10
CALEB
The night won’t settle.
I know Moonhaven too well to ignore that.
I skip my usual patrol routes and head where instinct pulls instead—back roads, tree lines, places people pretend not to notice. Routine won’t protect anyone tonight. Something is wrong, and it doesn’t care how familiar the streets are.
Each flare of disturbance pulses through the air, twisting it with an urgent, barely audible whisper that seems almost sentient. Something is moving where it shouldn’t. That’s enough to get me moving faster.
“Great,” I mutter into the trees. “Because tonight was going too smoothly.”
The forest offers no reply, which I take personally.
“You could at least announce yourself,” I add. “We have rules. Or we did.”
Whatever’s out here does not care about my tone, my title, or my longstanding relationship with the land.
The streets I’ve traversed since the days of my boyhood now feel subtly altered, shifted just enough that something seems out of place. It is as though a previously harmonious melody hashit a wrong note, each beat of the night resonates with a new dissonance.
I remain alert; as the tendrils of inherited terrain pulse underfoot, I listen intently, honing in on what doesn’t belong before my eyes have the chance to see it.
Time begins to slip through my fingers like grains of sand, rich with palpable tension that propels me forward, responsive to unseen forces. A scent unfurls in the air—and it is a scent that should not linger here—metallic and foreign, an invasive presence against the earth’s gentle musk.
The usual forest's whispers that once lulled me into peace have vanished, replaced instead by an unnatural silence that hangs heavily around me. Ahead, the ground tells its own clandestine story, etched with messages of tracks that run contrary to the lives of the nearby, innocent inhabitants. Patterns slice cleanly through the ambiguity of the night, anchoring themselves in certainty stark enough to send a chill snailing laboriously down my spine.
This isn’t wildlife.
Which is a problem, because wildlife at least follows rules.
Something prowls, though—not with the clumsiness of ignorance, but with a calculated purpose—a deliberate exploration across the gently pulsing heart of Moonhaven’s landscape.
I feel a focused, predatory diligence that stirs a primal part of me, igniting a fierce urgency.
Suddenly, a vision of Ellie bursts into my thoughts, unbidden and all-consuming. Instinct spurs a shockwave through my veins, electrifying my senses and overwhelming my thoughts. The need to protect her rises like a flame, consuming the remnants of strategy and compelling my feet into motion.
This would be a great time for my instincts to calm down.
They do not.
This bond we share is more fierce than ever, stabbing through my mind with a directive force rather than simply hovering as a soft background pulse. Restraint dissolves like the final traces of snow beneath the relentless warmth of spring sun, and I feel my resolve crumbling. The distance that once felt so manageable now crumbles, eroded by the grueling truth of potential failure.
I don’t need mysticism to explain this.
Ellie is in trouble, and I waited too long pretending distance was discipline instead of avoidance.
“Idiot,” I say quietly.
The word doesn’t help, but it feels earned.
I’ve enforced curfews, mediated blood feuds, talked people down from doing very stupid things in the woods after midnight.
And somehow convinced myself this would resolve politely if I just stayed out of it.
That illusion shatters with every step toward the inn.
Footsteps respond almost of their own accord, propelling me ahead with a certainty that drives me toward the boundary that lies between Ellie and the lurking anomaly.