The wind carried no scent.
Not snow. Not pine. Not rot. Nothing.
It was the kind of silence that made animals vanish, that turned even rivers into whispers. The kind of stillness that made the world lean in, listening. Kaia felt it first—a prickle at the base of her spine. Rei, walking beside her, felt it in the pressure on his chest, like his own heartbeat was stuttering.
They had left the Hollow that morning, the Fangstone far behind. But something followed.
It began with a shimmer. A shimmer in the air like heat where there should be none.
The ground trembled—not in thunder, but in tension. Like the land itself clenched its jaw.
Then it tore.
The Rift, quiet for days, opened. Not wide. Just a hairline crack. A Fracture.
It appeared in the space between frost-coated trees, low on the ridgeline, where snow met stone and the roots of the mountain bit deep. The land here was cold, sloped, a place where sunlight barely touched.
The Fracture hung in the air like a tear in silk, barely the length of a blade—but it bled shadows.
Kaia froze. Rei turned.
From the slit in space, something reached. Not a hand. Not a claw. A shape, thin and flowing, like a scream trying to become form. It peeled itself out of the Fracture, one after another, six or seven of them. Shadows with no eyes, no breath, no mass—and yet the snow beneath them hissed into vapor.
"Run," Kaia said.
They did.
Not through open field, but into deeper forest. Frost-bitten roots snared their boots. Branches clawed their faces. The shadows followed, flickering between trees like flame in reverse. Silent. Fast.
Rei risked a glance back. One of them broke off, slithered along a high branch, and leapt. Kaia turned just in time, her twin blades singing free.
Steel bit shadow. But only for a breath.
The creature reformed, writhing like black water, then surged again. Rei pulled Kaia down, rolled with her beneath a low ridge of stone and ice. Above them, the shadow scraped the rock and passed.
"They're not hunting," Kaia hissed. "They're feeding."
Rei looked ahead. And understood.
Not a trap. A calling.
The Rift Mark burned in his chest. Not with heat, but with hunger.
The shadows felt it. Not in fear. But in recognition.
They did not flee. They closed in.
One rose before Rei, tall as a tree, its shape shivering with unnatural grace. Its face split open in a mouthless grin. His hand lifted without thought. The Rift Mark pulsed.
The creature paused. And then surged.
Not to destroy. To consume.
Kaia slashed it down again, frost trailing from her blades. Another shadow screamed as it neared her, not with sound but with silence deeper than any noise. Rei spun, his body moving before thought, void-light cracking from his palm.
It seared the shadow. It twisted. It laughed.
The Rift was calling. And they were answering.
One shadow touched his arm. It didn't wound him. It whispered.
"He wakes. He wakes. He wakes."
The Fracture pulsed again. Wider. Deeper. Hungrier.
Kaia shouted. Pulled him back. The shadows surged.
Then— a sound. Like stone splitting under pressure. A tremor rolled down from the mountain.
The Fracture hissed. And sealed shut.
The shadows vanished with it.
Silence returned.
Rei stood still, chest heaving, the mark on his skin glowing faintly like a forgotten brand.
Kaia said nothing. Her eyes never left him. The wind returned.
So did the scent of pine.
But above them, somewhere in the deep of stone and sky, something old had turned its gaze.
And it had seen him.