CHAPTER 60 — What Hunts the Storm
The forest did not let them rest.
It followed.
Not loudly.
Not clumsily.
But with the patience of something that understood distance, fear, and timing.
The caravan moved in a staggered line through the trees, boots sinking into loam softened by old rain. No torches. No spells. Even breath was kept low, measured. Garrik led with hand signals and clenched teeth, forcing a pace that balanced speed against collapse.
Aiden leaned heavily between Myra and Nellie.
Every step sent a dull pulse through his legs, lightning aching under his skin like bruised nerves. The storm was there—present, watchful—but bound tight enough that it felt less like power and more like restraint.
The pup rode cradled against his chest now, too tired to walk, its tiny heartbeat fluttering fast but steady. Every few minutes it stirred, ears twitching, nose lifting as if scenting something only it could hear.
Each time it did, Aiden's stomach tightened.
Behind them, the forest whispered.
Not words.
Pressure.
Branches shifted where no wind blew. Leaves fell where nothing passed. Once—only once—Aiden heard a sound that was not an animal and not a beast call.
A low, hollow drag.
Like something very large pulling itself through earth that resisted.
Garrik halted the caravan with a raised fist.
Everyone froze.
The silence thickened until Aiden could hear his own pulse again.
Garrik crouched, pressed two fingers to the ground, then looked up slowly. His face had gone pale beneath the grime.
"It's not following the tusks," he murmured. "It's following us."
Myra swallowed. "That's… encouraging."
Nellie whispered, "I don't feel threads pulling anymore."
"That's worse," Garrik said.
Aiden felt it then.
Not the Warden.
This was different.
This was hunger.
A pressure that slid along the edges of his awareness, testing—not him, exactly—but the space around him. Like something sniffing the air for a storm that had passed recently and left a trail too bright to hide.
The pup whimpered softly.
Aiden pressed his palm to its back. Easy, he thought—not as a command, but a promise.
The caravan moved again.
They reached a shallow ravine just before dusk.
It wasn't much—just a break in the forest floor where roots tangled thickly and stone showed through the soil—but Garrik stopped them anyway.
"We can't outrun this," he said quietly. "We can't fight it either. So we make it hesitate."
"How?" one of the hunters asked.
Garrik's jaw tightened. "We bleed the trail."
That got attention.
He pointed to three hunters. "You. With me. We take the scent wide. Circle back east and don't stop moving until midnight. Burn your cloaks if you have to."
"And the rest of us?" Myra demanded.
"Hide," Garrik said. "Stay down. Stay quiet. And pray it chooses wrong."
A murmur rippled through the caravan.
Aiden felt something cold settle in his chest.
"No," he said hoarsely.
Everyone looked at him.
Garrik frowned. "This isn't a debate."
"It's following me," Aiden said. "Or something attached to me. If you split off—"
"It might chase them instead," Garrik finished. "That's the point."
Aiden shook his head weakly. "You're throwing lives at a guess."
Garrik met his eyes. "And you think standing still with fifty people is better?"
Myra cut in, sharp. "Enough. If we're doing this, we do it smart."
She turned to Aiden. "What do you feel?"
He closed his eyes for half a breath.
The storm stirred—tight, compressed. The bruise of the Warden's attention still lingered somewhere distant, but this presence was closer. Cruder. Focused.
"It's tracking the storm," he said. "Not just me. Residual discharge. Places where lightning burned hot enough to leave a mark."
Nellie's breath caught. "Like a scent."
"Like blood in water," Aiden agreed.
Myra's jaw set. "Then we mask it."
Garrik stared. "With what?"
Aiden opened his eyes.
"With me."
Silence snapped tight.
"No," Myra said immediately.
"Aiden," Nellie whispered, already shaking her head.
"I don't mean alone," Aiden said. "I mean… controlled."
He looked at Garrik. "You know how storms break differently depending on terrain. High ground. Water. Stone."
Garrik narrowed his eyes. "Yes."
"There's a rock shelf north of here," Aiden continued. "Basalt spine. Dense. Old. It'll ground the storm pattern. Scramble the trail."
Garrik hesitated. "And you know this how?"
Aiden swallowed. "Because it's pulling me that way."
The forest rustled.
Closer now.
Garrik cursed under his breath.
"We don't have time to argue," he said. "If you're wrong—"
"I know," Aiden said quietly.
Myra grabbed his sleeve. "If you do this, you don't do it without us."
He met her eyes. "I wasn't planning to."
Nellie swallowed hard. "I can help anchor. If it spikes—"
Runa stepped forward, armor clinking softly. "I go where the storm goes."
Garrik looked at the four of them.
Then at the caravan.
Then at the darkening forest.
