and the forest holds its breath. Blood – or what was once blood – pours over my hands, black and steaming.
Then light.
It blossoms beneath its skin, faint and feverish, spilling through cracks in the hide. The smell changes – iron to ozone, rot to something almost sweet. My ribs burn again. The pain folds in on itself, dissolving. Warmth spreads from my wound outward, steady and sure, like breath returning to a drowned lung.
The stag collapses, the ground trembling beneath its fall. I stand over it, gasping, still gripping the sword, as the light in the creature's body flickers out. Steam rises from its wound. The sword in my hand glows faintly – then fades. I touch my side and find no open gash, only the faint ache of a scar already half-healed.
I don't understand. I only know that whatever just moved through me came from the strike, not the mercy of the gods.
The Queen approaches. Her voice softens, though her presence settles like gravity returning to a world that had forgotten its law. "Blood remembers blood," she says. "You have always known how to mend what you break."
Her eyes meet mine. Cold. Knowing. "You are the knight, even if you've forgotten what that means."
The boy peeks from behind her, silent now,his gaze bright as a child watching flames.
I look down at the fallen creature. Its body is still, but not peaceful. Black water seeps from its wounds, leaking into the soil, smoking as it branches out,yet leaving no burn. The forest leans closer, drawn to it. My breath steadies, though I cannot tell if it's from relief or that strange warmth still moving beneath my ribs.
The Queen kneels beside the carcass. Her gauntlet glints faintly as she presses her palm against its skull, and closes her eyes. The air stills around her, heavy with the scent of rot and iron.
"This one was born clean," she says, voice low and sure. "But all things are born with fear, and when fear outgrows the heart that holds it, it twists the body to match. The wild remembers what the mind forgets,"
Her fingers trace the stag's ruined hide, "It will not rise again."
I press my hands to the earth to steady myself. My body hums with exhaustion, a deep ache that feels almost devotional. The boy peers over her arm, his eyes bright with starlight.
The Queen opens her eyes and studies me. "You begin to remember," she says. The words are neither praise nor comfort – only truth, offered like a blade hilt-first.
I look down at my hands. They are slick with black residue, yet beneath the filth, my hands no longer tremble. The sword feels heavier, more certain, as though some part of my fear has been devoured. I cannot tell if that is a victory or loss.
"What was it?" I manage to ask.
She rises, the weight of her presence settling over the clearing like a held breath. "An echo," she answers. " The forest keeps what we cast away. You will see the rest."
The boy slips his hand into hers again. She looks toward the deeper forest. The darkness where the mountain's shadow begins. The mists curl low around its base, gray and endless.
When she walks, I follow. My boots sink into the moss, leaving no trace. Behind us, the stag's bones crumble into dust. The black pools close, leaving only pale soil in their wake.
The forest exhales– and for a moment I swear it sounds almost human.