The dirt road stretched like a faded scar through the grasslands, still damp from the morning mist. Rob moved at a steady pace, boots crunching softly on gravel. Every sound mattered here, the rustle of wind through dry weeds, the faint creak of branches far off the path. He needed to stay alert, but not appear too aware. For all his strength, it was his cover that was in danger, not his life.

  “Gosh,” came a light voice near his ear, bright and melodic, “we’ve been traveling for a bit and haven’t even introduced ourselves!”

  The sound startled him out of his focus. The tiny, winged creature perched casually on his shoulder, legs dangling as if she were resting on a tavern bench rather than a man walking toward enemy territory.

  He sighed, remembering to keep his tone even, his grin human. “Name’s Rob. Rob Smith.”

  She fluttered off his shoulder, wings catching the sunlight as she hovered before his face. “That’s a lie.”

  Her voice was playful, but the word cut sharp.

  Rob froze mid-step, eyes narrowing. The fairy-like creature crossed her arms, guilt flickering in her expression as she read the pain behind his silence. Without another word, he continued walking.

  Hovering beside him, she softened, her tone changing. “Pleased to meet you, Rob Smith,” she said quietly. “I’m Sylvia of the Silvergrove, what’s left of it, anyway.”

  She held out her tiny hand. Rob stopped, hesitated, then reached out, taking her whole hand gently between thumb and forefinger. Her grip surprised him, stronger than he expected for something barely the size of a sparrow.

  He offered a faint smile. “Silvergrove, huh? Sounds like a nice place.”

  “It was,” she said, voice distant.

  For a while, they walked in companionable silence. Then Rob spoke again, curiosity slipping through his guard. “You’re… not fae, are you?”

  “I am a Kitsari,” Sylvia replied before he even finished. “A fox spirit. We’re sometimes mistaken for fae, but we’re not bound to their courts or their wars.” She gave a slight shrug, wings shimmering with each beat. “We belong to the quiet places. The ones men stopped believing in.”

  Rob listened, saying nothing.

  “I was searching Hundland’s woods for kits of my kind,” she went on. “In our fox form, we’re vulnerable to lures, simple enchantments, low-level but effective. They mimic the pulse of our kin. The young ones can’t tell the difference.”

  Rob frowned. “But how did you...”

  “I transformed mid-escape.” Sylvia cut him off, her tone carrying a note of shame. “A stupid move. In this form, most can’t see us unless we wish it. But once they do… the spell breaks. Visibility sticks until we vanish from sight again.” She gave a small, embarrassed laugh. “Panicked. Ran right into one of their traps after I thought I’d lost them.”

  Rob’s jaw tightened. He understood too well what it meant to be hunted by creatures who saw you as prey.

  Before she could continue, he lifted a hand, sharp, silent.

  Sylvia froze midair.

  “A wagon,” Rob whispered. His eyes unfocused slightly, listening to the distance. “Two adults… no, one man, two children. Horses pulling light.”

  He stepped to the side of the road, motioning her to stay close. She landed on his shoulder again, lowering her voice. “The closer we get to the city, the more people we’ll see.”

  Rob gave a small nod. “And the more chances to get seen by the wrong ones.”

  Moments later, the wagon came into view, a weathered cart loaded with wooden crates, pulled by a pair of tired horses. The man driving looked thickset, his clothes dusty, his eyes suspicious. Two children sat beside him, pale, silent, staring straight ahead.

  Rob dipped his head in a polite nod as they passed, playing the weary traveler. The man eyed him for a long second before snapping the reins, urging the horses faster.

  Beside Rob, the air shimmered faintly, Sylvia bending light around herself, vanishing from sight. He could still sense her though, like a faint warmth brushing his shoulder, a pulse just outside normal awareness.

  She’s masking herself, not just hiding, Rob realized. Light and perception both. That’s how she escaped the traps before.

  The wagon rolled on, creaking into the distance. The smell of dust and horse sweat lingered as Rob resumed walking, the sun dipping lower behind the hills.

  Danger was coming. He could feel it. But for now, he said nothing.

  By midday, the trees began to change.

  The oaks gave way to twisted black pines, their roots clutching at the stone like veins. The birds had fallen silent. Even the wind seemed to think twice before passing through.

  Sylvia hovered close to Rob’s shoulder, wings barely fluttering, her usual chatter replaced by uneasy glances toward the west.

  “This road,” she whispered, “belongs to Hundland.”

  Rob didn’t respond right away. His eyes tracked the faint trail of wagon ruts ahead, deep, frequent, too uniform to be a merchant’s road. Patrols. Organized, predictable. He could almost hear the clank of armor echoing faintly beyond the next rise.

