"Hide the children. Fortify what's left. When the moon rises again, this place won't be safe!!"
Tomas grabbed her arm. "Rayne, where are you going?"
She pulled free, eyes on the dark horizon. "East," she said. "To the Vale of Beasts."
Rayne left the burning village behind before dawn, travelling fast, the cold wind biting through her cloak. The messenger's words burned in her mind: The hour turns. The Vale remembers.
She hadn't gone two miles before she saw him.
A lone rider cutting through the fog on a black warhorse, cloak snapping behind him like a banner of night, armor dented from battle and a long blade sheathed across his back.
He dismounted before she could draw her dagger
"Name," she demanded.
The man pulled off his helm. Kael Varzian, the face from the empire's coinage, the newly crowned heir.
Rayne's grip on the dagger tightened. Princes did not wander burned villages alone, not unless they were hunting something.
He looked at the scorched treeline, then at her blood-stained hands. His voice was cold, "You killed them."
"They came for blood," Rayne said flatly. "I gave them some."
Kael studied her a moment longer, eyes narrowing as if weighing truth against rumor. "You carry Ashen power."
"And you carry a crown that attracts trouble," she retorted.
Before he could answer, the howls started, deep, wrong, too close.
Shapes moved through the fog; those silver eyed creatures were on the hunt again. Rayne turned towards the eastern woods. "If you want to live, heir, follow me."
Kael hesitated only a breath before drawing his blade and falling in beside her. The trees loomed ahead, black and silent. The Vale of Beast waited like a mouth about to close. Neither of them spoke as they crossed its shadowed border together, the trees swallowed them whole.
Kael kept one hand on Veindrinker's hilt as they moved deeper into the Vale, the torchlight from the village long behind them. The path narrowed to a strip of black soil between roots thick as castle walls.
Rayne walked ahead without a word; her hood drawn low. She moved like someone who knew the forest could hear them and didn't want to give it a reason to answer.
The silence here was wrong. No birds, no wind, just the soft crunch of boots on frost and the faint hum in Kael's blood every time he brushed the mark at his collarbone. It burned hotter the further they went like the Vale itself recognized him.
"Why are you here, heir?" Rayne asked finally without looking back.
"Because it called for me," Kael said. "Or so the messenger claimed."
She gave a short, humorless laugh. "The Vale doesn't call, it devours."
Before Kael could reply, the trees shifted. Not with the wind, there was none, but as though they turned to look at him. Bark groaned; shadows crawled across the frozen ground like living things. Then came the whisper....
"Blood of the Hollow. Blood of the Betrayed."
Rayne spun towards the sound; Kael drew Veindrinker. Figures stepped from the treeline, half shape, half smoke, eyes glowing faint silver. They moved like memories given flesh, circling but not striking.
One drifted closer, vice low and cold, "Your mother bled here, price. The forest remembers."
Kael froze. "My mother is dead."
The figure titled its head. "Dead.... but not gone."
Then the mist scattered, leaving only the sound of the retreating whispers. Rayne's expression was unreadable beneath her hood.
"What did they mean?"
Kael tightened his grip on the sword. "I intend to find out."
The wind died; the Vale's silence thickened like smoke until Kael could hear his own pulse beating in his ears. Rayne's hands hovered near the dagger at her belt, the runes along its hilt faintly glowing. "This is wrong," she murmured. "The forest is not just watching anymore."
Kael felt it too; the weight pressing against his skin, the mark on his collarbone burning like iron in flame. Then the ground split open, black roots tore through the soil like serpents snapping towards them with barbed thorns. Kael slashed one apart with Veindrinker, another latched around his leg yanking him off his feet. Rayne shouted a word in the old tongue, fire ripped along the roots burning them back, the air now thick with the stench of scorched wood and something sinister.
But the Vale was not finished, shapes rose from the shadows; those same half smoke figures from before with eyes glowing silver and voices echoing in overlapping whispers:
"Blood of the Hollow.... Heir of the Ashen.... The bond wakes."
Kael fought them with steel, Rayne with fire. The creatures struck like shadows given claws, their blows cold enough to numb flesh through armor. One lunged at Rayne, Kael moved without thinking, sword cutting it down before it touched her. The moment their eyes met across the burning root something struck.... a pulse, sharp and electric, tearing through the air between them.
The soulbond
Neither understood it, but both felt it. The creatures hissed and vanished as suddenly as they had come, the forest retreating into silence once more.
Rayne lowered her hand slowly, breathing hard. "Whatever this place wants," she said, eyes on him now, " it is not just after me anymore."
Kael sheathed Veindrinker, jaw tight. "No. It's after both of us." And deep beneath the frozen roots, something old turned in its sleep.