Was it her? Was she coming, hunting?
But no viper lashed from the shadows. Only a doe.
It stumbled from cover, each step halting, cautious, blood’s stench unraveling in the air.
It was wounded, badly, still oblivious to the dragon blended into the dim. The doe edged farther into the clearing and with every shift, the wounds became clearer. Slashes carved deep, hide torn, flesh struggling to hold.
He inhaled, eyes tapering, letting out a deep, throaty rumble.
The doe froze, eyes wide in beads of onyx as its stare met his.
It tried to retreat, staggering back, but its mangled leg betrayed it, buckling almost instantly, body crumpling to the ground.
He lifted his head high, tilting it, smoke curling up and around until scales melted to skin. Iridescent black dissolved into tanned, muscled flesh.
The leather sails along his spine vanished, now inked across his shoulder blades and down the carved lines of his back. Obsidian curls draped thick and low across his forehead.
The dragon was gone. Only the man remained.
Except for his eyes. Those same jade flames stayed, fixed on the doe as it lay unmoving in the dirt, breath slowing, chest stuttering.
The stench enhanced, until it coated more than his tongue, leeching down his throat.
Steel hissed from its sheath as he knelt beside the animal, its blood slicking the ground, oozing dark.
Not red, but black. Oily.
His jaw tightened, one hand steady on the hilt. Without hesitation, he drove the blade through its heart. The doe shuddered, a soft breath spilling in relief.
He pulled the blade free, wiping its serrated edge along the clean fur until the steel gleamed again. Bending lower he studied how the wounds were wrong, too rugged and messy. Even the jagged teeth of his dagger had cut a cleaner line.
He dragged a hand over one of the slashes, fingers dipping into the grooves, tracing the ridges until they aligned almost perfectly with his touch.
It hadn’t been steel. Not even carved bone. No predator had done this.
Claws would have cut smoother, deeper, would have known where to pierce to end the suffering quickly.
He ripped his hand back, smearing the blood and clotted flesh across his pants in one motion. But the impressions remained, clear as scripture.
A Fae had done this.
Ripped and mangled, trying to peel the flesh from bone. And they had almost succeeded.
Ronan’s pulse slowed, calming even as his thoughts refined, dark as the blood still seeping into the dirt.
The Bale was already draining Selvarra of its roots, its marrow. Every kingdom felt the choke of it. But this... this savagery was different. A more sinister force pressing overhead.
A haunting power.
The forest exhaled, all too quiet now.
He rose from his crouch, blade still wet in his hand as he turned the steel once, twice, letting moonlight catch on its teeth. His eyes lifted, scanning.
No wind stirred. No insect dared chirp. The night hushed itself into a taut silence, a bowstring drawn too tight.
He felt it then, the pressure, the weight of eyes he could not see; a gaze dragging across his scales beneath his skin.
Every instinct honed, his hand flexing around the hilt, smoke threaded at his fingertips, ready to burn the world down if it moved.
