Ch14: She Still Existed

Vibe: Bears & Wolves — Lilith Max

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The forest fled beneath her, or she fled through the forest — she no longer knew the difference.

Her breath tore in her chest, branches clawed at her sleeves, at her hair, roots twisted underfoot and she stumbled twice. The first time, she caught a trunk in time. The second time, she went down on her knees and rose without stopping. Nothing but the pulse hammering at her temples. Nothing but the dark ahead.

Behind her — torches. Voices. And that sound her skin still had not settled from — not a human scream, not an animal's howl. Something between.

She was not thinking. That was the strangest part. She had always been analytical, even with her body moving at a frantic pace. Erebus had taught her: 'action without calculation is panic, and panic is death'. But the inner voice stayed silent. Only one word remained, hollowed out, dragging behind her like smoke:

/"Run."/

She ran.

A branch struck her arm — sharp, drawing blood. She did not stop.

/"Fear shows first."/

Yes. It shows. And? There is no one here to see it.

The forest began to thin — she felt it in the changing air: less damp, less dense, carrying a smell of smoke and a sour undertone foreign to anything growing between the trees. The ground grew harder underfoot. She had not yet grasped what that meant when movement appeared ahead, between the trunks.

She stopped.

Instinct outran thought.

Three of them. Two older men — broad-shouldered, heavy-footed, calm, accustomed to moving through darkness and fearing nothing in it. The younger one lagged slightly behind and stopped a moment later.

She held her gaze on him a second longer than she should have.

His eyes. Even in the dark, she saw them clearly. Red. Not from bloodshot tint of exhaustion or illness. A deep, smoldering red, like coals buried under ash.

He was watching her, too. And there was no threat in his look — only surprise. Real, unguarded. As though he had grown used to finding monsters here, roots, bones, but not a girl.

She lunged sideways.

The forest — the one thing she knew here. If she could still get between the trees—

Something closed around her wrist. Hard. The older one — the one on the left — moved faster than she had expected. They both went down, her first, then him, and the ground met her shoulder, her side; the air left her lungs in a single blow.

She kicked. Twisted. Tried to break free.

Useless.

He was heavier — twice, maybe more — and he held her cruelly and surely: a grip meant to keep an animal alive, not to break it prematurely.

/"Hunters? They know how to keep something alive."/

She stopped fighting.

Not surrender. Strength would not work here. She needed something else.

"Lie still. Do not squirm."

His voice was level. No anger in it.

She lay motionless. Her breath ragged, knee aching, shoulder worse. But she lay there and thought.

/"The Duke will not come."/

He did not know where she was. He could be searching for her where she had been. And she was no longer there.

/"Who do they fear more than they fear wasting time?"/

The answer came on its own.

She turned her head — slowly, so it would not look like an attempt to run.

"Take me to the palace."

The older one — the one holding her — traded a look with the other.

"Why would we do that?"

"The Crown Prince will pay you." She tried to keep her voice steady. She almost managed it. "More than anything you have found tonight is worth."

A short pause held. She let herself almost believe it.

Then the silence broke into laughter.

"What would he want with the likes of you?" The older one finally let go of her wrist, but stepped back only only far enough to show he was not holding her, and she was not going anywhere. "He has a palace full of girls. Noble ones. Beautiful ones. You are coming with us."

She sat up. Slowly.

The hunters — she could see it now, at closer range — bore marks on their clothing. Not a crest, not a military insignia. Only a leather buckle at the belt, stamped with a silhouette: a beast with a broken spine. A guild.

/"Nobles do not help. They invest."/

But these were no nobles.

"You collect monsters," she said. "Not people. What do you want with me?"

The second one had said nothing until now. He crouched and began tying a knot around her wrists. Coarse, fibrous rope.

"We know a place that collects people too."

Her lips moved. She caught herself.

/"Do not beg — it is weakness."/

But the man had already turned away, whistling into the dark. From the thicket came the heavy groan of ungreased wheels and the smell of beasts. A wagon emerged. Neither carriage nor simple cart, it was a massive wooden frame fitted with thick iron bars. Behind them lay a dense, devouring dark.

Old, dark stains discolored the iron. Not rust.

/"Not prey. Cargo."/

"No!"

She screamed. Loud, without control, for the first time in years. That single second gave her something strange: the sense that she still existed, that she had not vanished behind every mask and every corrected gesture. Then they gagged her — fast, practiced hands, a knot cinched at the back of her skull.

Silence. Her own.

The young hunter had stood apart the whole time. He looked at her without the others' calculation, without weighing her worth and her price. Just looked. She met his eyes one last time, already from behind the bars.

Red eyes.

She looked away first.