  Sylvia’s voice trembled as she continued, “The city lies just beyond that ridge. The Lord keeps it walled with black stone from the mountains. Says it keeps the forest spirits out, but really…” she hesitated, her wings faltering for a beat, “it’s to trap them in.”

  Rob’s jaw tightened.

  She pressed on, perhaps to fill the silence. “He calls it sport. Sends his men into the woods each new moon. They come back with trophies, tails, pelts, and sometimes skulls. The white foxes fetch the best price.”

  He didn’t look at her, but his voice was low and steady. “That explains the traps.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “And the walls. And the hounds.” Her ears twitched at a distant bark that might have been miles away, but made her flinch all the same. “If they see me, I won’t live to reach the gates.”

  “They won’t,” Rob said, calm and confident, though his tone carried the weight of iron.

  Sylvia gave a fragile laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. “You sound very sure for someone walking into a slaughterhouse.”

  “I’ve walked through worse.”

  “Not here, you haven’t.”

  They crested the ridge, and Hundland revealed itself below, an ugly sprawl of stone and smoke. The walls were high, each parapet crowned with jagged spikes. Pennants of red and black flapped lazily in the wind, bearing the crest of a white fox impaled on a spear. The air smelled of iron, ash, and something sweeter, burned fur.

  Sylvia drifted higher, unable to look away. “He makes cloaks from my kin,” she said softly. “For his hunts. For his wife.”

  Rob’s hand flexed unconsciously at his side. A faint pulse of power rippled under his skin, suppressed before it could breathe free.

  She noticed. Of course she did. Her eyes narrowed, faint silver light flickering in their depths. “You could stop him, couldn’t you?”

  He said nothing.

  “I can feel it,” she pressed, drifting close enough that her voice became a whisper against his ear. “There’s power sleeping in you. Enough to tear that wall down stone by stone. Enough to make every one of those men kneel.”

  Rob stopped walking. The wind stirred his cloak, his hood casting his face in shadow. “That’s not my path,” he said finally.

  “Then what is your path?” she demanded.

  “West.”

  It was so blunt, so final, that Sylvia’s anger wilted into sorrow. She hovered there for a heartbeat longer before exhaling and settling back on his shoulder. “Then at least promise me we won’t pass through the gate.”

  “That much, I can promise.”

  She nodded, clutching a strand of his cloak as he began descending the slope. “There’s a stream that cuts under the wall, half-dried this time of year. Guards don’t bother watching it; they think it’s cursed. Too many vanish trying to fish there.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Convenient curse,” Rob murmured.

  “Not convenient,” she corrected. “Hungry. Something lives beneath it.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “You’re really selling me on this plan.”

  Sylvia smirked despite herself. “You wanted a quiet route. Quiet comes with teeth.”

  The path wound down into a shallow ravine choked with reeds and mud. The air turned damp, buzzing faintly with unseen insects. Above them, the black wall loomed, its surface carved with wards that pulsed in dull red intervals, like a heartbeat out of sync.

  Sylvia landed lightly on his shoulder again. “Once we cross, we’ll be in the Lord’s lands proper. Patrols run every three hours. Five men per team. One will always hang back to watch for runners.”

  Rob’s head tilted slightly. “You’ve been studying them.”

  “I’ve been surviving them.”

  He grunted softly, acknowledgment and respect rolled into one.

  They reached the wall’s base. The streambed here had narrowed to a dark trickle winding under a broken culvert of stone. The smell of rusted iron and something dead drifted from its depths.

  Rob crouched beside it, brushing a hand across the moss-covered stones. “The wards are old. Sloppy work. They’re meant to detect demons or strong magic.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning they won’t notice me if I don’t let them.”

  Sylvia blinked. “You can choose to be noticed?”

  He didn’t answer, but as he stepped forward, the air around him shimmered faintly, light bending, sound softening, even the faint hum of his aura vanishing into stillness. Sylvia could barely feel him anymore, as though he’d stepped behind a veil.

  Her voice was hushed. “What are you?”

  He glanced back, one corner of his mouth lifting. “Right now? Just a man walking west.”

  Then he moved through the culvert, and for a heartbeat the wards flared, a brief, uncertain pulse before fading again. Sylvia darted after him, invisible once more, her small heart hammering in her chest.

  When they emerged on the far side, the wall rose behind them like a mountain of shadow. The land beyond was open grassland, slashed by patrol paths and scattered watchfires.

