The Void—for names must be given to fathomless things—drifted toward the fallen log. In its wake, it left not silence, but pure auditory nothingness, a vacuum where even echo dared not linger. It paused, the emptiness seeming to tilt in a consideration that iced Kai's veins, as if it were choosing which thread of existence to sever next.
Then came the sound—not a hiss, but the scream of reality tearing. A rent in the substance of the world, a noise of fraying dimensions that stole the breath from his lungs and turned the blood in his veins to frost.
The girl pressed herself flat against the ground. Kai did the same.
For a long minute, nothing happened. Then, as abruptly as it had arrived, the shadow-shape veered off, gliding into the darkness and out of sight.
Kai exhaled slowly, not daring to make a sound. He watched the girl, who stayed pressed to the mud, eyes squeezed shut, until it was clear the threat had passed.
Only then did she look up, and the relief in her face was almost enough to make her beautiful.
He waited for her to speak. Instead, she just stared at him, breathing hard, as if waiting for him to decide what happened next.
The world shrank to three things: the girl, the woods, and the hunting thing that moved like smoke with teeth.
Kai flattened himself against the dirt, every muscle locked in place, and watched the path of the creature. It was hard to look at directly—his eyes wanted to slide off it, to file it under "shadow" and ignore it. But he forced himself to focus, cataloguing every twitch and pause.
It moved differently than any animal he'd ever tracked. Instead of testing the air with its nose or ears, it drifted through the underbrush as if it could smell with its entire body. Every now and then, the shape would halt, quiver in place, and send out a cluster of sharp, clicking noises. The sound was subtle, but it cut through the low drone of evening insects like a steel wire.
Kai's gut told him the creature wasn't alone. Sure enough, after a handful of minutes, another shadow slipped into view, this one smaller, its outline thinner but somehow more urgent. It zipped ahead, then stopped, head twitching as it sent out a volley of clicks in response. The two began to work in a pattern—one pausing, one moving, each covering ground with a terrible, systematic patience.
He'd seen wolves hunt like that, once, but these things didn't move like wolves. They moved like rumors of wolves, the kind that haunted nightmares and old stories. And they were getting closer.
The girl behind the log hadn't moved except to slowly, carefully loosen the pressure on her leg. She met his eyes and nodded once, as if to say: yes, you see it too.
Kai scanned the terrain. The brambles were thick here, but the ground was soft and muddy—a bad place to run, but maybe, just maybe, good for hiding if you kept still. Beyond the bramble patch, the land sloped up sharply toward a thicket of saplings, and he remembered from years ago that just beyond that rise was a small stream. If they could reach it, they might be able to mask their trail.
He let his mind flip through options, discarding every one that ended in a fight. He was a Lumen-Null, after all—he'd never even had a spell spark, let alone something to hurl at monsters. But he was good at not being found. He was good at running.
One of the shadow things suddenly veered off its path, gliding directly toward the log. Kai's breath caught; he watched as the girl pressed herself flatter, her hands curled into fists. The creature crested the mound, head tilting this way and that, almost like it was listening for her pulse.
Kai risked a slow, silent gesture, tracing a path with his finger from the girl to the left, then up the bank to the trees. He hoped she'd understand: move on his signal, and not before.
The creature clicked again, a spray of sharp sounds, and for a second, its head snapped in Kai's direction. He held his breath, heart slamming in his chest, and waited. The thing froze, then backed away, as if deciding the sound had been nothing.
The girl's eyes flicked to Kai's face, then to the escape route he'd indicated. She nodded, almost imperceptibly, ready to trust him.
He looked at the shadows moving in tandem, listening, waiting for the moment when their attention would be elsewhere. He just needed a few seconds—a distraction, anything to pull their senses away.
Kai reached down, found a stone half-buried in the muck, and pried it loose. He weighed it in his hand, then waited for both shadows to turn away.
He was no magician. He didn't need to be.
He just needed to be smart.
The stone would do.
Kai pressed his back to the earth and waited, stone cradled in his palm, counting the beats as the shadows circled closer. He could feel the girl's breath, shallow and precise, as if she were making herself into a smaller target with every exhale.
The bigger shadow lingered above the log, uncertain. Its body pulsed with a darkness that seemed to drink up the night. The smaller one patrolled the perimeter, creeping along the edge of the brambles, always within three paces of its partner.
Kai tightened his grip on the stone. The trick would only work if they both took the bait—if he mistimed it, the second one could double back and pin them down before they ever reached the trees.
He closed his eyes, picturing the slope beyond the brambles. There was a patch of loose scree halfway up, left over from a washout years ago. If he could get the stone rolling, it would cascade—lots of noise, lots of dust. The shadow-things would have to investigate.