"Fine," he said. "We split three ways. Decoys east. Caravan south. Storm north."
Myra grimaced. "Catchy."
Garrik met Aiden's gaze one last time. "If you draw it away, don't try to be a hero."
Aiden managed a tired smile. "I'm very bad at that."
They moved fast after that.
The caravan peeled off, muffled and low. The decoy hunters vanished into the trees, cloaks already being torn free.
And Aiden—supported by Myra and Runa, with Nellie close—turned north.
The forest resisted.
Roots snagged. Branches clawed. The ground rose unevenly, stone cutting through soil like bone. The air grew colder, heavier, humming faintly with mineral charge.
The pup stirred again, growling softly now.
They felt it then.
The thing hunting them.
It moved differently from beasts.
Not through paths—but through pressure.
Trees bowed away from it. Moss blackened where it passed. The forest floor dented under weight that didn't quite touch it.
Myra whispered, "I hate this."
"Same," Aiden breathed.
They reached the basalt shelf just as the last light bled from the sky.
The stone rose in a jagged arc from the earth, dark and glassy, etched with old fractures that caught faint starlight. A natural lightning sink. A storm-breaker.
Aiden staggered as soon as his boots touched it.
The storm reacted instantly—compressed tighter, snapping against itself, pulled downward instead of outward. Pain lanced through his ribs, sharp and sudden.
Nellie grabbed him. "It's grounding you—too fast!"
"I know," he gasped. "Give me—just—"
The forest behind them bent.
Not moved.
Bent.
Something stepped into the clearing.
It was not tall.
Not enormous.
Not monstrous in the way Gravetusks were.
It was… wrong.
Humanoid, vaguely. Long-limbed. Its surface shimmered like wet stone under moonlight, skin shifting between bark, bone, and something translucent that showed no organs beneath.
Where its face should have been, there was only a hollow depression—no eyes, no mouth.
But Aiden felt its attention lock onto him like a hook behind the sternum.
The storm screamed.
Not to be released.
To run.
Myra swore. "That's not in any bestiary I've read."
Runa planted herself between it and Aiden, hammer rising. "It bleeds."
The thing tilted its head.
The forest fell utterly silent.
Then it moved.
Not fast.
Inevitable.
Each step pressed the basalt deeper into the earth. Cracks spidered outward, glowing faintly with residual storm-light pulled straight from Aiden's veins.
Nellie cried out. "It's draining you!"
Aiden forced himself upright.
"No," he rasped. "It's listening."
The thing paused.
A pressure slid through Aiden's mind—not words, not images. A question shaped like hunger.
Storm.
Aiden's vision blurred.
The pup howled—sharp, furious.
Lightning flared along its fur, brighter than before, answering something ancient.
The creature recoiled.
Just a fraction.
Enough.
Aiden slammed his palm into the basalt.
He didn't unleash the storm.
He gave it somewhere to go.
Lightning poured downward—violent, controlled, ripping through stone instead of flesh. The shelf screamed as power grounded hard, fracturing with thunderous cracks.
The forest shook.
The thing staggered.
Not hurt.
Confused.
Myra didn't hesitate.
She threw a flare—not fire, but flash—Verdant powder igniting into blinding green-white light.
Runa charged.
Her hammer struck the creature's shoulder.
It rang.
Not like bone.
Like a bell buried underground.
The thing reeled back, finally reacting.
It raised one elongated arm—
—and the world tilted.
Aiden felt the storm tear loose.
Not outward.
Upward.
Straight through him.
He screamed as lightning ripped from his core, not exploding but stretching, pulled thin and screaming into the sky like a banner caught in a gale.
The creature froze.
The pup surged forward, leaping from Aiden's arms, landing between them in a crackling blaze of blue-white light far brighter than it should have been able to produce.
It snarled.
And for the first time, the thing hunting them hesitated.
Not because it feared the pup.
Because it recognized it.
The forest shuddered.
The creature retreated—slowly, unwillingly—melting back into shadow and pressure and wrongness until only silence remained.
Aiden collapsed.
Myra caught him.
Runa slammed her hammer into the ground, breathing hard.
Nellie dropped beside Aiden, hands glowing, desperately trying to stabilize what had just been torn open.
The pup staggered back, curling against Aiden's chest, trembling violently.
In the distance—
Far beyond the basalt—
Something vast shifted its attention.
Not the hunter.
Something older.
Something deeper.
Aiden didn't see it.
Didn't hear it.
But deep in his bones, the storm whispered a truth that made his blood run cold.
That thing was not the Warden.
It was bait.
And something else had just noticed the line go tight.
The forest watched.
And it did not look away.
Author's note
Sorry for not posting a lot the last week with the holidays and me not feeling good with depression and being sick I am going to start trying to pick it up again