The woods swallowed the noise of the village faster than I expected.
One moment there were voices, movement, life—
the next, just trees.
Tall. Close.
Watching.
The path into the north woods wasn't much of a path at all. Just worn ground where hunters had passed often enough to leave a mark.
"Tracks are fresh," Torvin said, crouching low, fingers brushing the dirt.
"They came through here," he added.
"Keep moving," Malek said.
The deeper we went, the quieter it became.
No birds.
No insects.
Just the sound of our own movement—boots against soil, branches shifting, breath.
It wasn't the kind of quiet you notice at first.
It crept in.
Slowly.
Until you realized something was missing.
"You hear that?" I said.
Torvin glanced up. "Hear what?"
I hesitated.
"Nothing."
Malek didn't turn. "Then keep moving."
We found signs of them soon after.
Broken branches.
Disturbed earth.
Tracks that didn't quite follow a straight line anymore.
"They split here," Torvin said.
"Why?" Freya asked.
Torvin didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
We saw it before we heard it.
A deer.
Standing just beyond the trees.
Still.
Too still.
Its body faced away from us—but its head…
turned slightly.
Watching.
"Easy," Malek said quietly, though none of us had moved.
The deer didn't run.
Didn't twitch.
Didn't even blink.
It just stood there.
"That's not right," Torvin muttered.
I took a step forward.
The deer's head shifted—slow, unnatural—until one eye came into view.
Clouded.
Not blind.
Just… wrong.
Its jaw hung slightly open.
Not breathing heavy.
Not reacting.
Just… open.
Something cold settled in my chest.
"Malek," I said quietly.
He didn't answer.
Malek stepped forward.
Of course he did.
"It's injured," he said.
"No," I said.
He kept moving anyway.
The deer's head snapped toward him.
Not fast—
just wrong.
Like something had pulled it into place instead of muscle.
Then it moved.
Not fleeing.
It staggered forward.
One step.
Then another.
Its legs didn't quite follow right.
But it kept coming.
"Back," Freya said.
Malek stopped this time.
The deer paused a few paces away.
Then—
it turned.
And walked into the trees.
Not fast.
Not afraid.
Just… gone.
No one spoke for a moment.
"I've never seen one act like that," Torvin said.
"It was sick," Malek replied.
"That wasn't sickness," I said.
Malek glanced back at me.
"Then what was it?"
I didn't have an answer.
I just knew—
it was the same feeling.
The boy.
The net.
Something wasn't right.
"We keep moving," Malek said.
And we did.
By the time we turned back, the light had already started to fade.
Not enough to call it night—
but enough that the trees began to blend into the sunset.
"This doesn't make sense." Torvin said from out of the blue.
"We should have seen them by now." Freya added.
"Or at least a sign they came through here." I said.
"We'll go further tomorrow," Malek said after a while.
It sounded like a plan.
It didn't feel like one.
I glanced back once, into the trees behind us.
Half expecting to see something there.
Watching.
There wasn't anything.
That didn't help.
We heard the village before we saw it.
Not the usual noise.
Not laughter.
Voices.
Too many of them.
Sharp. Uneven.
"Something's happened," Torvin said.
No one argued.
We picked up our pace.
The trees thinned, giving way to the outer edge of the village. Smoke hung in the air—not thick, not raging—but wrong. A couple buildings near the lower road had been scorched, their beams blackened, embers still flickering weakly in the growing dark. The smell of burnt wood clung to everything, sharp and bitter.
People were gathered near the center.
Not scattered.
Watching.
That was worse.
Malek moved first, pushing through before anyone could stop him.
"Move," he said—not loudly, but it carried.
It always did.
We followed close behind.
And then I saw them.
The hunters.
Bound at the wrists. Forced to their knees in the dirt.
Eirikr.
Bram.
Halveth.
Men I had seen a hundred times before—laughing, arguing, coming back from the woods with blood on their hands and stories on their tongues.
Now—
still.
Too still.
Their clothes were torn, streaked with dirt and something darker that had dried into the fabric. Their skin had gone pale beneath it all, stretched too tight across their faces.
Their eyes…
wrong.
Too wide.
Vacant.
Not looking at us.
Not looking at anything.
Staring past the crowd—
past the village—
into something none of us could see.
Bram twitched against the rope.
Not struggling.
Not trying to break free.
Just… moving.
Like his body hadn't been told it was supposed to stop.