  Sylvia whispered, “We’re through.”

  Rob nodded, scanning the road ahead. “And we’re not alone.”

  She followed his gaze and went pale.

  “Five men,” he murmured. “Three on the road, one hidden in the trees, one perched above with a bow.”

  Her breath hitched. “You can see them?”

  “I can hear their hearts.”

  She wanted to argue, but something in his tone, quiet, commanding, absolute, rooted her to silence.

  Rob straightened, stepping forward into the light of the western sun. The faint shimmer of his presence returned, enough to make him look like any other traveler again.

  Sylvia whispered to herself as he walked toward danger, “You’re no man, Rob Smith. And whatever you are… gods help the ones who find out.”

  The old creek bed curved through the weeds like a scar, narrow, shallow, and slick with the remains of last season’s floods. Rob crouched low in the hollow, the smell of wet clay and iron thick in his nostrils. Overhead, the faint crunch of boots echoed down from the road.

  Sylvia perched on his shoulder, wings pressed tight, her silvery light dimmed almost to nothing. “They’re close,” she whispered, voice trembling like a plucked string.

  “Let them pass,” Rob murmured, eyes half-lidded as his senses stretched outward. He could feel them, five heartbeats, steady and slow, the rhythm of men who believed themselves safe.

  But something else moved in the dark.

  A low rumble shuddered through the ground, deep and guttural, rolling from a fissure hidden in the slope to their left. The air grew heavy with the stench of musk and decay. Sylvia turned her head sharply toward the source, a cave no wider than a meter, its entrance tangled in reeds and half-sunken mud.

  Her fingers tightened around the edge of Rob’s collar. “Something’s in there.”

  Rob didn’t move. “I know.”

  The rumble deepened, now accompanied by the sound of breath, wet, rasping inhalations. Then two faintly luminous eyes appeared in the black mouth of the cave, low and wide apart. The creature’s breathing became a growl that vibrated the air itself.

  Sylvia’s heartbeat fluttered against his neck. “That’s a Gorlith.”

  “A what?”

  “Carrion wyrm,” she hissed. “They burrow through the hills, feeding on anything that bleeds. Hundland guards spread rumors that one lives near this ridge, but I thought, ”

  The creature shifted closer. Mud sloughed from its hide as it pressed against the mouth of the cave, scales glistening like oil. Its scent was sharp with rot and old blood.

  Sylvia squeezed her eyes shut, wings trembling. Rob, however, didn’t flinch. His gaze stayed fixed on the slope above, on the boots pacing near the edge.

  The wyrm paused. Its nostrils flared once, twice. Then, slowly, it drew back into the shadows. The rumbling ceased. Only a faint, frustrated sigh remained, like wind over a grave.

  Sylvia’s grip loosened, and she exhaled shakily. “It… it left.”

  Rob nodded slightly. “It knows better.”

  She turned to him, whispering incredulously, “Knows better? That thing eats trolls.”

  Before Rob could answer, one of the guards above them laughed. “Oi, don’t go pissing down that side, Fenrick! Unless you fancy losing your prick to the creek worm.”

  Sylvia clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh that was half relief, half disbelief. The man, Fenrick, cursed under his breath and stepped back from the edge, muttering thanks to his companion.

  “Bloody right,” another guard said. “They say it dragged a whole ox down there last week. Left the yoke still swinging.”

  Their voices faded as the patrol moved on, boots scuffing against gravel.

  Rob waited until the sound of their armor was swallowed by distance. Only then did he rise, his movements fluid and silent. He scanned the slope, nothing but the faint shimmer of heat above the road.

  “Come on,” he said quietly.

  Sylvia followed as he made his way along the creek, the trickle of water barely enough to cover their tracks. The forest thickened again as the old bed curved away from the road, hiding them completely from view.

  When they finally climbed from the gully, the sun had dipped lower, staining the hills in gold and ash. The black walls of Hundland lay far behind, only a smear of shadow on the horizon.

  Sylvia landed lightly on his shoulder once more, wings unfurling in the breeze. “We’re past it,” she whispered, wonder in her voice. “We actually made it.”

  Rob didn’t answer, only adjusted his cloak and continued west, the road stretching endlessly before him.

  For a fleeting moment, Sylvia looked back toward the walls they’d escaped, the smoke, the spires, the unseen monster still lurking beneath the ridge. Then she glanced at the man beside her, calm as stone, eyes unreadable.

  She shivered. “You scare the monsters, Rob Smith,” she said softly. “But I think you scare me more.”

  He gave no reply, only kept walking toward the dying light.

