Chapter Nine - Choosing

(Adelaide)

The sound rolled through the forest like thunder dragged across stone. Low. Rumbling. Older than memory. It crawled along the bark of the trees and down into the roots, a sound the land itself seemed to remember, answering with a faint, shuddering ache.

Adelaide’s heart slammed once against her ribs so hard she thought it might bruise. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs for half a second, the world narrowing to that single punishing thud. The girls around her clutched each other, white knuckles clutching white dresses, eyes stretched wide in silent horror.

Another growl followed—closer this time, deep enough to vibrate the earth beneath her bare feet. Pebbles quivered, loose dirt shivered around her toes, and the fine hairs along her calves lifted as if the sound itself had fingers.

The villagers whimpered behind the boundary. A few recoiled, stepping backward until lanterns shook in their trembling hands. Even the Elders stared at the trees with fear sharpened in their eyes. Charms were gripped harder, murmured prayers sped up, and somewhere a child was yanked behind a parent’s cloak, small fingers clutching wool in a death grip.

Adelaide forced herself not to retreat, not to hunch, not to step back even a fraction.

If she gave an inch, she’d break. If she folded now, she knew she would never unfold again.

She breathed in, shallow and harsh. The air scraped through her chest like she was inhaling ground glass and smoke.

This is it.

Leaves shivered violently. Branches snapped—loud, cracking like bones. The sound ricocheted off the trunks, echoing on and on as if the forest was laughing with its own splintering.

Then something moved in the darkness. Something enormous. The treetops bowed. The pines swayed. Shadows folded inward as if the forest itself were bending to make space. The black between the trunks thickened, drawing together into a single, heaving mass like ink pulled by an unseen hand.

A massive shape tore through the underbrush, blotting out the torchlight with sheer, impossible size. The girls screamed and stumbled backward, some dropping to their knees. One fainted with a hollow thud. Dresses flashed white in the corner of Adelaide’s vision, a flurry of panicked motion, but her feet rooted themselves deeper into the cold soil.

Adelaide’s legs locked. Her throat tightened. Her pulse roared. Sound narrowed to that pounding—loud, insistent—so strong it felt like it might punch straight through her skin.

It’s not human.

Of course it wasn’t human. The stories said he took many forms—but no story had ever prepared her for the truth. The old carvings in the chapel glass, the chalk drawings scratched by children, the whispered warnings over winter fires—they all looked small and harmless now, like toys compared to the living nightmare stepping into the light.

He stepped into the torchlight.

And hell followed with him. The flames nearest him guttered low, then flared as if dragged higher by his presence, throwing jagged shadows that made him look even larger, even more wrong against the world.

He stood taller than any living creature Adelaide had ever seen—easily twice the height of the largest grizzly that sometimes wandered near the mountains. Thick fur covered his body, black and silver, coarse and wild, rippling as he moved. Each shift of muscle under that pelt was a landslide, a rolling threat of power contained only by skin.

His hands were monstrous—long, muscled limbs ending in terrifying black claws curved like scythes. Claws capable of gutting a horse. Tearing down trees. Ripping through bone. The tips of those claws gleamed wet and dark, as if they’d already tasted a thousand hunts and remembered every single one.

His chest heaved, thick with sinew and dark fur. Every inhale rattled through the clearing like a growl dragged through gravel. Frost steamed faintly where his breath hit the frozen air, curling around him like a ghostly cloak before dissipating.

His face—gods, his face—It was leathery, almost reptilian, but still disturbingly animal. A long snout curled into a perpetual snarl, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth the size of daggers. Saliva dripped from his fangs, sizzling as it hit the cold ground. The smell of it—hot, metallic, wrong—hit the back of her throat and made her stomach heave.

Two massive horns protruded from his skull, black as obsidian, spiralling upward like twisted, demonic antlers. Their tips glowed faintly—red-hot, as if they were forged from molten iron. They hummed with a low, almost inaudible vibration, like blades fresh from the forge, hungry for flesh.

His eyes burned. Not gold. Not amber. But a violent, hungry fire. They were pits of molten metal, bright enough that for one dizzying second, she thought she saw shapes moving in them—cities collapsing, forests blazing, stars winking out.

He stepped forward, and the earth trembled. The shock travelled up through her bones; even her teeth buzzed with it, a rattling announcement that the stories had all been too small.

Adelaide’s knees nearly buckled. But she refused to fall. She locked every muscle she had, until her thighs shook with the effort, until pain burned hot down her calves.

Terror clawed at her throat, crushing, suffocating, cold as ice and hot as blazing coals. Every instinct screamed at her to run now—to sprint into the forest and never look back.

But she tasted rage behind the fear. Rage at her village. Rage at the Elders. Rage at the gods who allowed this. Rage at him most of all—for existing, for coming here, for making her sister cry, for forcing her life into a nightmare she never chose. The fury was a coal in her chest that refused to go out, even under the flood of terror. It glowed, steady and stubborn, giving her something solid to cling to.

Her nails dug into her palms until she felt blood. I will not die on my knees. I will not be his prey. I will not scream for him. The silent vow rang louder in her head than the horn ever could, each word a spike driven into the ground beneath her feet.

Her head buzzed with frantic planning. Weapons. I need weapons.

The forest was full of them. Branches sharpened into stakes. Rocks big enough to bash a skull. Vines braided into traps. A pointed bone. A jagged root. A cliff edge. Roots to trip him. Ravines to lure him toward. Streams to mask her scent. She mapped them in her mind as if she could already see the paths beneath the black canopy.

Maybe if she climbed a tree, found leverage, and threw something down at him. Or if she could get high enough and jump onto him. Or—

The thought was insane. The monster before her was a towering wall of muscle, fur, teeth, and rage. But she clung to her stubborn fury because the alternative was giving in to terror.

And terror was death. She’d watched it before in smaller ways—the way fear had hollowed out her neighbours’ faces over the last year as the decade-end drew close, how it had turned strong hands weak and clear eyes glassy. She would not let it hollow her.

The beast prowled closer. Each step made the ground shudder. The sound of his weight on the earth was a slow, heavy rhythm, like a war drum echoing through the clearing.

Girls crawled backward or collapsed. One begged for mercy. Another whispered a desperate prayer, breath hitching with every word.

But the Devil didn’t look at them.

He looked over them. Scanning. Measuring. Choosing. His attention skimmed across their bowed heads like a blade gliding over water—no purchase, no interest, nothing to catch on.

His breath came out in hot, ragged puffs of smoke, each exhale swirling white in the winter air. His claws scraped furrows into the earth, tearing through frozen soil like butter. The grooves he left behind filled with powdered frost and loose dirt, sixteen dark scars carved into the Offering ground.

When he reached the line of girls, the first few screamed and scrambled away. The beast snorted, lowering his massive head to inspect them—then moved on.

He didn’t want them.

Adelaide felt it before she understood it. She had felt it the moment the forest went silent. The moment the world held its breath.

Something electric in the air. Something pulling toward her. Her pulse hammered. The mark of red thread around her wrist prickled, an almost imperceptible warmth, as if the colour itself had caught his eye before his gaze even lifted.

No.

No, no, no—he’s not allowed. He does not get to choose me. I chose. I stepped forward. I took her place. That was my decision. You do not get to claim what I’ve already claimed.

But he was already choosing.