One Year Later
The training had only grown more brutal with each passing month, but Kael's body had transformed in turn—corded muscle layered over old scars, his frame now a testament to endurance. As the session ended, he wiped sweat from his brow and turned to Lena.
"Good training today," he offered, breath still ragged.
"Yeah. Same." Her reply was barely audible, her gaze already fixed on the path home as she walked away without another word.
Elnur clapped a hand on Kael's shoulder. "I know she's… difficult to read. But believe it or not, she's warmed up to you."
Kael snorted. "Y-Yeah, I guess she hasn't killed me yet."
"Not yet, anyway," Elnur chuckled before heading off, leaving Kael standing alone in the fading light.
The Next Morning
Silence hung thick over the breakfast table until Luna finally set down her cup. "Kael? How's training?"
He stirred his food absently. "The training's fine. It's just…"
"Lena?" Luna's eyes sharpened. "Is she bullying you?"
"What? No!" Kael's chair screeched as he jerked back. "I just—I want to be her friend, but she shuts me out every time. I don't know how to get through to her."
Luna's laughter rang bright. "Oh, that's so Lena." She leaned in conspiratorially, and Kael mirrored her, their foreheads nearly touching. "If you want to win her over…" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Buy her sweets."
Kael recoiled. "Sweets? That's it?"
"Yep." Luna grinned. "Just keep shoving pastries at her until she's too sugar-drunk to ignore you."
The market bustled with its usual afternoon energy as Kael stepped out of the famed dessert shop, carefully cradling a chocolate deluxe cake in its ornate box. His eyes scanned the crowd until - there. Lena moved through the marketplace with her characteristic solitary grace.
"Lena! Hey, Lena!" Kael called, waving enthusiastically as he jogged toward her. The cake box nearly toppled from his grasp.
She turned, her silver braid whipping sharply. "K-Kael? There's no training today." Her voice carried its usual edge, but something in her posture softened just slightly at the sight of him.
"I know!" Kael beamed, presenting the cake with a flourish. "I was actually coming to see you. Here!"
For just a heartbeat, Lena's icy mask cracked - her eyes widened, lips parting slightly. Then the shutters came down again. "N-No thank you... I just ate." She turned sharply, leaving Kael standing with his offering extended to empty air.
Undeterred, Kael repeated this ritual every day for a week. Each refusal stung, but he persisted - until Monday.
"Lena, please just take the cake this time," Kael pleaded, holding out the seventh identical box.
Something snapped. Lena whirled on him, her controlled demeanor shattering. "What is your problem?" Her voice shook with barely-contained fury. "How many times must I refuse before you understand? Stop this!"
Kael's own temper flared. "Then just take the damn cake and I'll stop!"
Lena's entire body trembled. With a sudden cry, she lunged, knocking them both to the cobblestones. "Stop!" She pinned him down, her grip bruising. "Why? Are you mocking me?" Tears glittered at the corners of her eyes.
Kael struggled beneath her. "N-No! I just want to be friends!"
The fight drained from Lena's body. Kael watched in astonishment as her ears turned crimson, her pale skin flushing pink. "Are you... blushing?" he breathed.
Lena released him like she'd been burned. "N-No! D-Don't look at me!" She scrambled back, arms crossed defensively. "Why... why would you want to be friends with someone like me?"
Kael sat up, brushing dirt from his clothes. "I don't need a reason. I just do."
The simplicity of his answer seemed to disarm her completely. Lena looked down, her silver lashes fluttering. "F-Fine. But don't expect me to suddenly become nice."
Kael grinned, offering a hand to help her up. "Deal. But we have to eat sweets together once a week."
Lena hesitated, then placed her hand in his - so small and delicate compared to her warrior's strength. "...Agreed."
Time moved in a flash.
Another year of rigorous training had transformed Kael. His body bore new scars, his movements carried elven grace, yet the grief in his eyes never fully faded. Now, standing at the edge of Tesas Forest with Lena, he faced their ultimate test.