He waited for the wind, as Vantis had taught him, then lobbed the stone as far as he could toward the slope. It thudded once, twice, then hit the scree and started to roll. A sharp, cascading clatter echoed through the expanse, stones ricocheting off tree trunks and snapping branches.
The reaction was instant. Both shadows snapped their heads toward the sound, bodies rippling as they darted in perfect synchrony toward the slope. Their attention left the log, the brambles, and, crucially, the two kids huddled in the mud.
Kai didn't wait for a second invitation. He tapped the girl's shoulder and, keeping low, started to crawl toward the stand of saplings on the far side of the clearing. The girl followed, moving slowly—her injured leg dragging behind, teeth gritted with pain—but with a will that left Kai almost embarrassed at his earlier self-pity.
The scree slope had bought them maybe a minute, two if they were lucky. Kai led the way, steering around the patches where the frost had thinned, using every inch of his father's training to make them ghosts among the trees.
Behind, the shadow-things scoured the rocks, sending up clouds of dust as they searched for whatever prey had made the noise. Their clicks and hisses faded a little, but not much.
Kai risked a look back, then stopped dead. The girl had stumbled, her bad leg caught in a tangle of roots. She muffled a cry, then froze as one of the shadows paused, as if hearing her pain from yards away.
Kai doubled back, slid into the dirt beside her, and with a practiced hand untangled her ankle from the roots. She winced but didn't make a sound, her eyes squeezing shut until he finished.
He nodded to her, then pointed up the hill toward the stream. She nodded back, and together they started up the incline, working in perfect silence.
They reached the top just as one of the shadow-things gave up on the rocks and began slithering back. Kai pulled the girl down behind a rotted stump, not daring to breathe.
The shadows returned to the clearing, confused and angry, swirling around the log where the girl had once hid. For a terrifying moment, Kai thought they would catch the scent and double back, but the things just circled, then snapped at each other in frustration before melting into the deeper woods, the clicking fading as they vanished.
Only when he was sure they were truly gone did Kai let out a breath.
He looked at the girl. She was pale, sweating, but alive. She gave him a weak but defiant little smile, then pointed at the stream. Time to move.
They went together, two shadows of their own making, and left the hunting things behind.
The girl limped beside Kai, leaning on his shoulder, her weight feather-light and yet somehow grounding him, tethering him to a reality that wasn't just pain.
The woods closed around them, familiar and alien at once. Kai's mind ran through maps of the forest, the ridges and gullies and dry creek beds, all the places he'd explored as a boy with a different set of problems. He guided the girl away from the slope, zigzagging to confuse the trail, listening for any hint of pursuit.
They reached the stream, a trickle of water barely visible in the gloom. The banks were slick, but they crossed at a shallow bend, Kai half-carrying, half-dragging the girl over the stones. She never complained, never whimpered, just bit down on her sleeve and kept moving, her breath ragged but determined.
On the far side, they collapsed behind a low tangle of shrubs, both gasping for air. Kai scanned the woods for movement, ears straining for clicks or hisses, but the only sound was the stream gurgling and the wind pushing through dead leaves.
He risked a glance at the girl. Now, in the near-total dark, her eyes didn't just reflect the moonlight—they seemed to make their own, a faint lavender glow pulsing with each breath. Up close, her features were even stranger: elegant and sharp, with a cut on her cheek that oozed a thin, iridescent blood.
Kai reached into his pocket for the old handkerchief Maya had given him, pressed it against her wound. She flinched, then grabbed his wrist with a grip that surprised him.
"Thank you," she whispered, her voice threaded with a trace of an accent he couldn't place.
"Don't thank me yet," he whispered back. "We're not out."
She nodded, understanding the need for quiet.
They sat in silence, bodies pressed together for warmth, listening as the forest gradually retuned itself to normal night sounds. After a while, the tension in Kai's spine loosened, replaced by a cold exhaustion that threatened to knock him flat.
He looked at her ankle, saw the swelling and the unnatural twist. "Can you walk?" he mouthed.
She tried to move her foot, then shook her head. For a split second, her bravado broke, and her eyes shimmered with something like shame.
Kai patted her knee, then shrugged off his cloak and draped it over her. "You can lean on me," he said, and then, after a moment, "You're safe now. For tonight, anyway."
The girl hugged the cloak to her chest, her hands shaking. She stared at Kai, as if weighing whether to believe him, then smiled—just a tiny, crooked thing, but real.
They sat there, side by side, fugitives from everything that had made sense that morning.
A question bubbled up in Kai, but he swallowed it. If she wanted to explain, she would. For now, all that mattered was the next hour, the next hiding place, the next sunrise.
He stood, then offered her his arm. She took it, and together they limped deeper into the woods, guided only by memory and the thinnest thread of hope.