Hunter wasn’t certain he heard right.

  “A godling.”

  “Yes!” Aumir nodded emphatically. “There are still a few left in these parts of the world!”

  “Like Arjen, the bear godling?”

  The huntsman paused for a second, as if to think about it.

  “Well… Maybe not that particular one. But close enough!”

  By now, Hunter wasn’t a complete stranger to powerful creatures and entities. In fact, during his brief stay on Aernor, he’d encountered more of them than the average person would in two lifetimes. Among them, however, the bear godling was by far the one that had terrified him the most, and he hadn’t even really been openly hostile.

  “Aumir,” Hunter shook his head, dead serious. “I don’t know about you, but there’s no way in hell I can hunt a godling.”

  The huntsman laughed.

  “Not on your own, you can’t! Or you’d already be one of the the Huntsfolken, well and proper, yes? But I’m on the hunt for a godling already, and it would be little skin off my teeth to share my quarry with you. In fact, I could use a good spotter and driver.”

  “I have no idea what either of those words mean,” Hunter said, still not even remotely warmed up to the idea of joining a complete stranger to hunt down a freaking godling of the Weald.

  “Not to worry,” Aumir said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Everything you need to know about the hunt, we’ll teach you ourselves. Won’t we, Klothi?”

  If the stoat had an opinion on the matter, she didn’t share it.

  Every single one of Hunter’s instincts for self-preservation screamed at him to politely decline the huntsman’s offer, then run like hell in the opposite direction.

  And yet…

  For the umpteenth time in the past few days, his thoughts drifted back to his last talk with Grimm. The old bastard had been right; Elderpyre was his once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn how to take risks, to rise to impossible challenges. Failure here didn’t carry the same weight it did in the real world.

  What if this hunt was his shot at something greater—a life-altering adventure that changed the way he saw himself, once and for all?

  That had been exactly what he’d told himself when Fawkes first put him forward as an Aspirant. And even if that had turned out to be a false start of sorts, he’d still come out of it stronger, more capable, more mature.

  Besides, if Aumir was to be believed, given the current state of things in Herne’s court, getting an audience with the Great Spirit was tantamount to suicide. Of course, the huntsman didn’t know anything about the Essence of It That Whispers, the trophy Hunter planned to present to Herne. Still, showing up with proof of another hunt—one of a godling, no less—couldn’t hurt his case.

  “If I end up joining you,” said Hunter, picking his words carefully, “there are a few things you should keep in mind. First, my presence here is… fleeting. I have to divide my time between here and my own world, where my true body lies sleeping.”

  “Naturally,” Aumir said.

  “And second,” Hunter went on, placing a hand on the direwolf lying at his side, “it is imperative that no harm comes to Fyodor.”

  Aumir gave a slow, approving nod. His face remained hidden behind the carrion skull, but there was a note of newfound respect in his voice when he spoke.

  “Spoken like a true companion. You have Aumir’s word: no more harm will come to your Fyodor than to my Klothi.” Then, relaxing, he let out a low chuckle. “I knew I liked you from the start, Transient.”

  There was warmth in the words, unguarded and genuine, the kind that made it just a little harder for Hunter to hold on to his reservations.

  “Alright,” he said with a sigh. He still wasn’t entirely convinced, but the decision was made all the same. Wasn’t adventure, challenge, and growth what he wanted? In for a penny, in for a pound. He’d jump in the deep end with both feet, consequences be damned. “What was that word? Baheep. I’m in.”

  “Baheep, yes,” the huntsman agreed. “Good.”

  “So what now? When do we start?”

  “Hmmm…” Aumir lifted the stoat and brought it to his ear, as if straining to catch some secret counsel. “What was that, Klothi? Ah, yes, yes—of course.” He placed Klothi back in the inner pocket of his greatcloak, then reached out for Hunter’s hands. “Give Aumir your hands, Transient. Let us see what we’re working with, yes?”

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  Taking Hunter’s hands in his own, the huntsman closed his eyes and began cycling his Essence, reaching out and silently urging Hunter to follow. Aumir’s technique felt surprisingly similar to his own Resonant Flow Ability; Hunter followed suit, gradually tuning the flow of his Essence to move in tandem with the other man’s.

  Once they’d reached a certain degree of harmony, Hunter felt a third, spiritual eye open in the middle of Aumir’s forehead, its awakening like the slow, ponderous blooming of a flower. Under that orb’s ethereal gaze, everything that Hunter was unfolded into the light, laid bare for the other man to see.

  Through the spiritual link they shared, impermanent and tenuous as it was, Hunter caught glimpses of himself as the other man saw him. The sensation was uncanny, like peering into a distorted mirror; Aumir’s skimmed through him like he was a book, getting a feel for what he could and couldn’t do; strengths, weaknesses, potential.

  Time slipped by. It could have been hours, or mere fractions of a second; Hunter had no way of knowing. At last, satisfied with his reading, Aumir let out a long breath, and the spiritual eye closed and faded back into slumber. The connection between them dissolved, and they both opened their eyes—the real, physical ones.

  “Strange creatures, you Transients,” Aumir said, and for the first time, he sounded tired.

