The Taboo Broken

A thin mist hung over the village when morning came. Ren was still stretching the sleep from his limbs when Annalise intercepted him near the well, her hair wrapped in a wool scarf against the cold.

“A merchant was attacked by bandits last night,” she said without preamble. “He says he was saved by a pack of wolves. And the leader of the pack, a black wolf that’s actually an ancient spirit of the forest, told him he could go.”

Ren allowed himself a slow smile. “Some people are incredibly creative.”

Her eyes narrowed, studying him as if looking for a tell. “My father says they found the bodies of the bandits. Well… what’s left of them. The wolves ate pretty much everything. I guess the merchant saw the wolves eating the bandits, got so scared he imagined one of them talking, and ran.”

“That sounds more believable than forest spirits saving human merchants,” Ren replied with an easy nod, hiding the flicker of satisfaction beneath his calm expression.

Later that day, Ren skinchanged into a falcon while his human body remained in the village. The falcon’s frame was small and light, bones hollow, wings cutting the wind with precision. His eyes, sharper than any human’s, swept the patchwork of forest and snow below. He wasn’t hunting for prey, but for the scent of smoke, the glint of steel, or the ripple of movement that betrayed another bandit camp.

It wasn’t long before he found trouble.

A narrow road wound through the trees, where a horse-drawn wagon had been halted. Figures swarmed it. Bandits. Four of them. A man lay in the snow, bleeding. The rest of his family huddled near the wagon, wide-eyed with terror.

“Kill the men, and take the women,” the leader barked.

No.

Ren’s talons tightened on the branch where he perched. He was too far. Even if he became a wolf and ran with all his strength, he would arrive too late.

As a bird, he could harry them, claw at their faces, but that would not be enough to stop them all.

He dove anyway, wind screaming in his ears. His talons raked the leader’s face, aiming for the eyes. The man staggered back with a scream. The others drew steel, shouting.

Ren knew it was futile. He would save no one like this.

There was only one way.

A way he had sworn never to use again.

He fixed his predator’s gaze on the bandit leader… and fell into him.

The world convulsed.

It was like being dragged under an icy river while fire poured into his veins. Memories erupted all at once, jumbled and violent.

A smoky tavern, hands clutching a mug.

The weight of a knife sliding between ribs.

A woman’s voice screaming his name in hate.

The copper taste of stolen coin between his teeth.

Running from soldiers through a rain-slick alley.

Burying his first kill in a shallow grave.

Blood. So much blood.

The bandit’s life unfolded in a blinding rush, raw and unfiltered. Every cruelty. Every betrayal. Every petty hunger and desperate kill. It was a stench in the soul, and Ren felt it clawing at him, trying to drown him in another man’s sins.

But he pushed back. Hard.

With an iron will forged in two lifetimes, he seized the man’s body like a fist closing on a snake. The bandit screamed inside his own mind, but Ren was already moving.

Steel hissed free.

The others froze as their leader turned on them without warning. A blade punched into the nearest stomach. Blood sprayed across the snow. The second man cursed before steel slashed his throat. The last one raised his weapon in confusion, only to be driven to the ground under Ren’s borrowed weight, his skull caving under the hilt’s crushing blow.

When the final bandit lay still, the clearing was silent save for the ragged breathing of the family.

Ren dropped the blade. The leader’s own body had been stabbed and was near death. Ren let go just before the man collapsed for the last time. The bandit’s mind faded into nothing, and Ren’s awareness snapped back to his real body, far away in the village.

The family would live.

But as Ren stared at his own trembling hands, he knew exactly what he had done.

He had broken the taboo.

What good was a rule, though, if following it meant letting people die?

The question followed him long after his mind returned to his body.