Part I Threads in the Dark
The night swallowed their breath as Ahayue and Alusya pushed through the undergrowth, the moonlight silvering every branch and thorn. The forest was alive with its own whispers—wind hissing through the canopy, the creak of trees shifting, the distant cry of some prowling beast. Yet beneath it all was another sound, one that made Ahayue's skin crawl.
A voice. Not carried by air, but inside.
"Blood… mine… bound… remember…"
Ahayue stumbled for half a step before steadying himself. He gritted his teeth and pushed forward. Not now. Not when the hunters were still behind them.
Alusya glanced back at him, her face pale but determined. The oversized cloak around her shoulders snagged on a thorny bush, and she tugged it free with a scowl. "We need to slow them," she whispered. "If they follow too close, we'll never rest."
He nodded. "Then we make the forest our ally."
She tilted her head. "Like the Witch taught you?"
"Like the Witch taught me," he said softly, and something in his chest twisted at the memory. Andalusia's hands guiding his clumsy ones, her voice patient yet sharp, her shadow always near. He forced the thought down. This was not the time for grief.
They stopped in a small hollow where roots knotted the earth like veins. Ahayue knelt, pulling his knife free, and began cutting thin branches. "Pitfalls, snares. We'll need both. Can you find vines? Thin, but strong enough to hold weight?"
Alusya's eyes brightened—not with joy, but with purpose. "I can."
She slipped into the trees, nimble as a sparrow darting between roots. Ahayue watched her go for a moment, then bent back to his work, digging shallow furrows into the earth. His cursed body, though stronger now after years of training, still ached with each movement. His hands trembled—not only from exhaustion, but from the voice that wouldn't stop.
"Chains… yours… mine… freedom… through blood…"
He dropped the knife for a moment, pressing his palms to his temples. The voice was no longer faint; it pulsed, like a second heartbeat pressing against his skull.
"Who are you?" Ahayue thought fiercely, not daring to speak aloud. "What do you want from me?"
There was no answer. Only a rasping laugh, like dry leaves scratching over stone.
Alusya returned then, her arms full of vines. She dropped them beside him, her cheeks flushed. "These will work." She hesitated, frowning. "Are you… are you alright? You look pale."
Ahayue forced his hand down, hiding the tremor. "Just tired. Keep watch while I work."
She didn't look convinced, but she obeyed, moving to the edge of the hollow and crouching low, her eyes scanning the trees.
Ahayue threaded the vines through the branches, setting the snare with practiced motions. Andalusia had taught him patience: every trap was a story, she had said. If you told it right, the prey would believe it until the moment it snapped shut. He worked quickly, his breathing steady, though his mind roared with whispers.
Alusya's voice broke the silence. "I used to watch my brother set traps for rabbits."
Ahayue glanced up. "Did he teach you?"
She shook her head, eyes distant. "No. He always said it was too dangerous for me. But I watched. And I remember." She touched one of the vines, testing its tension. "This will catch more than rabbits."
For the first time that night, Ahayue let out a small, sharp laugh. "Good. Because rabbits aren't chasing us."
She gave a thin smile back, then returned to her watch.
They worked in silence after that, setting more snares and weaving false trails. Alusya proved sharper than he expected—pointing out a deer track they could use to confuse the hunters, gathering bark and moss to hide the scent of their passing. Her small hands were quick, her steps light. She wasn't just surviving. She was adapting.
And still the voice pressed in.
"The girl… broken… alone… give her… to me…"
Ahayue froze, his heart slamming against his ribs. He looked sharply at Alusya—still crouched at the hollow's edge, humming softly under her breath as she twisted another vine into place.
"No," he hissed under his breath. "You will not touch her."
The voice chuckled again. "You protect… but protection is chains… chains are mine… and you are mine…"
He slammed the trap shut, the snap echoing like a crack of thunder. Alusya turned, startled.
"Just testing it," he muttered, though his hands shook around the rope.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled. This time it was no beast. It was the hunters' call.
Alusya's eyes met his, wide but unyielding. "They're coming."
Ahayue swallowed hard, shoving the whispers down, forcing his focus back to the moment. He tightened the final knot, then rose.
"Then let them come," he said, his voice low and grim. "We'll make this forest their grave."
