Not out. In. Something had forced its way into the castle, not escaped from it.
“Sir?” One of my men had noticed my hesitation. “Should we wait for more guards?”
“No.” I squared my shoulders, drawing my sword. The blade was fine steel, the best money could buy, but it felt inadequate here. Like bringing a kitchen knife to face a dragon. Still, I stepped forward. “Follow me. And keep your weapons ready.”
The entrance hall swallowed us, darkness closing around our small party like a fist. The men lit torches, flames casting long shadows across stone walls where faded tapestries hung in tatters. I’d been here before, when I’d tracked Isabeau the first time, but the castle felt different now. Less abandoned, more...aware. As if it knew we were intruders.
“This way,” I said, leading them toward the grand staircase. Memory guided my steps through the vast hall, past furniture draped in sheets that had once been white but now bore the yellow stains of age.
Up those stairs lay the room where I’d found her before, curled on a bed like a princess waiting for her prince. Except she wasn’ta princess, and I wasn’t her prince. I was her master, her owner, and she’d forgotten that when she ran.
I would remind her. With pain if necessary.
“Keep close,” I ordered as we ascended. The stairs creaked beneath our weight, wood and stone protesting our presence. “She was here recently. I can feel it.”
I could, too. It wasn’t just hunter’s instinct or familiarity with the quarry. Something deeper pulled at me, something connected to the time I’d spent with the Dark Lord’s witch. A tether that bound me to Isabeau whether she knew it or not, whether she wanted it or not. She could run to the ends of the earth, and I would still feel the invisible cord linking us together.
“Fan out,” I commanded when we reached the landing. “Two in each direction. You,” I pointed to the burliest of my hunters, “with me.”
The corridor stretched before us, doors lining both sides like mouths waiting to devour the unwary. Most hung partially open, revealing chambers long abandoned. But I wasn’t interested in those. I knew exactly which door I sought. Third on the left, its wood darker than the others, its hinges slightly less corroded.
Her door.
I pushed it open without hesitation, the smell hitting me immediately. Isabeau. Her scent lingered here, mixed with something else. Something male. Rage boiled up inside me, hot and sharp as a blade between the ribs. She’d been here with him. With Alain. They’d shared this space, this room, perhaps even that bed with its rumpled covers still holding the impression of two bodies.
“Sir?” The hunter beside me shifted uncomfortably. “The fireplace.”
I tore my gaze from the bed, following his pointing finger to the hearth. Embers still glowed there, faint red eyes in a nest of ash. Not dead. Not cold. Hours old at most.
“We just missed them,” I said, moving to touch the stones surrounding the dying fire. Still warm. “They left this morning.”
The hunter nodded, then froze as his eyes locked on something behind me. I turned slowly, following his gaze to the window, where a dark shape perched on the sill outside. A raven, its feathers glossy black in the dim light, watching us with eyes too intelligent for any normal bird.
“Kill it,” I ordered, but before the hunter could move, the raven launched itself away from the window, its harsh cry echoing as it disappeared into the forest beyond.
A messenger. A spy. I’d seen it before, in Thorndale, visiting Isabeau’s window the morning I returned. It guided her through the forest after the river. A detail I’d ever forget.
The witch’s familiar, perhaps, or something else. Whatever it was, it knew we were here now. She would know we were coming.
Good. Let her run. The hunt was always more satisfying when the prey knew it was being pursued.
“We should return to the king,” the hunter suggested, clearly uncomfortable with the oppressive atmosphere of the room. “Tell him what we’ve found.”
Before I could respond, a sound cut through the silence. A long, mournful howl that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It hung in the air like smoke, setting my teeth on edge and raising the hair on the back of my neck. Then another joined it. And another. Until a chorus of howls filled the castle, echoing off stone walls and reverberating through our bones.
“Wolves,” the hunter whispered, his face draining of color. “Inside the castle.”
“Impossible,” I said, but I was already drawing my sword again. The howls didn’t sound like any wolf I’d ever hunted. Toodeep, too resonant, as if they came from creatures larger than any natural wolf could grow.
A scream tore through the howls. Human, male, cut off abruptly. Then another, followed by shouts and the clash of steel on something solid.
“Move!” I shoved past the hunter, racing back toward the staircase. The corridor had transformed in our brief absence, shadows pooling in corners where no shadows should be, shifting and writhing as if alive. The chill air carried the stench of wet fur and something fouler, something rotting.
We reached the landing in time to see chaos erupting below. Dark shapes moved through the entrance hall with unnatural speed, massive bodies flowing like liquid shadow. Wolves, but not wolves. Their eyes glowed red and yellow in the torchlight, their fur rippling with darkness that seemed to eat the light around them. They moved with terrible purpose, cutting off escape routes, herding the scattered hunters toward the center of the hall.
One of my men lay on the ground, his throat torn out, blood pooling beneath him in a spreading circle. Another backed against a pillar, swinging his sword in wild arcs as three of the shadow-wolves closed in. His screams turned gurgling as they tore into him, ripping flesh from bone with savage efficiency.
“Back up the stairs!” I ordered, grabbing the hunter beside me by his collar and hauling him backwards. “We need higher ground!”
