The forest pulsed with breathless silence.
Duncan stood beneath the altar flame, steel in hand, watching the Antlered Son descend from the shrine of bones. The masked zealot moved with a predator's calm, bare feet whispering against the moss-covered stones. His antlered helm cast long, pronged shadows across the clearing—shadows that looked like roots clawing through ash.
The cultists parted like reeds before him, their chanting dying to a hush.
"You've come, Falseblood," the Antlered Son said. "Do you kneel before the pact, or perish by it?"
Duncan stepped forward. "I don't kneel to masks."
A soft hiss rippled through the gathered wildborn. Some reached for bone knives, others raised their hands in silent reverence.
The Antlered Son tilted his head. "The Warden marked you. But a mark is not a crown. And kings are not forged in memory. They are forged in ash."
He turned and gestured toward the firepit at the shrine's base.
"We settle this in the circle. As the First Pact demands."
Circle of the Beast
Kael met Duncan's eyes from the edge of the trees. "There's no retreat. Once you step into that circle, it's death or submission."
Duncan nodded, loosening his cloak. "Good."
Brannoc placed a hand on Duncan's shoulder. "No tricks. No allies. You fight him alone. If he wins… the rest of us won't get out alive."
Duncan looked out at the crowd of cultists. Hundreds of eyes shimmered in the dark, each one glittering with ancient hunger. They didn't want a ruler.
They wanted a myth.
"I'll give them one," he said quietly, then strode forward.
He stepped into the ring—nothing more than a circle of burnt soil and wolf-skull totems. The moment his boot crossed the threshold, a roar of approval surged through the clearing.
The Antlered Son stepped in opposite, dragging his bone staff across the ground. Sparks hissed in his wake.
He raised the staff toward the stars.
"Let the old blood bear witness," he intoned. "Let the bones remember."
Then he charged.
Trial by Blood
The Antlered Son fought like the forest itself—feral, fluid, untamed. His staff was more than a weapon—it was a rhythm, spinning in blinding arcs, battering like storm winds, cracking like branches underfoot.
Duncan parried the first strike, rolled beneath the second, but the third caught him across the ribs. Pain flared, but he held his stance.
He countered with a high slash—met by the staff's curved bone head, which snapped forward like a serpent and nearly disarmed him.
The cultists around them howled.
"You carry steel," the Antlered Son hissed, driving a kick into Duncan's thigh. "But you lack the wild. You're a tamed thing."
Duncan spat blood. "Tamed things survive longer."
He twisted and brought his sword down in a diagonal slash.
The blade nicked the zealot's side, drawing a thin line of red.
The crowd hissed as though the forest itself had been wounded.
But the Antlered Son only laughed.
"First blood. Good. Now the pact can burn."
The Beast Within
The Antlered Son dropped his staff.
Then he reached to his chest—and tore off his mask.
The face beneath was crisscrossed with scar-tattoos, his eyes golden, pupil-slit like a beast's. His mouth curled in something between a smile and a snarl.
Duncan froze.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
That face.
He had seen it before—in the Warden's vision. Among the ancient kings. Among the broken beasts.
"You're not wild," Duncan whispered. "You're… descended."
The zealot lunged bare-handed.
They collided in the center of the ring, fists and steel, bone and skin. Duncan took a blow to the temple. Saw stars. Felt his knees falter.
Then—
Something rose inside him.
Not power.
Not fury.
A pulse.
The medallion at his waist burned.
And through the haze of pain, Duncan saw not the zealot—but a towering antlered beast, cloaked in smoke and memory, lunging toward him.
He didn't raise his blade.
He raised his left hand.
And caught the blow.
Dominion of Fire
His hand glowed red-hot, flesh unburned. The Antlered Son reeled back, screaming, clutching his smoking fist.
Gasps echoed through the clearing.
Duncan stepped forward, blade dragging against the dirt.
"You think this crown is yours," he said. "But the forest never asked your permission."
He struck—once, twice—forcing the zealot back.
On the third swing, he disarmed the man.
On the fourth, he drove the blade down through the Antlered Son's knee.
The masked leader collapsed.
Duncan stood over him.
"Submit," he said.
The zealot coughed, blood running from his mouth. "Never… to steel…"
Duncan pressed the blade to his throat.
"I'm not just steel."
He looked out over the gathered wildborn, raising his free hand, now faintly marked with glowing veins—not human. Not beast. Both.
"I am the line between."
The Wild Kneels
The cultists fell to their knees, one by one.
Silent.
Eyes down.
Kael emerged from the trees, expression unreadable.
"You didn't kill him," she said.
Duncan nodded. "Let him crawl back. Let them see what losing looks like."
Brannoc grunted. "You realize what you've done?"
"Claimed a throne I didn't want," Duncan said, turning away from the altar. "Now let's make it mean something."
As they left the clearing, the Antlered Son lay gasping in the mud, watching Duncan vanish into the mist—no crown on his head, but something far more dangerous blooming behind his eyes.