The forest waited.
It stretched before Torian like a wound that hadn't healed, vast and old, veined with shadows and
silence. The trees rose tall and close, their gnarled branches twisted together like fingers laced in
warning. Mist wove through the trunks like breath from something deep beneath the earth.
Behind him, the smoldering remains of his village still bled smoke into the sky. He didn't turn to
look. There was nothing back there anymore.
He adjusted the satchel on his shoulder, feeling the weight of the wooden wolf carving tucked inside
it, along with his father's dagger—and now the sword. The heirloom blade, once hidden beneath
their workshop, hung strapped across his back, balanced, comforting.
Torian took a deep breath. The air was thick with pine and damp rot. He swallowed hard, his throat
raw from ash and grief. Then, without ceremony or speech, he stepped forward into the trees.The forest swallowed him whole.
⸻
The first day passed like a dream slowly turning to nightmare.
Torian walked without direction, moving deeper into the woods, hoping to put as much distance
between himself and the ruins as possible. The trees closed around him in every direction. Their
bark was dark and knotted, their leaves thick enough to steal the sun from the sky.
He found no trail. No clearings. No birdsong. Only the rhythmic sound of his own boots pressing
into soft earth and the occasional rustle that made him spin, dagger half-drawn, only to find nothing
but wind.
When night fell, it was sudden. One moment the world was green-gray gloom. The next, blackness
dropped like a curtain.
He found shelter beneath the roots of a massive tree whose trunk split low to the ground. The
hollow was just wide enough for him to crawl inside. It stank of mildew and old leaves, but it was
dry.
He didn't sleep.
The darkness had a voice. It creaked and hissed, filled with distant howls and crackling leaves.
Something screamed once—high and sharp and much too close. Torian didn't move, didn't breathe.
He curled tighter against himself, cloak pulled around his shoulders, blade clutched across his chest
like armor.
His mind replayed the fire, the torches, his mother's screams. He blinked slowly, eyes wide open,
jaw clenched tight.
The forest had no mercy for mourning.
⸻
The second day brought rain.
It started as a slow drizzle, seeping through the canopy in droplets, but by midday it fell in sheets.Torian pushed through it, soaked to the bone, teeth chattering. The satchel was waterlogged. The
sword was too heavy now, dragging at his back.
His stomach ached. The dried meat he'd taken from the ruins was gone. He'd rationed it too
generously, too naively.
Desperation clawed at him. He searched the underbrush for anything edible—berries, roots,
mushrooms—but he didn't know what was safe. He picked a handful of small red bulbs and sniffed
them. They smelled sweet, almost floral. His stomach growled.
He bit into one.
Almost immediately, his tongue burned. He spat it out, coughing, eyes watering. He scraped his
tongue with his sleeve, then rinsed his mouth in the nearest stream he could find.
The water was freezing. It numbed his fingers and throat, but it was clean. He drank deeply, gasping
from the cold.
Then he sat beside the stream and stared at his reflection.
Thinner. Darker under the eyes. A cut ran down his cheek. His lips were cracked.
He looked like a ghost.
"I can't do this," he whispered. His voice cracked.
The trees didn't care.
⸻
The third day was worse.
He tried to build a trap—a snare like his father had once shown him. He found a young sapling, bent
it back, tied it with a strip of torn cloak, and placed a bit of moss near the trigger. It looked
promising.
It snapped an hour later.Empty.
He tried again. And again. Each time, the result was the same.
His hands bled from the rope. His stomach gnawed at itself.
That night, he dug into the dirt with his bare hands, scratching for roots. He found one thick enough
to chew. It was bitter, fibrous, nearly broke his teeth—but he forced it down.
The fire inside him—the fury, the promise—was no longer hot. It was barely a flicker.
He didn't speak. There was no one to speak to.
⸻
By the fifth day, the forest began to change.
The trees grew taller, older. Their bark was smoother, and their branches arched like cathedral
vaults. Moss carpeted the ground in soft, damp patches. The silence changed too—less hostile,
more watchful.
Torian began to feel it then.
That sensation—like being followed.
He stopped often now, listening. Turning. Watching the underbrush. But nothing moved. No
footsteps. No breathing.
Still… something was there.
Once, he caught a flicker of gold in the distance—like a reflection from eyes—but it vanished as
quickly as it came.
"Who's there?" he called.
Only the wind answered.
He pressed on.⸻
On the sixth night, he dreamed.
Fire again. Always fire. But this time he was inside it. Standing at the center of a ring of flames that
didn't burn. They whispered. They begged. They screamed his name.
He saw his father. Bloodied. Kneeling. Eyes locked on him.
"Get up," his father said.
"I can't," Torian whispered.
"You don't have the luxury of can't."
The flames surged higher. The wooden wolf burned in his hand—but he didn't let go.
He woke with a jolt, gasping, the dawn just beginning to stain the sky.
His body ached. His face was wet.
But he stood.
And walked.
⸻
The seventh day was the turning point.
He reached a clearing around midday, breath fogging from the cold, and found a stream trickling
over flat stones. The sun broke through the canopy in slivers, and for a moment, he almost felt
warmth.
He dropped to his knees, drank again, washed his face, and let the water clear some of the haze
from his mind.
That was when he saw it.A set of prints in the mud—fresh, wide, clawed.
He froze.
Not wolf. Not bear. Something else.
Something large.
He followed the prints slowly, hand resting on the hilt of his father's sword. His heartbeat was loud
again, thudding in his ears.
They led toward a rise in the earth, where a fallen tree bridged a shallow ravine. The prints
disappeared into shadow.
Torian crouched low, hiding behind a rock. He waited. Minutes passed. The forest held its breath.
Then… movement.
Something massive shifted in the shadows. A low sound—like a growl mixed with a groan—vibrated
through the earth.
He didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
The golden glint appeared again—eyes in the dark.
Then they vanished.
And the clearing fell silent.
⸻
Torian didn't run.
He should have.Every instinct told him to flee, to put as much distance between him and those eyes as possible.
But something stopped him.
Not bravery. Not madness.
Curiosity.
Or fate.
He turned from the ravine and found a hollow beneath an ancient tree nearby. He settled in for the
night with his back to the trunk, sword across his lap, eyes scanning the treeline.
The fire in his chest—the one that had almost gone out—flared for just a moment.
Not warmth. Not comfort.
A warning.
Or a calling.
He clutched the wooden wolf in his palm. It was warm.
"I'm not done," he whispered to the dark. "You hear me? I'm not done."
The wind stirred the branches.
And somewhere, not far off, something listened.
⸻
He didn't know that he had already been chosen.
Didn't know the beast would appear soon, tangled in thorns and blood.
Didn't know that Skarn—watching now from just beyond the trees—had seen something in him that
wasn't weakness.The forest wasn't done with him.
Not yet.
And the fire inside him, though faint…
…was beginning to awaken.