Chapter 4

Sable's POV

The breathing got heavier, and then something big shoved through the brush to my left.

I stumbled back before I even saw it clearly. Matted fur, ribs showing through its sides, eyes catching what little moonlight made it through the trees. A rogue. Not pack, not tame, nothing about it looked like it answered to anyone.

It snarled, low and wet, and took a step toward me.

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to run, but my legs wouldn't listen fast enough, frozen the same way they'd been frozen back on that platform hours earlier.

"Easy," I said, not sure why I bothered talking to it. "I'm not looking for trouble."

It lunged anyway.

I threw myself sideways and hit the ground hard, dirt scraping across my palms, the same hand still raw from the bowl earlier that night. The rogue's jaws snapped shut where my leg had been half a second before. I scrambled backward, found a root with my foot, and went down again.

It came at me a second time, and I already knew I wasn't fast enough to dodge it twice. I threw my arms up anyway, some useless instinct telling me that might actually stop teeth from closing around my throat.

An arrow hissed past my ear and buried itself in the rogue's shoulder.

The wolf let out a sound somewhere between a yelp and a roar, twisting to snap at the wound, and a second arrow caught it in the flank before it could turn back on me. It staggered, snarling, blood soaking dark into its fur, and still it kept coming, dragging itself forward on legs that should have already given out.

A figure dropped out of the trees above it, landing in a crouch with a hunting knife already in hand. She moved fast, faster than I could track properly, and drove the blade up under the rogue's jaw before it knew she was even there. The wolf convulsed once, let out a strangled sound, and went down. The whole thing happened in less time than it took me to catch my breath.

The woman yanked her knife free, wiped it on her sleeve, and looked down at the body without much reaction at all, like this was a Tuesday for her.

"You just gonna lie there?" she asked, glancing at me.

"I.." I pushed myself up, hands shaking. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. Where you're standing, that's usually not a lone rogue." She scanned the tree line, bow already back over her shoulder, knife still loose in her grip. "You hurt?"

"No. I don't think so."

"Good. Means you can run if you need to." She finally looked at me properly, and her eyes caught on my collarbone before I even remembered the mark was still there, still raw. Her whole face changed. "Where'd you get that?"

I covered it with my hand. "Tonight. The Ceremony."

"That's not a rejection mark." She said it slowly, like she needed to hear herself say it to believe it. "That's the Word. Somebody used the words on you."

"You know what that is?"

"Everybody in the Hollow knows what that is." She crouched down and checked the dead rogue's fur, pulling something small off its collar, a scrap of leather with a symbol burned into it. Her jaw tightened. "This one's not wandering. It's marked. Somebody sent it."

"Send it for what?"

"That's the question, isn't it." She stood, tucking the scrap into her pocket, and finally offered me a hand up. Her grip was rough, calloused in a way that told me she used that bow more than she used her words. "Name's Ivy. And you're about to have a real bad night if we don't get moving."

I took her hand and let her pull me up, legs still unsteady under me. "Moving where?"

"Somewhere that isn't out here in the open with whatever sent that thing still hunting." She was already walking, not waiting to see if I followed. "You got a name, or should I just keep calling you 'the girl who almost got her throat torn out'?"

"Sable."

"Sable." She said it like she was testing the weight of it. "Alright, Sable. Keep up, don't talk loud, and if I say run, you run. Don't ask questions first."

I fell into step behind her, chest still aching where the mark sat under my collar, legs still shaking from the rogue's jaws snapping shut inches from my skin. "Who sent it, Ivy? You said it was marked."

"Not the conversation to have out here." She glanced back at me, and for just a second, something almost like sympathy crossed her face before it hardened again. "Whoever it was, they knew exactly where to find you tonight. That's not luck. That's a hunt."

I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how thin my dress was against the cold, how loud every twig underfoot sounded now that I was actually listening for danger instead of ignoring it.

Somewhere behind us, deep in the trees, another howl went up.

Then another answered it, closer.

Ivy stopped walking. Her whole body went still, head tilted like she was counting the distance between us and whatever was out there.

"That's not one rogue anymore," she said quietly. "Run."