It's an unfortunate gift, the ability to cast judgment not from assumption, but from memory.Their memory.
I relive every wound he inflicted. Every scream he silenced. Every terrified last breath. I feel it all, and that piece of me dies over and over again.
It's how I know who deserves to leave and who doesn't.
Hedoesn't.
I followhim through the trees, silent despite my size. The smaller of my two forms moves with surprising grace. Snow doesn't crunch beneath my hooves, and branches don't snap against my antlers. I am a ghost between the trees, and he is none the wiser as I trail behind him deeper into my domain.
After twenty minutes, he slows and stops in a clearing. The moon is full tonight, swollen and silver, casting its glow across the darkness like spilled starlight. It should feel peaceful here. The kind of winter stillness that makes humans stop and stare in wonder.
It doesn't.
He sits on a fallen log and pulls something from inside his coat with careful, reverent hands. A box, small and wooden, polished so it gleams in the moonlight with a dull luster.
I move closer, watching as he cradles it like something precious. He’s completely entranced, blissfully unaware that I’m watching from the shadows.
He opens the lid, and the scent slams into me.
Chills rake along my skin. The fur along my spine stiffens. Every nerve inside me recoils in revulsion as the scents wash over me: blood, perfume, sweat, metal.
Overwhelming and sickeningly familiar.
Trophies.
He brought his trophies out here—like gods to worship.
Neatly arranged inside are pieces of people he’s taken: hair, jewelry, bits of torn lace, a tooth gleaming white against the satin burgundy liner of the box.
There are so many—too many.I don’t know why he brought them here—whether to bury them or remember them—but it doesn’t matter.
I know what he is.
He shifts on the log,thumbing through the contents with sick admiration.
I press one clawed hand against cool bark and let the words flow through me, threading them through the forest like wind. They curl low in the snowbanks before slithering into his ears:
“What wears the face of a father, but carves its name in children's screams?
What gift is buried under snow, and stains the world in silent red?
Thrak’ven ves thelûn kaelrin veskae, kaelrin veskae.(Sacred blood remembers, and the gods are watching.)
Tell me, wanderer—what are you, when no one's watching?”
He rears back, his head jerking from side to side while he frantically searches for the source of the voice.
The wind howls once, a breathless sound that doesn't belong to any beast—or man.He calls out into the darkness, but the woods swallow his voice before it can go anywhere. I wait, and I watch.
“Answer wrong,” I murmur, so low even the moon might miss it, “and the woods will answer for you.”
He bolts.
They always do.
He clutches the box to his chest, as if the twisted keepsakes might somehow keep him safe, as he stumbles through the snow with growing panic.
The trees don't move, but they feel narrower now, closing in around him. The wind follows him, whispering accusations insistently. His boots crunch over the snow like brittle bones as he picks up speed. Fear radiates from him in waves, wafting through the air like smoke.