Part ll The Shattered Silence
The forest was no longer just a refuge. It had become a battlefield, a chessboard where every move might mean survival or death.
Alusya pressed her palm against the rough bark of a tree, her breath quick and shallow. She glanced toward Ahayue, who crouched low in the brush, studying the patterns of broken twigs and bent grass.
"They're circling," Ahayue whispered, her voice tight. "They've split into hunting packs. We can't outrun them like before."
Alusya's jaw clenched. Running had been her instinct, her shield, her curse. But running would only delay the inevitable. "Then we fight?" she asked, though the tremor in her voice betrayed the uncertainty beneath her words.
Before Ahayue could respond, the silence of the forest cracked. A sound—not a roar, not a whisper, but something that slid between the two—crawled across their skin. Leaves shivered though there was no wind. Shadows deepened though no clouds crossed the moon.
Alusya staggered back, clutching her head.
Child of the Broken Moon… The voice wasn't hers, nor Ahayue's, nor any living man's. It came from within, echoing through bone and blood.
She gasped, and the trees around her seemed to stretch, their bark writhing as if trying to lean closer.
Ahayue grabbed her shoulders. "Alusya! What's wrong?"
The voice pulsed again, thick with age and hunger.
Forgotten. Forsaken. Yet I remain. Do you seek escape? Do you seek power?
Alusya's lips parted, but no words came. She could feel the god pressing, a weight behind her eyes, heavy and vast, barely restrained. Unlike the Moon God, this presence was fractured, desperate, almost broken.
Ahayue's grip tightened. "Don't listen. Whatever it is—it feeds on your weakness."
But Alusya's vision blurred. She saw not the forest, but shattered altars, ruined temples half-buried in moss, and a thousand fires gone cold. She saw worshippers kneeling in ages long past, then turning away, leaving their god to starve in silence.
And she heard the god whisper, its tone shifting between promise and plea:
Lend me your belief, even for a breath, and I will break your chains. Deny me, and you will be nothing but prey for these beasts and men.
The underbrush exploded with motion. A spear flew past, grazing the tree where Ahayue had crouched seconds before. Shouts rose. The hunters had found them.
Ahayue shoved Alusya forward. "Move!"
They ran, weaving between the trunks, but the warriors closed in fast. The sound of their pursuit echoed like drums of war—feet pounding earth, blades cutting through foliage, voices howling for vengeance.
Alusya stumbled, her mind torn between terror and the god's voice.
Ahead, the path split: one way deeper into the choking swamp, the other toward jagged stones lit faintly by moonlight. Both were dangerous, but stopping to choose would be worse.
"Left!" Ahayue barked, pulling her toward the stones.
But as they crossed into the rocky clearing, the god's presence surged. The stones weren't random—they were ruins, blackened fragments of an old shrine. The air tasted of ash and iron, though no fire burned.
The whispers thundered now.
This was mine. Forgotten… but not gone. Take me into you, and I will make the hunters kneel.
The warriors burst into the clearing, their painted faces lit by firelight from torches. Spears bristled in their hands, bows bent taut.
Ahayue raised her blade, ready to sell her life dearly. "Stay behind me, Alusya!"
But Alusya's blood ran hot, her body trembling as the broken god reached for her. The choice weighed heavy, crushing.
Run and surely be caught. Fight and surely die. Unless— Unless she answered.
The warriors fanned out into the clearing, their torches spitting sparks that made the broken stones glow like teeth. Painted faces gleamed with sweat, eyes burning with the promise of vengeance.
"Cornered," one of them snarled, raising a spear. "The cursed child dies here."
Alusya's knees weakened. She felt the weight of their hatred, their fury. But beneath that, stronger than fear, was the god's voice:
Your blood calls to me. Your breath stirs the embers of what I was. Do not let them end you here. Lend me your will, and I shall lend you my wrath.
Ahayue raised her blade, standing like a wall before Alusya. "You'll touch her only over my corpse."
The warriors advanced, steps pounding like war drums.
And then—
The stones trembled. Faint at first, like the quiver of a bird's wing, then sharper, deeper. Cracks ran through the ground, glowing faintly with a sickly light. The warriors froze, their eyes darting to the earth beneath their feet.
