The Legacy of Blood

The cold bit deep.
Not the kind that merely prickles the skin — the kind that seeps into the bones, freezing the lungs with every breath. Naya inhaled slowly, feeling the icy burn slide into her chest. Before her, the tundra stretched endlessly, white and silent beneath a leaden sky.

Her father walked three meters ahead, a broad silhouette wrapped in a worn parka. He never turned around to check if she was following. He knew she would. She always had.

The caribou tracks were fresh — small craters in the hardened snow, evenly spaced. Her father crouched, brushing the print with the tip of his gloved fingers. Naya mirrored him, studying it. Two fingers deep. Recent. Maybe an hour old. No more.

He raised two fingers without a word. Two animals.

Naya nodded. Her heart was pounding now, a dull drum against her ribs. This was her first real hunt. Not a training exercise. Not target practice. The true ritual. The one that would make her a hunter in her father’s eyes — in the eyes of the village.

They advanced in silence, rifles slung across their backs. The wind howled softly, constant, carrying the metallic scent of snow and something subtler — an animal trail, warm, alive.

Her father stopped abruptly. Raised his fist. Naya froze.

There. Two hundred meters, maybe less. Two caribou, brown shapes against the endless white. The larger one scraped at the snow with its hoof, searching for buried lichen. The younger one, barely an adult, scanned the horizon, ears alert.

Her father turned to her. For the first time that day, their gazes met. His dark, unreadable eyes rested on her. Then a slight tilt of his chin.

Your turn.

Naya’s breath caught. She nodded, hands trembling as she brought the rifle from her back into her gloved grip. The metal was freezing, even through the leather.

She crouched. Braced the stock against her shoulder, just as he had taught her. Aimed. The young caribou filled her scope now. She could see the details — the vapor of its breath, muscles shifting beneath brown fur, the way its ears pivoted to catch the slightest sound.

Inhale. Hold. Aim for the heart. Shoot between two beats.

Her finger found the trigger.

The young caribou lifted its head. As if it sensed something. Its black eyes — wide, immense — fixed on a point in her direction.

Naya fired.

The shot tore through the silence. Recoil slammed into her shoulder, familiar and brutal. The echo rolled across the tundra, slowly dying away.

The caribou collapsed.

The other bolted, panicked, racing toward the horizon — but Naya no longer saw it. Her gaze was locked on the motionless brown shape in the snow. The vapor of its final breath faded into the frozen air.

Her father was already moving, walking toward the animal. Naya followed, legs heavy, rifle hanging from her arm.

When she reached him, he stood over the caribou. A clean shot — blood formed a small red star along its flank. Almost instant death.

“Good shot.”

Two words. Spoken without emphasis, almost absentmindedly. But coming from him, it was praise.

Naya should have felt proud. She knew that. It was what was expected of her. Smile. Thank him. Savor the moment. A rite of passage. Proof that she was worthy of her grandfather’s name, of the hunter’s blood flowing through her veins.

But when she knelt beside the caribou, when her hands touched its still-warm fur, something twisted in her chest.

The eyes. Those black eyes, wide open, glassy. Staring without seeing. Melted snow clung to its lashes. Its tongue protruded slightly between its teeth. One of its hind legs twitched — a post-mortem reflex, as if it were trying to run one last time.

Thirty seconds ago, it had been alive. Scraping at the snow. Searching for food. And now—

“Naya.”

Her father’s voice pulled her back. He was holding out the knife — a curved blade, a wooden handle worn smooth by decades of use. Her grandfather’s knife.

“Bleed it.”

She took the knife. The blade caught the pale light of the sky, a silvery reflection, almost blinding.

She did what needed to be done. Mechanical gestures, memorized by heart. The blade sliced cleanly across the throat. Blood spilled into the snow, a crimson stain spreading, steaming in the cold.

Her father nodded, satisfied, and began tying the caribou’s legs for transport. Naya wiped the blade in the snow and sheathed it. Her hands were shaking.

Not from the cold.

***

The return to the village took three hours. The caribou was heavy, even split between two people. Naya’s shoulders and thighs ached, but she didn’t complain. Neither did her father. They walked in silence, as always.

The village finally came into view — a cluster of low houses clinging to the frozen ground, gray smoke rising from chimneys. Not large. Two hundred souls, maybe fewer. Isolated enough for traditions to endure, small enough that everyone knew everyone else’s business.

A few villagers stepped outside when they saw the caribou. Approving nods.

Dinner was served early, as always. Thick stew, hard bread, scalding tea. The caribou meat would be smoked, salted, divided. But tonight, it was their share — the hunter’s reward.

Naya, her father, and her uncle — her mother’s brother — sat around the heavy wooden table. Three plates. Three mugs. The usual silence.

Her uncle — Davith — had arrived late in the afternoon. He lived at the other end of the village but came often, especially after a successful hunt. He ate with appetite, spoon clutched awkwardly in his left hand.

Where his right arm should have been, there was only a stump, cleanly severed below the shoulder. His shirt sleeve was neatly folded, pinned in place.

Naya had always known her uncle this way.

Davith set down his spoon and looked at her. He nodded slowly, then his gaze drifted toward the window, toward the falling night.

“Your grandfather would have been proud. You have his blood. The blood of a true hunter.”

Silence.

“He led the expedition, you know. Fifteen years ago. When the last Amarok came too close to the village. We tracked it for three days. Three nights. And we killed it. It and its cursed pack.” He smiled bitterly. “I lost my arm. But at least no one suffered after that.”

Naya lowered her eyes to her plate. The stew still steamed, rich with meat and herbs. Her stomach tightened.

“Eat,” her father said. His first word since they’d returned.

She ate.

***

Later, alone in her room, Naya sat by the narrow window. The village slept. A few lights still glowed here and there, then darkness.

On the windowsill lay the small trophy — a tuft of brown fur, cut from the caribou before the meat was carried away. Tradition of the first kill.

She touched it with her fingertips. Soft. Still warm. Almost.

She saw the eyes again. Those vast black eyes. The vapor of the final breath. The twitching leg.

Why don’t I feel anything?

Pride. That’s what she should feel. Accomplishment. Continuity. She was a hunter now, like her father, like her grandfather before him.

But all she felt was… emptiness. And beneath it, something darker. Unease. As if she had crossed an invisible line and could never turn back.

She looked away from the trophy and out the window.

The moon was high, nearly full, bathing the snow in a bluish glow.

And there — at the edge of the forest, about fifty meters from the last house in the village — she saw them.

Tracks. Enormous. Four times the size of an ordinary wolf’s. Deep, sharply defined in the fresh snow.

They followed the tree line, parallel to the village, then vanished into the shadows between the trees.

Naya froze.

Her heart pounded faster.

She knew wolf tracks. These were different. Too large. Too widely spaced. As if the creature that made them stood as tall as a man at the shoulder.

She stared at the prints until her eyes ached. Until the moon slipped behind a cloud and darkness swallowed them.

When she finally crawled beneath her blankets, she was shivering.

Not from the cold.

Something had changed today. She had felt it when she pulled the trigger. When she watched life leave the caribou’s eyes.

Something inside her had cracked.