  “Thank you,” Hunter said, feeling the need to acknowledge it. He’d felt the strain it put on the huntsman; reading another’s spirit like couldn’t be an easy thing to do, or a pleasant one.

  “Baheep,” the other man said, shrugging.

  Eager anticipation coiled in his chest, Hunter was surprised to realize, like waiting for something between a fortuneteller’s reading or a doctor’s diagnosis.

  “What are we working with, then?”

  “Hmmm…” The huntsman raised a hand to his face, unseen behind his avian mask, as if to rub his chin. “Aumir would say you are indeed worthy of the Iron Rung, friend. Your Wyrd—your fate, or your potential, so to speak—is difficult to untangle, but undeniably great. Your roots run deep.”

  “…but?”

  “But you lack direction,” said the huntsman, almost apologetically. “You’re like a young osprey, tossed this way and the other by stiff winds. It is not a bad thing; but sooner or later, Transient, even an osprey has to find its wings—or be blown away for good.”

  None of it was news to Hunter, but he frowned all the same.

  “Now, now,” Aumir said, raising his hands as if to halt any brooding, “this does not mean you should lose heart, young osprey. Aumir is here to help. Isn’t that right, Klothi? Should we not help our new friend? Of course we should!”

  He gave his chest a pat, right where the stoat lay nestled in his pocket. Klothi poked her head out, chirped her annoyance, and vanished back into the folds of his greatcloak. That drew a chuckle from the huntsman.

  “Pay her grumbling no heed, Transient,” he said. “She can be a right old meanie, my Klothi, but she likes you just fine. You’re welcome to join us on our hunt, though we might have to knock you into shape a tiny little bit first.”

  Hunter gave him a guarded look.

  “And what would that entail, exactly?”

  “Hunt-er,“ Aumir said slowly, letting each syllable roll off his tongue like he was tasting it. “This is what you are called, yes. But not what you are. You can’t expect to have any clout at Herne’s table if you’re a stranger to the hunt, yes? But not to worry! Old Aumir and Klothi here will take care of that! I’ll teach you all you need to know, starting… hmmm…”

  His posture sharpened, as if something wild had stirred beneath the greatcloak, and he raised three fingers.

  “…in three days from now!”

  “Why three days?” Hunter asked.

  “Aumir has a pretty solid lead on a godling’s lair,” the strange man explained. “Three days is time enough to travel to it, scout it out, and return, yes?”

  “If Aumir says so.”

  “Aumir certainly does!” the huntsman replied, and Hunter could swear he was beaming beneath that bird mask. “You wait here, take care of any unfinished business you might have. In three days’ time, Aumir will return. And then, we hunt!”

  For all the huntsman’s jolly manner, Hunter still had a creeping unease lingering in the back of his mind. He had been friendly enough so far—a bit too friendly, in fact. However, Fyodor and the ravens seemed at ease around him. Moreover, he’d gotten a notification flagging his run-in with Aumir as a Special Encounter, and he’d lost one point of Serendipity, too. In his experience, that usually meant the encounter would generally prove to be beneficial.

  Metagaming aside, Hunter still wasn’t totally convinced. There was this old aphorism his dad used to love, back in the day—one he’d made sure to drill into his young son’s head, too:

  There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

  “That’s all well and good, Aumir, and I thank you for it,” he said. “Pardon my asking, though; what do you get out of all this?”

  Aumir laughed. “What—can a man not act out of the kindness of his heart, or at least for the joy of companionship and helping a fellow of the hunt?”

  Hunter leveled a deadpan look at him.

  “Klothi, what’s Aumir not telling me?”

  The stoat wiggled and chirped beneath the huntsman’s cloak, and Aumir let out another laugh, a full, roaring one.

  “Ah, you are a wary one, friend! Good, good!” Aumir said, still grinning under his mask. “Let Aumir put your mind to rest, then: I mean you no harm. Though, yes, there is something for me to gain in helping you.” He extended his hands, palms up and open, a gesture of trust and good intention. “Let me tell you a little story, yes?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Well, it is simple, you see,” Aumir began. “Lord Herne of the Hunt, he has seven Huntsfolk riding with him, taking turns leading the rest of his host on his hunts. No more, no less. But some time ago, there was an incident, one involving another of your ilk. Transient, I mean. One of the Huntsfolk was slain—“ Aumir let out a long breath. ”—and then there was six. But see, six is no good, yes?”

  “Seven,” Hunter nodded, echoing the strange man’s words. “No more, no less.”

  “Exactly! So now it falls to each of the six remaining Huntsfolk to find a new prospect, so that we may be seven again.”

  “And you want me to be your prospect?”

  “Well…” Aumir hesitated, searching for the right words. “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. Let’s say you’re not a bad place to start looking, yes?”

  Hunter scoffed in disbelief, trying to get his head around the concept. “You do remember I’m a Transient, right?”

  The huntsman cocked his head to the side—an unnervingly bird-like thing to do. “So?”

  “So I’m not long for this world, anyway. In a few months, I’ll be gone for good.”

  Aumir exploded in another round of hearty laughter, clapping Hunter on the arm as he guffawed.

  “You’re funny, friend,” he said. “I like you!”

  If there was a joke, Hunter apparently wasn’t in on it.

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