A woman pushed forward from the edge of the crowd.
"Bram?" she said, her voice breaking halfway through his name.
Mara.
She ran the drying racks by the shore, always shouting at him for stealing fish before they were cured. I'd heard her voice more times than I could count—sharp, loud, full of life.
Now it was small.
Careful.
She stepped closer.
"Bram, it's me," she said, softer now.
He didn't look at her.
Didn't react.
Didn't even blink.
Her hand hovered in the air, just short of touching his shoulder—
then pulled back.
Like she knew.
Like something in her already understood what the rest of us hadn't said yet.
Beside her, a boy clung to her side, gripping her sleeve.
"Ma," he whispered, "what's wrong with him?"
Mara swallowed.
But she didn't answer.
A few paces away, another voice rose.
"Eirikr!"
Joren.
His younger brother.
Always just a step behind him growing up—bigger now, stronger—but still carrying that same look of someone who had spent his life following.
He pushed forward, anger cutting through the fear.
"What did you do to him?" he demanded, looking at the men holding the ropes.
"No one did anything," one of them snapped. "He came back like that."
"Like what?" Joren said. "He's just—he's just—"
Eirikr's head shifted.
Slow.
Unnatural.
Not toward Joren.
Not toward anyone.
Just… moving.
Joren stopped mid-step.
The anger drained out of him, leaving something else behind.
Something quieter.
Something worse.
"…that's not him," he said.
No one disagreed.
"They came back not long after you left," a voice said.
I turned.
The crowd shifted as he stepped forward—not pushed, not forced—just moved.
Chieftain Rorik.
He stood taller than most men, broad through the shoulders, a tiger skin draped across one side like it had chosen him. Time had carved lines into his face, but nothing about him had softened.
His eyes passed over us once—quick, measuring—before settling.
"They came in just before sunset," he said, voice low but carrying easily.
The kind of voice people listened to without realizing they had stopped talking.
"Started attacking people."
"Bit two before we got them down."
A pause.
Not for effect.
Just enough to let it settle.
"They're contained."
"Tied. Watched," someone added quickly behind him.
Contained.
The word didn't sit right.
I glanced at Malek.
"This isn't right," I said quietly.
Malek didn't look back.
"They're tied," he said.
"It's over."
Freya shifted slightly beside me.
Not closer.
Not away.
Just… tense.
Her eyes hadn't left the hunters.
Not once.
Halveth made a sound.
Low.
Wet.
Not quite a word.
The crowd stiffened.
Someone behind me muttered a prayer.
Ylva pushed through then, already working before she'd fully reached the injured. She dropped to her knees beside one of the bitten men, unwrapping the cloth around his arm with quick, steady hands.
"Hold him still," she said.
Two men did.
The man groaned, his face pale.
"Am I going to be alright?" he asked.
Ylva didn't answer.
That silence said more than anything else could have.
I looked back toward the hunters.
Toward Bram.
Toward Eirikr.
Men who had walked out of this village that morning—
and come back as something else entirely.
My stomach dropped.
It was the same feeling.
The boy.
The deer.
The net.
Something inside them…
wasn't right.
I looked around the crowd.
Harven stood near the edge, arms crossed tighter than usual, saying nothing.
Old Brenna was arguing with someone about keeping distance, though her voice wavered more than she would've liked.
Luka lingered near the back, pale, watching everything like he wanted to run but didn't know where to go.
Everyone was here.
Everyone—
except one.
I frowned.
"Where's Sten?" I asked.
No one answered.
The noise around us didn't stop—
but something shifted.
Just slightly.
"He was at the docks," Harven said after a moment, not looking at me.
"When they came through."
I turned toward him.
"And?"
Harven's jaw tightened.
"They came up from the lower road," he said. "Fast. Didn't look right even then."
He hesitated.
That was enough.
"He tried to stop one of them," Harven added quietly.
I looked past the crowd—
toward the water.
Calm.
Unchanged.
Like nothing had happened at all.
"We haven't seen him since," Harven finished.
The words settled heavier than anything else I'd heard that day.
Malek finally turned then.
"Someone would've seen him," he said.
No one answered.
Freya closed her eyes for just a second.
I saw it.
I thought about the net.
The ink.
The way it had crept through the rope.
Spread without rushing.
Without resistance.
And for the first time—
I stopped thinking about what we had found.
And started thinking about what we had missed.