Dawn crept in like a thief—silent, cold, and unwelcome.
Serenya sat upright on her mount, the ceremonial silks of Ariathen now hidden beneath a muted gray cloak. The weight of her wedding garments still clung to her skin, a ghost of the ritual hours before. Her silver hair had been tied back tightly, her face composed and still. Only the tightness in her jaw betrayed the storm inside.
Ariathen's people stood in hushed clusters, lining the stone-paved road like pale statues. No cheers. No farewells. Only silence. Some looked on with veiled pity; others with fear. A few bowed their heads.
She did not look back.
There was no need to see the faces she might recognize. No comfort in the sight of her father standing atop the marble steps like a king bidding farewell to a pawn.
This is the path, she told herself, gripping the reins tighter. I chose it. I must remember why.
The sound of hooves and armor filled the silence as the escort rode out—an uneasy blend of Ariathen whites and Velstrath's blood-crimson cloaks. Two kingdoms forced into a brittle unity. And at the head of it all, Prince Kaelen of Velstrath, silent as shadow, led the procession.
The sound of hooves, the creak of armor, the occasional low muttering from the guards were all that accompanied the long, narrowing road.
The forest thinned. Trees grew pale and crooked, like twisted bones jutting from the earth. The rivers they passed ran darker, and the wind had changed—it no longer carried the scent of pine and fresh water, but something older. Metallic. Faintly sweet, like rot masked in perfume.
The sun, once bright over Ariathen's hills, now hovered like a dull eye behind clouds.
Her hands clenched the reins as their horses moved onto blackened stone, veins of red flickering beneath the surface like old embers refusing to die.
Sharp and cold as broken glass, it bit through Serenya's cloak and needled into her skin. Kaelen raised a gloved hand, his horse slowing until the column of riders came to a halt behind him.
"We've crossed the Kareth line," he said quietly. "Velstrath's true boundary."
The air grew dense, heavy with a silence that didn't feel natural. Even the birds had stopped calling. In the far-off distance, something howled. Not a wolf. Not anything known.
One of Kaelen's soldiers stepped forward from the crimson ranks. He was lean, sharp-eyed, and disturbingly beautiful in the way predators often were. His voice was smooth, but layered with calculation.
"My Prince," he said, "we should abandon the carriages. From here onward, the terrain grows wild. And... other things roam these woods."
Kaelen didn't reply immediately. His gaze drifted over the forest, unreadable as ever. Then his eyes slid toward Serenya.
Her horse shifted beneath her. She held his gaze, despite the chill racing up her spine.
Another soldier—a younger one in Ariathen white—spoke up, voice edged with disbelief.
"We're escorting a royal, not flying beasts like you lot. You think she can hike through cursed lands in a ceremonial gown?"
The Velstrath warrior's lip curled. "Better that than dragging your precious wheels into death's mouth."
Serenya gripped her reins tighter. The two men stepped forward, bristling, postures taut like drawn bows. But Kaelen didn't raise his voice. He didn't draw steel.
He just looked at them.
One glance.
And they both stopped. The younger soldier paled and dropped his gaze, while the Velstrath warrior stepped back without a word. The air thinned further, silence returning like fog.
Kaelen finally turned to Serenya.
"We make camp here."
The moment passed. But the air stayed cut open.
Serenya watched Kaelen from beneath her lashes.
He didn't lift a finger… and they obeyed like dogs.
A chill crept up her arms, one that had nothing to do with the cold wind.
What kind of man controls monsters without speaking?
Who really is this man?!
The guards hesitated, but no one dared question him. Tents were assembled swiftly, fires sparked to life with flint and shadowed hands.
Night fell fast in this part of the world—like a hand snuffing out a flame.
Serenya sat in her tent, knees drawn to her chest, her ceremonial robes wrinkled beneath the borrowed cloak. Her fingers were cold, her breath faintly visible. Outside, the flicker of fire cast warped shadows across the canvas.
She could hear the guards talking in low voices just beyond the trees.
"…this place gives me rot in my bones," muttered one in Ariathen white.
"Keep your voice down," another hissed. "You want to draw it here?"
A Velstrath soldier chuckled darkly. "It won't come. Not unless it smells blood. Or fear."
"Well, we've got both tonight," the Ariathen soldier snapped.
Boots crunched in the frost-hardened grass. Metal clicked against metal. Someone exhaled sharply—too loud in the stillness.
Serenya tried to calm her nerves, but her heart kept a jagged rhythm. She'd never seen men from her father's guard flinch so easily. Never heard them speak in strained whispers, like children warning each other of monsters in the dark.
Her thoughts turned to Kaelen. His tent sat somewhere deeper in the trees, barely visible. No guards lingered near it. He needed none. Even the wind seemed to avoid that side of the camp.
She hadn't spoken a word to him since he ordered the halt.
He looked at me as if measuring whether I was worth saving… or leaving behind.
Another gust rattled the trees. The fire outside hissed like something had passed too close.
"Did you hear that?" a soldier asked.
Everyone paused.
A low snarl echoed from the woods—deep, guttural, and wrong. Not a wolf. Not any animal she'd ever known.
"Sword!" barked one of the Velstrath guards.
Blades were drawn. Horses stamped. One of them reared, panicked.
"Circle the fires! Keep the princess's tent secure!" shouted the captain. "Nothing gets through!"
Serenya shot upright. Her tent flap quivered—not from the wind.
Then—silence.
No growls. No movement. Just a suffocating stillness that pressed in from every side.
Serenya reached for the dagger Meristele had hidden in her cloak. Her fingers trembled as they brushed the hilt.
Outside, someone muttered,
"It's watching us…"