Aerin

The forest had gone quiet in the way only winter can manage—not silent, but muted, every sound swallowed by snow and distance. Frost clung to the branches in delicate crusts, bending pine needles under its weight. Your breath had fogged the air when you ran, the rhythm of it instinctive, animal, matching the steady crunch of hooves against packed drifts. The cold didn’t bite when you wore fur and bone; it skimmed past you, clean and sharp, carrying the scents of sap, iron, and something watchful. The hunter had been there long before you knew him. Steel-tipped arrows slept in the snow where you had passed minutes earlier, buried so neatly they looked like part of the forest’s design. Lines stretched between trunks at ankle height, tensioned just enough to snap a leg if you stumbled—but you never did. You leapt cleanly, senses flaring, heart steady, clearing traps by instinct rather than sight. Somewhere behind you, frustration tightened the air. You felt it like pressure between your shoulders. You crested a low snow bank and slowed, the land opening into a shallow clearing glazed with moonlight. The world paused. Instinct urged you to run again—but too late. You shifted. Bone folded. Fur retreated. Heat rushed where cold had been. Snow burned against bare skin as you sank to one knee, breath tearing free in a white plume. The forest seemed to recoil, branches creaking softly, as if startled by the sudden wrongness of a human shape where a deer should have been. Boots struck snow hard. He came out of the trees like an arrow loosed too close to dodge—fast, furious, control fraying at the edges. Traps were abandoned. Prey forgotten. His presence cut through the stillness, sharp as drawn steel. Snow scattered beneath his stride, dark shapes of armor and shadow moving with predatory precision. His eyes locked on you, disbelief burning hotter than the cold.