Elnur's voice cut through the morning mist: "Survive two weeks here, and I'll teach you the secret earth arts of our people."
Beside him, Lena's usual stoic mask cracked—just for a heartbeat—revealing the first genuine smile Kael had ever seen from her. The sight stole his breath.
Earlier That Morning - Deep in Tesas Forest
Shadows moved between ancient oaks. Two figures clad in black robes adorned with a sinister sun-and-skull emblem whispered urgently.
"It's done?" hissed the first, his breath reeking of decay.
The second grinned, yellowed teeth glinting. "The serum's working. The beast wakes hungry, this juvenile will be death itself." He patted a massive, pulsating vein in the ground. "By nightfall, this forest will run red with elven blood."
Their laughter slithered through the trees as, deep below them, something monstrous stirred. The ground trembled. Birds took flight in panic. Then—an unearthly roar split the air, shaking dew from leaves.
Present - Forest Edge
Kael adjusted his pack, glancing at Lena. "We should stick together. There's safety in—"
"No." Her interruption was colder than winter stream. "I don't need your help even if we became friends over the last year, I still want to prove that I'm the better warrior." Without another word, she vanished left into the foliage, leaving Kael alone with the whispering trees.
Day One – The Watchers
Kael picked his way carefully through the dense underbrush, every step deliberate. The moss underfoot was thick and damp, muffling his movements, but the forest still seemed to notice. There was no birdsong, no rustling in the distance—just the sound of his own heartbeat echoing in his ears.
He settled in the high crook of a gnarled blackwood tree that overlooked a crescent-shaped clearing. Using branches and fallen leaves, he fashioned a makeshift nest, lashing his cloak around his pack and securing his rations. He'd never seen a forest this quiet. Not dead, exactly—just... waiting.
That night, he couldn't sleep. The wind carried distant sounds—low, dragging noises, like something massive brushing against bark. Once, he thought he saw red eyes flicker between trees far below. But when he looked again, nothing.
Day Two – The Competition
By dawn, Kael was on the hunt. Hunger gnawed at his belly like a beast. He'd spent hours tracing faint tracks by the stream—pawprints, bent reeds, disturbed silt—but every time he moved in for the kill, the prey vanished, as if the forest itself was playing tricks on him.
Then—movement.
He threw his spear just as a blur of motion dropped from the canopy.
TWANG.
An arrow embedded in the rabbit's skull.
Lena emerged from the trees like a ghost, silent and composed. She didn't gloat. She didn't smile. She just walked past him, the rabbit dangling from her belt.
Kael cursed under his breath. "Seriously?!"
Lena didn't answer. She vanished like mist.
Kael ate boiled roots that night. They tasted like dirt and regret.
Day Three – The Phantom Grove
Kael spent the morning crafting snares from vine and bone, setting traps along deer paths that felt too perfect to be real. The sun barely filtered through the thick canopy, casting everything in sickly green.
By midday, he stumbled into a grove that shouldn't have existed—trees twisted like corkscrews, bark smooth and black. In the center stood a single bush, its berries unnaturally red.
He reached out, then hesitated.
His draconic senses flared—a whisper of danger in his blood.
He stepped back just in time to see the ground beneath the bush writhe and sink, revealing a pit lined with glowing teeth.
The forest was trying to kill them.
And it was getting creative.
Day Four – Silence
Kael hadn't seen Lena all day. That worried him more than he wanted to admit.
He focused on foraging, gathering edible mushrooms and using dragon magic to purify a small, algae-choked spring. His throat was raw from thirst, his energy flagging.
He found a half-eaten carcass of a boar—slashed open, its body twisted unnaturally, eyes wide in frozen terror. Whatever killed it hadn't eaten the meat.
Kael backed away slowly, spear raised.
Nothing followed.
That night, Kael didn't climb a tree.
He dug a hole, covered it with branches, and lay beneath the earth, one eye open. Just in case.
Day Five – The Mirror
Kael's reflection stared back from a still pond. His face had grown gaunter, sharper. His shoulders broader. His eyes—too old for his age.
A year in the Elven forests had trained him for war.
