where the trees bow

The frost lifted itself free.

It unfolded from the trees like fur from an animal —Long, too long. Its limbs dragged behind it as it rose. Snow slid from its hide in heavy sheets.

Amarok?

No, this one had no eyes, only a shallow hollow as if the abyss was staring through it.

The tales I had heard snapped into place with violent clarity.

A frost-lurker.

The creature tilted its head with a thought-breaking crack and rushed.

I rolled as its limb almost speared my beating heart. The wind of its passing rippling heat from my skin. I came up on my hands and knees, screaming more in rage than fear.

Enough.

I unsheathed my knife. I was done being afraid.

I lunged.

The frost-lurker slithered across the snow without disturbing it, its movements wrong—fluid in ways joints should not allow. It struck again. I threw myself backward, slamming into a tree as breath burst from my lungs in a helpless bark.

Cold bit through my back instantly.

Trapped.

This was how it would end.

Not by a god.

Not by fate.

By a story and a monster born of it.

And somehow….I didn’t mind.

That’s a lie. I minded very much.

My father’s face flashed before me—weathered, stern, tired with love he didn’t know how to speak aloud. 

A chief must know how to feed his people, he said.

I had accomplished nothing on this quest.

Kol was right.

Even if I found Amarok, I wouldn’t get my wish.

My father would remain dead.

Others sought Amarok for selfish reasons. Me? I wanted the wish not for myself. Kol thinks that I have forsaken the village but in truth, it’s all I was thinking of. Ever since Father died, they had looked to me for answers and I had none.

Ita-kkmiq – the Ritual was their answer.

Sixteen days of stripping yourself bare. Not just survival in the winter, Father said it was searching. For what I didn’t know. But after completion, I would be named chief.

Uncle Torran pushed for the ritual and so did the elders. After two years of insisting, I agreed —never revealing I was searching for Amarok.

That was my answer.

Because if I could not be a leader like my father… then bringing him back was the best thing I could do

Now, as I stared at the frost-lurker’s strike, I couldn’t help but think; Was my answer wrong? And then —

“Irrythik, MOVE!”

I knew that voice.

Kol slammed between me and the creature in a blur of motion.

“Run,” he said.

I couldn’t.

He struck. The creature’s head snapped sideways with a brittle crack, then righted itself with sickening grace. A hiss rolled from its hollow face. It smelled of blood.

The creature met Kol with a furious swing, sending him crashing against the snow. My hand tightened on my knife. A pathetic thing, against a monster like this—

Something in me snapped—not the way it had in anger, but in clarity. I lunged, thrusting toward its head. Its talon clipped my arm instead. Blood flowed through my flesh then instantly froze. I screamed, clutching the wound.

Kol turned eyes wild. “I told you…. to run.”

“I’ve never been a good listener,” I spat, staggering, refusing to fall.

We stood side by side—breath steaming, blades trembling in our hands, snow swirling in frantic spirals around the creature that stalked us.

It circled, slow and hungry.

Kol’s face was twisted with pain. “If we don’t make it. I’m sor…..”

“None of that now.” I swallowed. “We are not dying here.”

We didn’t look at each other.

We didn’t need to.

The frost-lurker lunged —and we moved together.

Kol met it head-on while I veered left, boots carving desperate trenches in the snow. The creature was however didn’t bite the trap. Its hollow face locked onto me with single-minded hunger, ignoring Kol entirely.

We should have known it was smarter than the boar.

I darted between the trees, running into the tightest spaces I could find. Branches slapped my face and arms. Snow cascaded as the frost-lurker tore through them with impossible speed.

My ribs burned. My vision pulsed.
But I kept running.

I think Kol understood what I was doing because he peeled away, vanishing into the snow. The forest became a maze of towering trunks, and I led the creature straight into the densest knot of them.

It lunged—too large for the narrow gap ahead between two pines. I slammed into its shoulder from behind driving the creature right into the narrow gap. Its elongated talon slipped a birch trunk, splintering wood in a shower of frost.

I dove aside.

And that was when Kol dropped from above, bringing his sword down in a two-handed arc.

The frost-lurker’s skull cracked, blood oozing out. It rushed before Kol could strike again. It spun, faster than either of us could react, breaking free and drove a clawed limb straight toward Kol’s throat—

I threw myself upward, catching the blow with my arm. Then Kol sank its blade through its open mouth. A terrible crunch rippled on its throat but it still kept fidgeting.

I struggled to hold it when my foot nudged something. It was my small knife. I picked it up and slashed and plunged it beside Kol’s blade.

A terrible crack rippled through its body. Frost exploded outward, so powerful it knocked both of us back. The frost-lurker convulsed once, limbs clawing at nothing—then went still, collapsing into a heap of frozen limbs and shattered snow.

Kol dropped his blade, his knees folded.

“I… I am,” his words broke apart. Blood spilled against the white as he coughed, his gaze flickering once toward the corpse. “I…I’m sorry I lied…”

His hand trembled, fingers curling weakly into my forearm.

“Ir…ry…thik. Look… in my… pack… please…”

Then his grip loosened, he fell on the ground.

“Kol?!”

The air thinned, making it hard for me to breathe. It was subtle at first, I thought it was exhaustion.

Then the forest answered.

Snow slid from the trunks of the trees, not falling but withdrawing, as though the cold itself were being summoned elsewhere. Branches groaned. Roots shifted beneath the earth.

The trees bowed.

Again.

Paw prints ignited in the snow, burning with a soft glow forming a path between the bowing trees. And from that path, Amarok emerged.

It was vast, as the tales promised. Its fur woven with white and black swirls and something beyond colour entirely.

I couldn’t move.

I knew fear, yet this was not it.

CHILD OF GRIEF, Amarok said, his voice filling the hollow places of my chest, skull and bones.

I HAVE FELT YOU SEARCHING FOR A LONG TIME.

The snow beneath my knees softened. The pain in I felt dulled. Kol lay motionless beside me, breath shallow, blood darkening the snow.

Amarok’s gaze lingered on him.

WHAT IS IT YOU SEEK?

“I....” My voice cracked. I swallowed. “My father. I seek my father.”

THE PRICE FOR SUCH A RETURN IS STEEP, Amarok replied.
ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE HARVEST?

I had always known there would be a cost. Every story warned of it. And I had told myself—told myself with all the arrogance I could muster—that I was ready to pay anything.

Before I could answer, the snow beneath Amarok’s paws began to melt.

The scent reached me first.

Old tobacco. Tanned leather. Smoke and pine.

My breath caught painfully in my throat.

My father.

The shape in the melting snow was not yet whole, but it was him. I knew it in my bones the way a child knows their mother’s heartbeat in the womb.

Kol’s hand still rested in my arm, getting colder by the second.

Amarok’s tail swept through the snow, carving a path of shimmering frost that stretched away from Kol—away from the blood—toward the forming shape of my father.

ONE STEP, the Amarok’s voice vibrated in my teeth.
TURN YOUR BACK ON THE BROKEN.
GIVE THE DYING TO THE SILENCE
AND THE SILENCE WILL GIVE BACK THE DEAD.

It took a while to understand but I soon realized.

For my father to live, I had to take one step away from Kol.