Alusya gasped, her body bending as if the air itself pressed down on her chest. A shadow poured from the shattered altar stones—thick, cold, and alive. It didn't have form, not yet, only the suggestion of a body far too large to belong to flesh.
One of the warriors shouted a prayer and hurled his spear.
The shadow surged. The weapon never landed. It crumbled to dust midair, falling as nothing more than grains of rusted iron.
The warriors stumbled back, faces painted with horror.
Ahayue's breath caught in her throat. She knew power when she saw it, but this was something older, fouler. The Moon God's touch had been cold and vast, but this—this was hunger. This was the void crying out to be filled.
The shadow bent low, like smoke reaching to smother flame. Its voice rumbled through the clearing, echoing from no mouth but vibrating in every chest:
They have their spears. You have me. Speak the word, and I will drink their fear, break their bones, scatter their names into silence.
Alusya clutched her head, trembling. Her breath came ragged. She knew that if she gave in, if she whispered even one word of assent, the Forgotten God would not stop. He would drown them all—hunters, beasts, maybe even Ahayue.
The warriors broke from their shock with a battle cry. Arrows loosed, spears lunged.
Ahayue dragged Alusya behind her. "Stay awake! Don't let it swallow you!" she shouted, parrying a thrust. Her blade cut one warrior down, but another took his place.
The shadow swelled, pulsing in rhythm with Alusya's heartbeat. Each cry of pain, each drop of blood seemed to feed it. And within the storm of whispers, one clear thought pressed into Alusya's mind:
Choose. Power or death. Belief or oblivion.
The first clash erupted—steel against flesh, screams against whispers. The clearing became a cauldron of chaos. Warriors faltered as the shadows writhed around their feet, torches guttering despite the still night.
And in the center, torn between fear of men and fear of god, Alusya raised her head.
Part lll God's Assist
The spearhead glinted as it drove toward Ahayue's ribs. He twisted, deflecting it with his blade, but a second warrior swept low, striking his knees. He staggered, breath caught, and in that instant, Alusya saw it:
—his fall, his death, her own throat split open in the dirt.
Her scream split the night.
And the god answered.
So be it.
The shadow surged from the broken altar, piercing her body like ink poured into water. Her eyes rolled white, then burned with a pale, unnatural glow. Her small hands clenched into fists that crackled with unseen force.
The warriors froze. One stepped forward, uncertain. "A child's trick," he hissed—before his chest caved inward, ribs snapping like twigs. He flew backward, crumpling against a stone, unmoving.
Gasps erupted.
Alusya stood trembling, but her voice was not entirely her own. It echoed with something older:
"You call me cursed. Then tremble at the curse you name."
The ground heaved. Vines burst from the soil, not green but black as tar, writhing like serpents. They snatched ankles and throats, dragging warriors screaming into the earth. Torches snuffed, the night closing in with suffocating weight.
Ahayue staggered back, horrified. "Alusya—stop! It's not you, it's him!"
But her gaze slid past him, unseeing, her lips moving to a rhythm not hers. Each syllable rippled through the clearing like stone into water:
I was forgotten. I was betrayed. I was starved. Now, I feast.
The warriors broke, their bravado gone. They fled into the trees, but the shadows chased them, cutting through ranks like smoke-formed blades. One dropped to his knees, clawing at the dirt, muttering prayers—before vanishing under a tide of writhing black.
Only silence followed.
Alusya collapsed to her knees, panting. The shadows recoiled, folding back into her chest like smoke sucked into a dying fire. The glow left her eyes.
The clearing was ruined. Stones shattered, earth cracked, bodies half-buried in strangling roots.
Ahayue rushed forward, catching her trembling shoulders. "Alusya! Can you hear me?"
She blinked, tears streaming, voice thin. "I… I didn't mean to… I only wanted them to stop…"
From within, the Forgotten God chuckled—a sound only she heard.
This is but a taste, child. And yet, how sweet it felt, did it not? Do not deny me. Do not deny yourself.
She buried her face in Ahayue's chest, sobbing. He held her tight, heart pounding.
But above them, the altar stones glowed faintly once more—like an eye opening after centuries of slumber.
The silence of the forest felt different now. It wasn't the hush of safety. It was the stillness of something awakened, watching, waiting.