Chapter 1

Beda

The fire's dying again.

I poke at the embers, coaxing a few more minutes of warmth from wood too green to burn properly. Twenty-three of us in this camp. Dark elf escapees pretending we're not just waiting to die.

"Beda."

I don't turn. Ren. Again.

"I'm busy."

"A woman shouldn't sit alone." His footsteps crunch closer. "It's not safe."

Safe. As if this camp is safe. As if huddling together makes us anything but easier targets.

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. You look cold." He's behind me now. I smell unwashed skin, rotting teeth. "I could warm you up."

I stand slowly, deliberately. Face him. He's ugly—pockmarked face, milky dead eye, mouth full of broken stumps. But it's not his appearance that makes me want to bury my knife in his gut. It's the way he looks at me. Like meat he hasn't tasted yet.

"Ren," I say evenly. "If you touch me, I will cut your throat while you sleep."

He laughs—wet, phlegmy. "You've got fire. I like that."

"I'm not joking."

"Neither am I." His hand rises toward my face. "You think you're better than—"

My knife is at his throat.

The blade dimples skin but doesn't cut. Yet. His Adam's apple bobs against steel.

"Walk away."

He backs away, hands raised, smile still fixed. "Just being friendly."

"Don't."

He retreats into darkness. My hand trembles lowering the knife. Not from fear. From rage.

I return to the fire. These people survived the dark elves, crawled to freedom, and now they're just... waiting. Waiting to starve. To freeze. For something worse to find them.

I hate them for it.

I close my eyes, let the fire's heat touch my face.

A scream shatters the night.

It cuts off abruptly, replaced by wet gurgling. Then another scream. Another. The camp erupts—shouting, running, dying.

I'm on my feet, knife in hand.

Something moves beyond the firelight. Something massive. Bone-white against black. A blue glow from within a skeletal chest.

Gods. What is that thing?

The camp dissolves into chaos.

I catch fragments through the panic. White claws. Blue light cutting through darkness. Bodies falling. Blood spreading black across frozen ground.

It's not feeding. It's slaughtering.

People scatter, crashing into each other, tripping over tent lines. A woman runs past me, face white with terror—then she's down, throat opened to the stars. The creature moves past her without slowing, already targeting the next.

Run. Hide. My instincts scream it.

But rage unfurls in my chest instead.

Not again. Not fucking again.

I survived the dark elves. Their torture chambers. Their breeding pits. The escape through the Dead Reaches. Two months in this miserable camp.

I am not dying tonight.

I move toward it. Stupid. But I need to see what's killing us.

The thing emerges between shelters, and firelight reveals it fully.

Eight feet tall. Bones like blackened iron. Elongated skull with empty sockets that still somehow see. Claws like obsidian crescents gleaming wet in the light. That blue glow pulses in its chest cavity. Not frenzied. Steady. Controlled.

It's not mindless. It's methodical.

I watch it reach a man crawling on a broken leg. It doesn't hurry. Just closes claws around his skull. Wet crunch. The body stills.

My stomach turns, but I don't look away.

Its head turns slowly, surveying. The blue light pulses. Then it locks onto something new.

Ren.

He's backed against a crate, sobbing, hands raised. Begging. Please, please, please.

The creature stalks toward him.

Ren offers things—information, supplies, anything. It doesn't slow. Reaches him. Raises one clawed hand.

I should run while it's distracted.

I don't.

The claws descend. Once, twice, three times. Fast. Surgical. Ren comes apart—arm severed, chest opened, throat split. Dead before the pieces hit ground.

The creature steps over the remains.

Its head turns.

Toward me.

Our eyes meet—empty sockets finding me in firelight. I feel the magnitude of its attention.

Its blue light pulses.

It starts walking.

Toward me.

My legs finally obey. I run.

I crash through the camp, leaping bodies, dodging collapsed shelters. My breath comes in jagged gasps. The forest—if I reach the trees.

But something massive lands in front of me.

I skid, nearly fall. It's there. Blocking my path. How did it move so fast?

I spin, run the other direction.

It's there again. Cutting me off. Herding me like prey.

My back hits something solid. A supply crate. Nowhere left to run.

The creature closes the distance with fluid grace. Its skull tilts, considering. The blue light pulses—curiosity, maybe. Calculation.

It takes another step.

I raise my knife. My hand shakes. The blade is useless against this thing, but it's all I have.

Its hand rises, claws spread wide. Sharp enough to split me open. I watch them come toward me in terrible slow motion. This is it. This is how I die.

The claws stop an inch from my throat.

I feel displaced air. Phantom pressure of death against skin. But it doesn't strike.

Its blue light flickers.

The steady glow stutters, brightens, shifts—confused, almost frantic. Its hand trembles. Its entire frame goes rigid.

What—?

I stare up into empty sockets. It's not attacking. Not killing. Just... frozen.

"Do it," I whisper. "If you're going to kill me, do it."

Its hand pulls back.

The blue light flares bright and chaotic. Its skull shakes like it's trying to clear thoughts. Claws flex, close, open. Every movement jerky, uncertain.

It takes a step backward.

Then another.

Its light stutters through colors—blue to gold to blue. It makes a sound deep in its chest, raw and wrong.

Then it turns.

And runs.

Crashes through camp, bones clattering, movements frantic. Disappears into the trees in seconds. The blue glow fades.

I stand frozen, knife raised, heart hammering.

What just happened?

Silence is worse than screaming.

I lower my knife slowly. My arm shakes. My legs want to collapse, but I don't let them.

I force myself to look around.

Bodies. Everywhere.

Shelters collapsed. Supplies scattered. Blood pooling, steaming in freezing air. Seven. Eleven. Fifteen. Seventeen dead.

Everyone.

I'm the only one breathing.

My gaze lands on Ren's remains. Not even recognizable—just pieces in a vaguely human shape. His good eye stares at nothing.

He did this, and I am glad.

I move through camp, checking bodies already dead. Ballie, a thief. Heather, a whore. Amos, the do-gooder.  All gone. Slaughtered in minutes.

And instead of sadness; I feel excitement. 

That thing spared me.

Why?

It could have killed me. Should have.

It ran from me. 

I sink beside the dying fire, back against a crate. Pull my knees to chest. Knife across my thighs.

The camp is silent except for wind.

I should run. Pack supplies, disappear into mountains.

But I know with bone-deep certainty: running won't save me.

It'll come back.

I don't know how I know. But I feel it. In my blood. Whatever stopped it from killing me is bigger than either of us understand.

It'll come back.

And when it does...

I look at my knife. Clean. Unused. I just stood there while a monster chose mercy I never asked for.

Not mercy. Something darker.

Something that terrifies me more than its claws.

Because I'm alive. Because beneath fear and shock, I feel something I really have no name for.

Curiosity. Recognition. Something that whispers: When it comes back, you won't run.