The goats didn't make a sound.
That was the first sign.
Ash had spent the morning running perimeter checks. The traps he laid days ago were untouched, but the forest was wrong again. Birds avoided the clearing. The sky brightened too early, then held its light like it forgot how to dim.
The well water tasted different. The villagers said nothing, but some had started walking wider circles around him.
Calen watched him work from a distance. Elda brought fewer supplies.
It wasn't fear. It was something colder.
Doubt.
Ash couldn't blame them. He'd arrived with blood on his boots, and wherever he stepped, the world warped.
And now, the silence felt deliberate.
He crouched near the treeline, examining a thin column of smoke that rose far to the north. Not from a campfire. It was black, oily, and fast.
An outpost burning.
He stood and adjusted his grip on the spear.
The wind hit his face in that same four-second rhythm. He timed it. Four on. Two off.
Still consistent.
Still wrong.
Inside the healer's hut, Elda ground leaves with more force than usual. She didn't look up when Ash entered.
"Three children got fevers this morning," she said. "One said the trees spoke his name."
Ash paused.
"Which trees?"
She shrugged. "The ones near the altar stones. You know. The ones that weren't there last week."
Ash didn't flinch. "The ones on the ridge line?"
"They weren't on the ridge either," she said, finally meeting his eyes. "They were just there. Rooted deep. And not a single one has bark. Just black lines."
She let the pestle fall.
"Do you think you brought this?"
He looked at her for a long moment.
"No. But it found me."
That night, it began.
The air shifted.
The villagers gathered near the well, clutching spears and tools and half-lit lanterns. The wind had stopped entirely now. Not slowed. Stopped.
Ash stood near the northern trapline, eyes fixed on the dark.
They came without torches. No banners. Just figures moving in perfect intervals, single file, from the woods.
Each wore bone across the face. Glyphs carved into their skin pulsed faintly like veins of molten silver. They moved like they were synced to something unseen.
And one figure walked at the front.
He was taller. Cloaked in black. And he was smiling.
Ash took a step forward, muscles ready.
The man raised a hand, not in surrender, but in welcome.
"Ash," he said, voice low and sharp like flint striking steel. "There you are."
Ash froze.
He had never told anyone his name.