  They stopped when dusk turned the horizon to fire. Rob led Sylvia off the road, following a narrow trail that dipped into a patch of birch and scrub oak. A shallow clearing offered just enough shelter from the wind.

  “This will do,” he said, voice calm, though the light in his eyes never quite softened.

  He half-closed his eyes, then turned his head, voice low and even. “Sylvia, listen carefully. If anything happens while we rest, you stay hidden. Do not interfere. Promise me.”

  She blinked, startled by the steel in his tone. “I don’t understand. If you’re in danger…”

  “Promise me.” Softer, but unyielding. “Please.”

  Her jaw set. “Fine,” she whispered. “I swear it. I won’t interfere.”

  “Good.” He exhaled, letting his presence thin to a quiet ripple. “I’ll still be aware.”

  Sylvia hovered close, her wings whispering like leaves. “You don’t really need to sleep, do you?”

  Rob smiled faintly, unrolling his bedroll beside the roots of an old tree. “No. But appearances matter.”

  He lay down, one arm under his head. “Meditation keeps the body still and the mind aware. That’s close enough to rest for me.”

  Sylvia perched on a nearby branch, the silver glow of her wings dimming. “You’re strange, Rob Smith.”

  “You’ve no idea,” he murmured, closing his eyes.

  For a while, the forest was peaceful. A night breeze threaded through the branches, carrying the earthy scent of moss and wet bark. Distant predators prowled beyond the treeline, but none came near. Even the crickets seemed cautious, chirping in uneven bursts.

  Three hours passed without incident. A pair of small creatures, something between a rabbit and a lizard, crept close and curled beside Rob’s bedroll, lulled by the unnatural calm that radiated from him. Sylvia drifted lower, her breathing steady, wings folding tight as she slept.

  Then, from the darkness, came a crunch of boots on soil.

  Rob’s eyes opened instantly. He didn’t move, didn’t twitch. Three heartbeats, steady, human, cautious, approached through the brush.

  He let them come.

  The first shadow struck from behind, a blur of movement. A knee dug into Rob’s back, a forearm pinned his throat, and another weight pressed against his legs. Cold iron touched his wrists, no, not iron. Something older. Something wrong.

  A click. A hum.

  And then, pain.

  Rob roared, twisting. The men flew back like rag dolls. One slammed into a tree, another crumpled into the mud. Rob surged to his feet, energy flaring around him, then vanished in an instant. The pain came again, deep and cold, flooding his veins with black fire. He fell to one knee, gasping.

  The third figure stepped forward, a woman, tall and lean, her face half-hidden beneath a hood. In her hand, a faintly glowing control rune pulsed in rhythm with the shackles now locked around Rob’s wrists.

  “Shadow steel,” he rasped, forcing the words through gritted teeth. “But… how?”

  The woman smirked, her eyes catching the faint gleam of moonlight. “You’ve heard of it, then. Good. Saves me the explanation.”

  The man he’d thrown against the tree groaned. The third bent over him, pressing a sigil to his temple, and the wound sealed itself with a hiss.

  Rob’s vision cleared enough to see the bracelets clearly now, black metal veined with crimson, drinking the light around them. He could feel them digging deeper, reaching not for his skin but for his core, cutting him off from the Myriad entirely. He tried to summon energy, even a spark, but the void answered with silence.

  He slowly rose to his feet, chest heaving, and lifted his hands in surrender.

  “Easy,” he said, voice low. “You’ve got me.”

  The nearest man sneered and jabbed him in the ribs with the butt of his spear. “Stand, you filthy outtie.”

  Rob did as ordered. The woman’s smirk deepened. “Filthy or not, he’s worth something. Lord Quirn pays well for strays.” She turned to the others. “Put him in the wagon with the others. And mind the shackles, he’s stronger than he looks.”

  They pushed him forward. Rob didn’t resist. He let his mind go still, hiding behind the mask he’d chosen, Rob Smith, harmless wanderer, caught like any other.

  Inside, though, his thoughts burned cold and sharp.

  He could kill them all before their next breath. But that wasn’t the mission. Not yet.

  Rob kept his cool, not wanting to blow his cover.

  From her hiding place high in the branches, Sylvia clutched her chest. She wanted to scream, to dive down and strike at them with her tiny blade of light, but she remembered her promise.

  She stayed still as stone while they dragged him away.

  The forest swallowed the sound of boots and wagon wheels until only silence remained. A single tear tracked down Sylvia’s cheek, catching the starlight.

  Then she whispered to the wind, “Hold on, Rob Smith… whoever you really are.”