Bria did not move. She did not breathe, not fully, not enough to draw attention to herself. Every instinct urged her to remain as she was, to become as still as the trees around her and hope that she might pass unnoticed.
The creature stood unmoving. Then slowly, as though guided by something deeper than sight alone, it turned. Its head angled in her direction, and its eyes found her.
The moment stretched, held in a silence that seemed to draw the forest inward around them both.
Bria felt the weight of its attention settle on her, not as a passing glance, but as something deliberate. Fear held her fast, pressing her in place as surely as any physical restraint. Her pulse thundered in her ears, her body poised between the need to flee and the certainty that doing so would bring about exactly what she feared.
The creature took a step toward her, then another. Each movement was measured, unhurried, as though it had all the time in the world to decide what she was.
Bria remained still, though every part of her trembled beneath the effort. She thought to run, but his huge paw would take her down before she could take a few steps. So, she waited, praying he would find no interest in her.
When it drew near enough, she could see the details more clearly—the length of its two tusks, curved and deadly, the strength in its shoulders, the pure white of its fur, the deep dark of its eyes, and the unnatural size that marked it as something beyond what the forest should hold… could hold.
It lowered its head and sniffed, drawing in her scent.
Time seemed to hold its breath with her. And then—it turned away.
Without warning, without any reason she could see, it moved off, its powerful form slipping back through the trees with a speed that left her no time to question it.
In the space of a few heartbeats, it was gone.
Bria did not move. Not at once. She stood where she was, her breath returning in a rush she could no longer hold back, her body trembling with what she had forced it to endure.
The creature had seen her. It had come close enough to strike. And yet, it had not.
Bria did not linger. The moment her breath returned enough to release her legs frozen from fright, she turned toward the path and hastened her pace. Her steps quickened with each passing moment as the need to reach Willowmere pressed more urgently upon her. The forest no longer felt merely changed; it felt unsettled, as though something within it had been disturbed and had yet to settle again.
She had walked it countless times, gathered from it, trusted it. However, she now feared what it might harbor.
The memory of the beast remained too vivid, its size, its unnatural presence, and most of all the way it had looked at her—not as prey alone, but with something that lingered too long to be easily dismissed.
She pushed the thought aside and focused on the path ahead.
Willowmere was close. She knew it by the thinning of the trees, by the subtle lift in the land, by how the forest began to give way to the life she understood. Normally, this part of the journey brought a quiet sense of ease, a return to what was known and steady.
Today, it did not. Sound reached her before sight.
Voices—many of them—rising and overlapping in a way that held none of the calm she had always associated with the village. There was urgency in them, and something sharper beneath it that set her already frayed nerves further on edge.
Bria slowed only slightly as she reached the edge of the trees, her gaze lifting toward the cottages that came into view.
What she saw there struck her more deeply than she expected.
Willowmere was never like this. The usual rhythm of the village—quiet movement, purposeful work, the steady coming and going of those in need—had given way to somethingunsettled. Villagers stood gathered in tight clusters, their voices low but strained, their attention drawn again and again toward the main healing cottage.
And among them stood men who did not belong.
Hunters.
The king’s Hunters of Venngraith. He used them to hunt and collect those chosen for a specific reason. When Hunters arrived, people disappeared.
Their presence alone would have been enough to disturb the balance of the village, but there was more to it than that. Their horses stood nearby, restless, their gear marked with the wear of hard travel. The men themselves bore the look of those who had seen something they could not easily explain.
Bria stepped forward, her unease deepening as familiar faces turned toward her.
“Bria!”
Judith’s voice reached her first.
