"Every hunt leaves a trail—not of blood, but of memory.
Only those who dare to look back will see where it began."
⸻
The valley stank of smoke and iron.
Ash clung to the mist, heavy as breath. Lin Wuji moved through the ruins in silence, paws sinking into mud still warm from fire. Around him, Fangxin's wolves dismantled the carnage with surgical calm—dragging corpses into the river, scattering embers, burying the scent of death beneath wet soil.
Fangxin's voice carried above the quiet, sharp as command steel. "Take nothing. Leave nothing that remembers us."
His tone was ritual. It reminded Wuji of the Silver Order drills—the same cold precision, the same absence of mercy. He noticed the pattern in every hunt now: each outpost fallen along a ring, each strike calculated around water. Strategy. Not instinct.
When the task ended, Fangxin lifted his muzzle to the wind. "North," he growled. "The scent of fear rises there."
The pack obeyed without question, shadows in motion. Wuji followed, unease knotted tight behind his ribs. He knew this stretch of river—the broken birch leaning like a scar, the bend where he used to skip stones with Meilin. His sister's laughter still lived in the water's echo.
He pushed the memory down and kept running.
⸻
They reached a clearing by midnight. Collapsed huts sagged under the weight of ash; half-burnt straw and splintered beams jutted from the ground like bones. Wuji slowed. A small wooden charm hung from a doorway, blackened but unbroken.
A crescent moon split in two.
His breath caught. Meilin's charm. She'd carved one just like it for luck.
Scar-Left brushed past him. "Keep moving."
Wuji didn't. He stepped closer. Beneath the smoke, another scent cut through—the musk of silver fur, the tang of wild ash. Old. Familiar.
Fangxin's scent.
The Alpha strode through the ruins, giving quiet orders. "Sweep the edges. Burn what the river can't take." His gaze found Wuji's for a moment—steady, unreadable, as though daring him to speak. Wuji lowered his head, obeying out of habit, not faith.
But the scent clung. Thick. Undeniable.
It couldn't be. Fangxin had saved him, taught him, spared him. He had no reason—no motive—to kill a human child's family.
And yet the scent matched the one that had haunted his nightmares since that night.
The same that had filled the air when his world burned.
⸻
They moved again before dawn, the forest still steaming from rain. By the time the sun cracked the ridges, the pack settled in a ravine veiled in mist. Fangxin stood apart at the ridge, motionless, carved in shadow.
Scar-Left dropped beside Wuji, gnawing a bone. "You stare too much," he said without looking up. "Thinking leads to hunger."
"I wasn't thinking," Wuji lied.
"Then you're already losing."
Wuji managed a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He lay back, watching the thin seam of dawn above. But sleep wouldn't come. His pulse was a drum in his ears, pounding to the memory of smoke, of fangs, of the moon's cruel light over fire.
He almost convinced himself it was coincidence. Almost believed the charm had only reminded him of grief, not truth.
Then Fangxin spoke. "You found something."
Wuji froze. "Only ruins."
"Do not lie to me, half-born." Fangxin's voice was quiet, but the weight in it crushed the air. "The blood between us carries truth."
"I smelled old fire," Wuji said slowly. "That's all."
Fangxin studied him for a long, unblinking moment. Then, almost gently: "The fire is older than you think."
Wuji frowned. "What does that mean?"
"Sleep," the Alpha said. "You'll need strength. Tomorrow we hunt deeper."
He turned away, leaving Wuji alone with the words, sharp and cold as broken glass.
⸻
Far beyond the valley, the Silver Order tracked shadows through the rain. Elira knelt beside a burned outpost, fingers brushing the soot-crusted ground. Something glittered there—half-buried, fragile.
A charm, split down the center.
"Captain?" one of her men called.
Elira turned it over, tracing the carved crescent. "These sites form a pattern," she murmured. "A spiral leading toward the high forest."
The soldier frowned. "Meaning?"
"They're not striking at random," she said. "They're closing a circle."
She pocketed the charm, rising to her full height. "Signal the others. We move at dusk. The Alpha's marking his territory."
She didn't say the thought gnawing at her: that one of those marks might have belonged to Wuji.
⸻
By evening, Fangxin's pack reached the limestone caverns at the edge of the northern woods. The entrance yawned open, its breath cool and damp. Fangxin halted before it, fur rippling with moonlight.
"The hunters will follow this trail," he said. "We sleep within stone."
Inside, the cave walls gleamed faintly, reflecting thin rivers of light from the cracks above. Bones lay scattered—deer, bear, human. The smell of old hunts and buried secrets filled the air.
Wuji stayed near the rear, pretending to sharpen a stone. His mind clawed through the fog of denial. Every step since that burned clearing had felt heavier. Every glance from Fangxin lingered too long.
The Alpha passed behind him, silent as mist. "You hesitate," he said.
"I think."
"Thinking," Fangxin replied, "is a luxury for prey."
Wuji turned, meeting his gaze. "And for leaders?"
The Alpha's mouth curled, showing the edge of fang. "For them, it's a weapon."
He moved on, leaving Wuji to the echoes. The words sank deep, chilling in their certainty.
⸻
Night fell thick and wordless. The pack slept in slow waves of breathing. But Wuji remained awake, staring at the cave ceiling. The moonlight through the cracks painted thin veins of silver across the stone—lines that looked too much like scars.
The scent still clung to his mind. The charm. The fire. Fangxin's calm.
He wanted to deny it, but denial had teeth too—and sooner or later, it would bite.
In the silence, he whispered to himself, "If it was him…"
The thought trailed off, unfinished.
Outside, the wind shifted. Somewhere beyond the trees, the horns of the Silver Order sounded—a low, distant note that threaded through the night like fate itself.
Fangxin stirred in the darkness, head lifting toward the sound. His golden eyes opened, catching the moonlight.
He didn't move. He didn't speak. But Wuji could smell the change in the air—the faint pulse of silver fear beneath the Alpha's calm.
And in that heartbeat of stillness, Wuji realized something far worse than betrayal.
Fangxin already knew he was being hunted.
⸻
The forest remembered everything—the scent, the blood, the lies. And soon, under the same merciless moon, memory would bare its fangs again.