Chapter 46: The Edge of Flame

Through the early mist and bars of thread-light that fell between rotting trees, the mountain pass moved ahead. It was quiet here, not peaceful though. The silence had been the sort that fell before something began — or returned.

They had marched for hours, boots crunching on dirt and frost, a golden scent of pine and ash in the air. They climbed, down their bent, back toward land that turned in crooked slope, the trees thinning, the shadow splaying out more freely.

Serena walked beside Lucian. Neither of them had said all that much since they got the two of them out of those ruins, but their silence wasn’t one of like uncomfortable silences. It had weight. A build of tension, slow like a bow drawn, not released. He remained almost side by side with her, close enough to brush her arm a time or two. Each time, she had felt it — something charged. Not the wolf, not fear, but a pull. Like something in her knew something about him.

“Your shoulder okay?” he said at one point, pointing to the spot on her tunic that remained dark with dried blood.

“It hurts,” she said, “but I’m going to survive.”

Lucian gave a quiet laugh. “You’ve gotten tougher.”

“You say that as if I wasn’t tough before."

“Oh, you must have done,” he responded, turning toward her. “But now you know it.”

Heat crept to Serena’s cheeks, and she didn’t say a word. Serena pushed a branch aside and ducked under a fallen log, with Lucian just behind her.

A few paces ahead, Kaelen used his fist to signal down. They took cover near the rocks and stared at the ridgeline.

“There’s something up ahead,” Kaelen whispered. “Movement. Just beyond the bend.”

Lucian leaned forward. “Ruin?”

Kaelen shook his head. “Too smooth. Too fast.”

Serena’s breath caught. She did not know why, now, but something inside her stirred — the wolf, alert and coiled. Then they heard it. A whistle. Not birdsong. Not wind. A song of the sword, twirling on the breeze.

And then the voice, dry and entertained. “Didn’t expect to see you lot still alive.”

Serena stood up too fast. There was one hard smack to her chest.

A figure stepped out from among the trees. With her hood up, two long blades crisscrossing her back, and a silver clasp at her collar shaped like a falling star.

The Huntress.

“ Huntress." Lucian breathed.

Serena didn’t know if she felt shocked or relieved.

The huntress looked as she had always looked — tall, lean, deadly. Her eyes were sharp as ever. Her breastplate had been scratched, her cloak tattered on one side, but she walked like someone who hadn’t stopped running.

“I thought you were dead,” Kaelen says.

“You are still overthinking that,” she said, emerging into the open. “It’s insulting, really.”

Lucian walked toward Serena. There was history — that was clear between them — but not romantic, more the weight of interwound wood, intertwined limbs — like too-close trees. They clasped one another’s arms for a moment, warriors’ greeting.

“What are you doing here?” Lucian asked.

Huntress ’s smile faded. “Same thing as always. Hunting what hunts us.” She turned to Serena then. “You’re her, aren’t you? The wolf-girl.”

Serena stiffened. “I don’t like that name.”

Huntress  raised a brow. “Good. Means you’ve got teeth.”

She passed them, her eyes scanning the terrain. “We’ve got bigger problems. I saw strange shadow creatures up near the mountain peak. Something big. And it wasn’t alone."

Kaelen’s face darkened. “Another troop?”

Huntress  nodded. “A big one. Moving fast. Toward the pass.”

Elias stepped forward, wordless and somber. “And that’s when they’re not hunting at random anymore. They’re chasing something.”

When Huntress  squinted for Serena, her slit-her for a moment. “They’re chasing her.”

Serena turned her face, jaw taut. She already knew. But to hear someone say it like that hurt.

Lucian stepped in then. “We’re near to the High Path. If we can make the pass, we’ll be at the Sanctuary rims by nightfall.”

“They will chase you through the cliffs,” Huntress  said. “If they’re truly after her.”

“We’ll take care of them,” Serena said softly. “If I have to be the one to draw them out, I will.”

Lucian looked at her sharply. “We do this together.”

Huntress ’s eyes flitted between the two, amused again. “When did this happen?” she muttered.

Serena frowned. “When did what happen?”

“That look,” Huntress  urged, moving forward. “The way he watches you. That you’re the only thing in the room that matters.”

Lucian gave an audible sigh. “Huntress —”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Huntress  said, throwing up her hands. “Just... unexpected.”

Serena didn’t respond. But when she sensed Lucian glancing at her from the side, that heat flooded her again — not from the wolf this time, but something entirely of her own.

As they climbed higher, the pathway shrank. The wind spoke, cold and sharp. Serena wrapped her cloak around her. Lucian stepped forward, wordless, and when their arms met, she didn’t recoil.

They reached a notch in the trail where an overhanging rock sheltered them. Huntress  signaled for a break.

Serena side-saddled up into the space beside Lucian, their shoulders almost touching.

“Say something real,” she said in one breath.

Lucian blinked. “Like what?”

“Something about you. Not swords. Not war.”

He thought for a moment. Then: “I used to sing.”

Serena turned, surprised. “What?”

“Badly,” he admitted. “But my sister made me. That my voice wasn’t worth much more.”

Serena laughed. “I don’t believe that.”

“Don’t. It was awful.”

“You are going to have to show it one day.”

“Only if we survive.”

Their eyes met, and neither averted their gaze. Something shifted in the air — still slight but irrepressible.

Serena’s smile faded. “I don’t know what is happening with me.”

Lucian’s voice was low. “You’re becoming.”

She didn’t say anything more for a while, and when she sat up, she seemed less cold.

That night they camped at the edge of the cliff. The stars overhead were dim, half hidden in column clouds of perpendicular drift wood. Huntress  stood watch. The rest slumbered in fragments, robed in cloaks, facing stone and wind.

Serena couldn’t sleep.

She was at the brink of the pass, peering down. The dark stretch below writhed like a serpent at rest, frozen but expectant.

Lucian came closer, his footsteps soundless.

“You always go looking for the coldest place,” he said.

She smiled faintly. “It’s quiet here.”

He stepped beside her. They didn’t speak for a long time. Just stood.

And then Serena leaned in and said, “If I lose control… stop me.”

Lucian looked at her. “I won’t.”

“What?”

“I won’t stop you. I’ll remind you who you are. But I won’t stop you.”

She stared at him. The wind blew her hair across her face, but she left it there.

“You scare me,” she said. “Because you kind of make me feel a bit safer when you’re here. And I don’t know what that means.”

Lucian touched her face, brushing the stray hair behind her ear carefully.

“It means we’re human. Still.”

And for one moment, there was no war. No monsters. Just two people in the dark, sharing that sort of intimacy where words weren’t needed.

Then came the howl.

Low. Far away. But rising.

In an instant, Huntress  was flickering back to life. “They’ve found us.”

Lucian drew his sword. Serena whirled, one hand on her dagger, the other on her heart. Within her, the Onyx wolf stirred and slithered low.

Huntress  spun toward them. “We move. Now.”

The love between Serena and Lucian vanished with a puff of smoke in the air.

But it wasn’t gone.

It was waiting.

Like the storm that was now following them.