“Well, sweetheart,” I say to the drone, “either we just filmed the biggest seal track in history or we stumbled onto the set of a horror movie. Congratulations.”
The recorder blinks steady as I drag everything back to camp, dogs padding patiently at my side. My tent glows faintly with lamplight, canvas flapping like a heartbeat. Inside, the little propane stove fights valiantly against the cold. I huddle by it, rubbing my hands, then slip the memory card into my battered laptop.
The footage crackles to life, grainy in places but good enough. I scroll past the usual snow shots, muttering commentary into the recorder. “Ice floe angle six, gorgeous. Wind shear on ridge five, dramatic. Gordon can shove it.”
Then the screen freezes. I blink.
There it is. Frame by frame, blurred and shaky, but unmistakable. The outline of a figure half-hidden in mist, massive shoulders hunched. The camera wobbles, and for the briefest instant, it catches both man and bear. Not side by side. Not one after the other. The same. Intertwined. A body too large to be human, but standing upright. A muzzle caught mid-shift. Eyes that glow faintly against the white.
My mouth goes dry. My heart pounds.
I rewind. Play it again. Freeze the frame. Enhance the contrast until the pixels smear, but the shape remains.
“That’s…” I whisper, and can’t finish the sentence. My brain refuses to form the words, because there are no words that make sense.
I sit back hard, chair creaking, breath fogging the screen. Every rational part of me screams that it’s a glitch, a blur, maybe an overlap of light and shadow. But my gut says otherwise. My gut says I just caught something I shouldn’t have seen, something no one will believe without proof.
Gordon’s voice echoes in my head, smug and demanding.A story. Something marketable. Drama.
I should delete it. Erase the evidence before it crawls into my bones and takes root.
But my hand doesn’t move.
Instead, I save the file to three different folders, tuck a copy onto a hidden drive, and stare at the frozen image until my eyes burn.
“Whatever you are,” I whisper to the screen, voice trembling but steady at once, “I’m not deleting you. Not yet.”
The lamp sputters, the wind howls, and the Arctic silence presses in, thicker than ever.
3
CASSIAN
The wind shifts and I catch it. A sharp note of oil and sweat cuts through the clean breath of the sea, a sour stink that does not belong here. My teeth clench as I draw it deeper, letting it sink into me. Poachers. No mistake. They try to cover their stink with fur and smoke, but my nose knows the truth. They do not belong to this land, and the bear inside me growls for blood at the intrusion.
I leave the nets behind and move silent across the snow, boots sinking deep but soundless to anyone who isn’t listening the way I do. The air burns my lungs, the stars spread endless above, and every step is a rhythm I have walked for years. Exile teaches you patience. Exile teaches you silence. Exile teaches you that some trespasses must be left alone, but this smell will not let me rest.
The tracks are fresh. Broad boots, deep set, too heavy to be fishermen. They drag a sled, I can tell by the grooves, and something drips faintly along the ice. Seal blood, maybe, or worse. My hands curl tight at my sides as I follow, breath coming slow and even. I do not run. Running is for men who fear they will lose the trail. I never lose a trail.
The bear stirs restless, pressing against me. Not yet, I tell him. Not unless they force it.
The tracks veer toward the floes where the ice grows thin. Foolish place to hunt. The water moves under there, restless and hungry, and I’ve seen too many men vanish in a heartbeat because they thought they knew better. My jaw tightens as I push forward.
Then I see her.
At first, I think the poachers have left bait, because what else could explain a woman crouched close to a break in the ice, leaning too far, her curls bouncing as she mutters to herself like the wind is listening. She has a camera in her hands, its lens glinting in the moonlight, and she’s so intent on her shot she doesn’t notice the crack forming under her knees.
My heart lurches, a sudden jolt that makes the bear snarl. She’s no poacher. She’s too clean, too alive, her scent bright with fear and stubbornness and something warm underneath. She doesn’t belong here either, but not in the same way as those other men.
The ice gives a long groan. She gasps, scrambles back, but her boot slips and the edge crumbles beneath her. One second she’s there, the next she’s plunging forward into the black water.
I’m moving before I think. My body knows what to do, even if my mind protests. The bear roars for me to shift, to tear through this thin human skin and dive, but I grit my teeth and stay man-shaped as I drop flat and thrust my arm down into the hole.
The water swallows her fast. She thrashes, bubbles foaming as she fights, curls plastered to her face. My hand closes around her jacket, fist tightening in the thick fabric, and I haul back with everything in me. The ice cracks further, biting into my chest as I strain, but she comes up, coughing and gasping, eyes wide with panic.
I drag her free in one heave, lifting her like she weighs nothing, and lay her hard on the ice. She sputters, coughing, rolling to her side. Her breath comes ragged, her hands clawing at the ice as though it might open again and swallow her whole.
I kneel beside her, silent, watching her chest rise and fall. Her eyes squeeze shut, then open, shining even in the dim light, and she laughs.
