Ashwall was dying by the time the sun rose.
Not from war. Not from plague. Just time.
Time that rotted the beams, wore down the stones, and carved deep lines into the faces of those too stubborn to leave. The village clung to the western edge of the known world—just far enough from the empires to be forgotten, and just close enough to the forest to remember fear.
To most, Ashwall was a forgotten dot on parchment. To him, it was home.
A breath of cold mist drifted through the trees as he stood knee-deep in the stream, its current curling around his calves like an old dog begging not to be left behind. The water was quiet, not still—the kind of quiet that knew how to hide things.
In one hand, he held a line of fresh rabbit corpses. Efficient kills. The kind that left no pain. On his back, a dull-stained axe strapped in worn leather—the same axe he'd used for a decade. The same one that buried monsters. The same one his daughter used to pretend was magical.
He looked up. Fog draped the forest like a funeral cloth.
For a moment, he swore he saw something in the trees. A flicker of movement—just behind the veil of mist. A blur of fur, maybe. Or memory.
Behind him, a small voice tore the silence.
"Papa! If you're any slower, the stew will eat itself!"
He turned, already smiling.
Nya stood barefoot on a mossy rock, arms crossed, wooden rabbit totem clutched in her hand like it was sacred. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes too wide for her small face. Wind tangled her hair into a wild halo.
She held up the carving. "You forgot your hunter's luck."
He climbed up the bank, kneeling beside her.
"A hunter's totem," he echoed. "You remember what it means?"
Nya puffed up her chest, voice serious. "It watches your back so nothing can bite it."
He ruffled her hair. "Then I'll need two. One for the front, too. I'm old now."
"You're only thirty-two!" she protested.
"Old," he repeated with mock solemnity. "Ancient."
She giggled, the sound like glass windchimes. It caught on the breeze, then vanished—too fast. He looked toward the treeline again, frown returning.
The birds weren't singing.
Inside their small cabin, Lyria moved like a ritual.
She didn't need light. Her hands found the clay jars by instinct. Herbs, dried root, salt, ash. The stew boiled over a hearth made of forest stones. Smoke curled from the chimney with the steady rhythm of a heartbeat.
She didn't look up when he entered.
"You're late," she said sharply.
He placed the rabbits on the counter, shaking off the cold.
"One was still breathing," he said. "Took longer to stop."
She glanced at him, then at the axe. "You dull the blade again?"
"No," he replied. "Just stubborn prey. Like my wife."
A faint smirk cracked her lips, but faded quickly.
She placed a wooden bowl in his hands and nodded toward the back room, where Nya lay curled under a patchwork blanket, the rabbit totem still clutched to her chest.
"She didn't sleep much. Said the wind was whispering again."
He stiffened. "What did it say?"
Lyria looked toward the window. "Something about red sand. Broken horns. Children crying from the ground."
He stared at her.
She shrugged. "Dreams. Maybe nothing."
They ate in near silence. Only the clink of spoons, the occasional crack of firewood. Lyria's eyes rarely left the doorway. He could feel the weight pressing in from outside.
When Nya drifted off again, Lyria finally spoke.
"They say a noble passed through Garrow's Hold last night."
He said nothing.
"They say he brings chains instead of coin. That he... collects."
His jaw tightened. "Garrow's Hold is two days east."
"They say he travels fast. And that he favors what isn't offered."
He stood without a word and stepped outside.
The night air smelled like ash.
He sat by the chopping stump, axe across his lap, gaze fixed on the stars. His breath clouded in the cold. A thousand memories crowded in his skull—Nya's first steps, Lyria singing beside the river, the night he killed his first dire wolf with nothing but a broken spear.
None of them stopped the dread.
It wasn't fear. Not exactly.
It was a silence that knew something had already gone wrong.
By morning, his heart was heavier than the axe.
He stepped over Nya's sleeping form, kissed Lyria's brow, and whispered, "I'll check the snares."
"Be back before the stew," she murmured, half-asleep.
He never reached the third trap.
---
The scream that came next didn't sound human.
It sounded like the Earth had torn.
He ran before thinking. Dropped everything. The fog blurred the path but he didn't stop. His feet found every old root. Every path burned into muscle memory.
When he reached the village square, his legs froze.
Lyria lay in the dirt. One hand stretched outward. Her mouth was open but silent. Her eyes—blank.
Nya was crumpled beside her, her toy totem shattered.
Standing above them was a man with white gloves.
A noble.
His coat was bloodless. His boots shined. In his palm, a golden hourglass turned slowly.
"You're slower than I hoped," the noble said. "Pity."
The hunter didn't move.
"I offered her position," the noble continued, voice like wine over ice. "She offered a knife. The girl tried to follow."
The guards around him said nothing. Eyes low. Hands still.
The hunter stared at his hands.
His axe was at his back.
He did not scream. He did not charge.
Because he knew.
He wasn't strong enough.
Not yet.
The noble stepped over Lyria's body and walked past.
"Let this be your lesson," he said. "Obedience preserves bloodlines. Defiance drowns them."
The hunter collapsed to his knees.
No one helped him lift the bodies.
No one stopped him from burying them by the riverbank, beneath the weeping pine.
Only the forest watched.
And the forest waited.