His jaw tightens, and I swear I can see veins bulge beneath the illusion glamor. “You are mortal. Breakable.”
“Wow, thanks for the biology lesson, Mr. Ogre-the-Obvious,” I snap. “Look, I’m not trying to play hero here, okay? But you said yourself this thingfeedson fear. And it’s already got a buffet going out there.”
He’s pacing now, muscles twitching beneath his skin like he’s trying not to punch a hole in the wall.
“I have trained my whole life to track and slay such filth. You have not. You carry no weapon.”
“I carry pepper spray and the crushing weight of unresolved trauma. Close enough.”
He actually stops. Blinks. Then, unexpectedly… chuckles.
Just a little. A short, gravelly thing that rumbles in his chest like a purr with a body count.
I cross my arms. “You think that’s funny?”
“No,” he says. “But I thinkyouare. Infuriating. But brave.”
A long pause stretches between us, taut and fraying at the edges. And then, he exhales. Low and defeated.
“Fine. You will accompany me. But stay close. And if something feels wrong… run.”
The forest at night is different.
More alive. More aware. Every step crunches underfoot with a thousand secrets. The moon slices through the canopy like a cold silver blade, casting Kursk in pale light as we move deeper.
“You grew up in this?” I whisper. “All this wild?”
“No,” he says, voice quiet but steady. “I grew up in the Stone Maw Valley. Up past the Riven Peaks. The trees there are taller. Meaner. The wind would steal your breath if you didn’t know how to hold it.”
“That sounds... awful.”
“It was home.”
We keep walking. The deeper we go, the more the silence sinks into my skin. I tug my jacket tighter.
“Tell me something,” I say, mostly to keep from screaming. “What are these Blood Moon Trials you keep mentioning?”
He glances over. “When a youth of the Mountain Tribes comes of age, they must pass the Trials—three nights, three challenges, beneath a crimson moon. Alone. If they survive, they are given their warrior name.”
I arch a brow. “So you weren’tbornKursk the Longstrider?”
“No. I earned it.”
“Dare I ask what the challenge was?”
He grins, feral and fond. “The Long Hunt. I tracked a Razorback boar through an avalanche zone, barefoot, for two days. Killed it with a bone knife I carved myself. Brought back its tusks and roasted its heart.”
“…you know, I spent my eighteenth birthday drinking boxed wine in a dorm bathroom.”
“You also survived the kiss of communion, fought off a Vorfaluka, and smuggled a warrior of the Horde through your town undetected.” He pauses. “Perhaps your Trial is still ongoing.”
That… feels oddly comforting.
A while later, it’s my turn.
“My parents died in a car accident. Three years ago.”
The words fall out of me like loose teeth.
