Chapter 4

3 hours ago...

The smell of blood disgusts me.

It paints the forest a gory wet, limbs and innards scattered in the fifty meter radius. I flick the broad sword in my hand, attempting to clean it of the blood that clings to it.

If another were to hear me voice that thought, they would curl their lips in disdain, find me pathetic to even think such a thing. If my father ever heard it, he would likely backhand me across the face.

We are the glorious hunters of the night, blood our pride and death our legacy.

But my father is long gone, and so is anyone I might engage in conversation with.

I wait, almost hopefully, that another beast might appear. A whole pack of them. So ferocious and blood-thirsty that they would make breath scrape down my windpipe, my muscles ache with fatigue, my senses sharp with the heat of battle. I wish to have wounds that bleed long, that burn and blister. For something to tear me apart and put an end to this.

But the forest remains quiet. Cold wind howls through the trees, reminding me that there is nothing around, of the endless chasm that stretches out before me.

I place my sword back in its scabbard and turn back to the well-trodden path that leads to the manor. The earth turns to cobblestone, and I find myself turning to my side, where a part of the forest is cleared out.

Tombstones stand there, more than forty. A personal graveyard for the once revered warrior dynasty of Greten. I used to think visiting was hard in the start, when others were standing next to me, shedding silent tears for the martyrs.

Then I was the only one standing.

In the first year, I used to offer prayers once a month. Once three months the next. By the third year, I barely managed to go once.

Now I tear my eyes away from the graveyard and march ahead.

The sun will rise without regard for the fallen ones.

I will keep on breathing.

And the sixth year of being the last Sigmond will start.

…

Present...

There’s someone else in the Manor.

I walk along the spotless hallways. Lamps light up on their own, throwing flickering light on each tapestry that hangs along these walls, each piece of art my parents decorated SeraphFall with. I cannot imagine what they would think if they knew who’s in here right now.

A human.

This one strange fact clings to my mind.

The thought is absurd. Humans are the lithe, witty creatures of fantasy. The tales of their compassion, adventures and greed the bedtime stories for many children.

The stories I personally heard as a child were fascinating, but for entirely different reasons.

A witch or wizard that hasn’t bonded with a demon yet can be considered human. A vessel waiting for its fill of cursed magic.

I hear cautious footsteps even from the other side of the quiet Manor, and I’m once more dumbfounded by the knowledge that a human, one whose blood does not reek of magic, has somehow been granted permission to enter.

She should not have been able to read the inscription on the gates.

Even I cannot read it, and this manor has been my home since I was twelve.

The front doors come in view, left slightly ajar earlier, and a curl of cold wind slips inside. The drake is where it was left, but the gates have closed on their own, bolted.

I reach out a hand through the bars to pull my broad sword from the creature’s head. One of its eyes is smashed, and I wonder if the girl had somehow managed that.

If she had, I’m impressed. She really is a third of its size.

It makes me wonder if she has some sort of training in combat. It would make sense, given that for someone who might not have seen a drake ever before, she retained her composure well.

And she said she came from a well.

That’s the part that bothers me the most.

With a sigh, I set the dirty blade against the inner wall and touch a hand to the gates.

They swing open, and I pass through. A faint clang echoes, letting me know they’ve closed and already bolted.

My footsteps are silent on the earth, cold air creating small clouds of fog in front of me. I do not sense any predators in the vicinity, but even if they were around, hardly any would approach.

Hunters can recognize other hunters well.

A mile and some distance from SeraphFall, I find it. Almost hidden in the canopy of trees, an old well. The stone walls around it are almost covered in moss, and it comes off as I swipe a hand through.

Deep inscriptions come in view, and I can read none of what’s written. I remember my mother carving these. Purifying runes, to dispel the cursed energy of the ashes that were scattered into the well.

The barely detectable scent still hangs in the air, and I survey the surroundings for any foreign object that might be this ‘phone’.

I come up short.

Tiredness that is not physical, but just as present makes me lean my hands over the stone wall, and peer into the abyss of the well.

Just a few hours earlier, after wiping off a hoard of drakes, I was standing right here.

“How long must I be damned to this solitary existence? When will I be freed of this fate?”

Now I press my eyes close against the earlier words. They were spoken in a moment of weakness, to vent out my frustrations to an abyss that mirror the one I feel. I’ve said similar words before, bleeding and bruised, standing over these murky waters.

But never before had anyone stumbled on my door.

I give my head a shake.

It must be a coincidence. It has to be.

I return to the Manor, picking up my broad sword and making my way to the armory. I’ll have to clean it thoroughly. It’d been left too long in the drake’s carcass.

The faint scent of vanilla wafts over to me, and I know the human has decided to stay the night.

I wonder if she knows venturing out in daylight might be just as dangerous. I can only accompany her so far. If not for her strange manner of dressing or small stature, hair that barely brushes the shoulders and eyes as dark as the night sky would give her away.

No Lycan could ever look like that.

Distantly, it occurs to me that I did not introduce myself to the girl. She did not offer me her name either.

It matters little anyway.

She’d be gone soon.