The storm had passed hours ago.
The forest was quiet again, the way it becomes quiet after rain — heavy, damp, alive with the slow dripping of water from the leaves. The ground was soft beneath Ludwig's boots as he moved between the trees.
He walked without hurry.
Every step placed carefully.
Years of training had taught him how to move through a forest without disturbing it. The trick wasn't silence. True silence was impossible.
It was rhythm.
You walked with the forest instead of against it.
Ludwig paused near a fallen log and crouched slightly, examining the ground. The mud still held the shape of fresh tracks.
Deer.
Young. Probably injured.
He had been following it for nearly an hour.
Not for sport. The animal had been limping. In a place like this, leaving a wounded creature to wander slowly into starvation felt… wrong.
He adjusted the strap of the rifle resting against his shoulder and moved forward again.
The trees began to thin as the terrain sloped downward.
Something shifted in the air.
Not a sound.
Not exactly.
Just… wrong.
Ludwig stopped.
Every instinct sharpened.
He waited.
Listened.
Water dripped from a branch above him.
Wind brushed through the high leaves.
Nothing else.
Then he saw it.
At the edge of a small clearing, near a cluster of rocks, someone was lying on the ground.
For a second his mind rejected the image. A person shouldn't be here. Not this deep inside the protected land around the Sanctuary.
He moved forward slowly, eyes scanning the tree line.
No movement.
No second presence.
Just the figure.
A woman.
Blonde hair tangled with mud and leaves. Clothes soaked and torn. Her breathing shallow, almost imperceptible.
Ludwig crouched beside her.
Alive.
Barely.
He brushed wet strands of hair away from her face.
And then recognition hit him.
Not immediately.
First as a vague memory.
A billboard.
A magazine cover.
A screen somewhere in another life.
Then the name surfaced.
"Mia…"
He stared at her for a moment longer, rainwater still dripping from the branches above them.
The biggest star in the world.
Unconscious.
Half dead.
In the middle of the woods.
Right outside the Sanctuary.
Ludwig exhaled slowly.
"Yeah," he muttered to himself.
"This is going to be a problem."