But Tesas was something else.
That evening, he found Lena's arrow embedded in a tree stump with a note scratched into the bark.
"Still alive?"
Kael smirked and carved beneath it.
"Barely. You?"
Hours later, the message changed again.
"Beat you to the deer trail."
Despite everything, Kael chuckled. Even in hell, Lena couldn't resist the game.
Day Six – The Breath Before
A thick fog rolled in, coating the forest floor in ghostly white. Kael's every breath came out in visible wisps despite the season. The temperature had dropped unnaturally overnight.
He climbed a tree to scout ahead, and from above, he saw it—a line of withered trees leading deeper into the forest, bark blackened, leaves turned to ash.
He followed it cautiously, his footsteps muffled. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back. But he didn't.
At the edge of a rotting glade, he found Lena's cloak snagged on a branch.
Fresh blood spattered the ground.
Something growled in the distance.
Kael's heartbeat became thunder.
Tomorrow would be different.
Tomorrow, death would arrive.
Lena moved like a shadow between the trees, her silver braid catching faint light as she scanned the ground for tracks that never appeared. Her knives remained sheathed. Her stomach growled. Still, she searched—as if will alone could conjure life back into this emptied world.
Day Seven - The Wasteland
Lena's boots sank into unnatural mud. The stench hit first—rotting flesh, spoiled earth. Then the horror: a clearing of decay. Piles of animal corpses, trees blackened as if burned from within. Her stomach heaved.
A sound. Not wind. Not animal.
She nocked an arrow, turning toward the cave mouth—
—only to feel hot breath on her neck.
The Dragonhunter Alpha moved faster than thought. One moment she stood armed; the next, massive claws pinned her, lifting her to face soulless black eyes. Its maw unhinged, revealing rows of needle-teeth dripping venom.
Her scream shattered the silence.
Ten Minutes Earlier
Kael moved through the unnatural silence of the forest, each step crunching too loudly in the absence of birdsong. The usual hum of life was absent—no rustling of prey in the underbrush, no distant calls between creatures. Just empty air and the creeping sense that something was deeply wrong.
Then his dragon senses prickled. A metallic tang cut through the pine scent—iron, sharp and unmistakable. He froze, nostrils flaring as the wind shifted. The stench hit him like a physical blow: coppery blood gone stale, the sweet-rot reek of decaying flesh. His stomach lurched violently, bile rising in his throat as he clamped a hand over his nose and mouth.
That's when he heard it—a scream that tore through the stillness.
Lena's voice.
Kael moved with unnatural speed—a blur of motion that left the ancient trees grasping at empty air. Before the wind could catch his scent, before a leaf could complete its fall, he burst into the clearing. Time itself seemed to hesitate as he arrived, his boots skidding across the moss-covered stones.
Steel flashed. The beast roared as Kael's spear found its eye. Lena fell hard, scrambling back as the monster plucked the weapon free—the wound sealing instantly.
"RUN!" Kael's voice drew its attention.
A streak of movement—then impact. Kael's body arced through the air before smashing against unyielding stone. The sickening crunch of ribs echoed in his skull. Copper flooded his mouth as he collapsed, each gasping breath like swallowing broken glass. His vision pulsed in and out of focus, darkness creeping at the edges.
Then—something stirred.
A twitch in his fingers. A fire in his veins.
His eyes snapped open.
No longer human. Only rage remained—a crimson fury that burned through the pain, turning his irises to pools of blood.
Meanwhile Lena's cry died in her throat as the beast loomed over her. She closed her eyes, awaiting death—
—then heard the impact.
Her eyes flew open.
Kael stood between her and certain doom, his bare back a tapestry of scars. But his hands... they weren't hands anymore. Black scales sheathed his fingers, claws glinting wickedly. Smoke curled from his lips with each ragged breath.
When he turned his head, Lena saw not the boy she knew, but something ancient—eyes burning like embers in a face contorted with primal fury.
The Dragonhunter hesitated. For the first time in its cursed existence, it faced something that made it... afraid.