Page 35 of The Monster You Made
We leave him in the ravine, bound but alive. Rourke curses us both for fools, but I see something shift in Vera’s shoulders, less weight, if only for a moment.
By dusk, we find a hunter’s cabin tucked deep in the pines, its walls sagging but intact. We settle inside, the air thick with dust and the faint smell of dried herbs. Abigail curls up on a cot, asleep within minutes. Rourke busies himself with the fire, muttering about traps and fools’ mercy. Vera sits across from me, Marta’s satchel on her lap.
“You hesitated today,” she says quietly.
“I spared him,” I reply. “That’s not hesitation.”
“Perhaps,” she answers. Her gaze does not waver. “Or perhaps it means you’re learning there’s more than one kind of strength.”
Her words dig deep, stirring unease. I don’t know if I can ever be the man she sees, or if I even want to be. But when she smiles faintly, just enough to light the fire’s glow in her eyes, I feel something I haven’t felt in years: the possibility that I am not hopelessly lost.
Outside, the night grows colder. Wolves howl from the ridge, their voices threading through the trees. I sit with my knife resting across my knees, watching Vera watch the flames, and wonder which of us carries the heavier burden: her hope, or my rage.
The fire in the hunter’s cabin burns low, embers pulsing like the last beat of a tired heart. Rourke snores unevenly near the hearth, his rifle propped against the wall within easy reach. Abigail sleeps curled against Vera’s side, her small breaths steady despite the cold seeping through the rotted shutters. I remain awake, back pressed to the wall, knife across my knees. Sleep will not come. Not when the forest beyond feels alive with eyes.
Sometime past midnight, I hear it. A branch snapping outside, too deliberate to be wind. My muscles coil. I rise silently, motioning to Vera with a hand at my lips. She stirs instantly, eyes sharp despite the haze of fatigue. I gesture to Abigail, and she tightens her hold protectively.
I slip to the door, easing it open. Cold air knifes in. The forest is a dark ocean, its trees swaying in rhythm with the night. At first, I see nothing. Then, a flicker of movement. Figures weaving between trunks, cloaked, carrying lights muffled in cloth. Five, maybe six. Crown scouts, hunting.
I step back inside, closing the door without sound. “They’ve found us,” I whisper. Rourke bolts upright, cursing under his breath, scrambling for his rifle. Vera’s expression is calm, too calm. “Options?” she asks.
“Fight,” I answer flatly. “If we run, they’ll track us by dawn.”
Abigail stirs at the raised voices. Vera presses her close, murmuring comfort. My chest tightens at the sound. I want to tell her to keep the girl silent, but the words die on my tongue. She already knows.
We prepare quickly. Rourke stations himself at the shutter, rifle barrel peeking through a crack. Vera grips a rusted hatchet she found hanging on the cabin wall. I ready my knife and the short blade strapped to my boot. The air inside thickens, heavy with waiting.
The first stone shatters against the door. The wood splinters, rattling on its hinges. Another follows. Then silence. They are testing us. We hold our breath.
The next sound is worse: silence breaking into a war cry. The door explodes inward as two soldiers surge through. I meet the first with a slash across his throat, dragging him down before his scream can rise. The second slams into me, driving me back against the table. His weight pins me, the stench of sweat and iron flooding my nose. I twist, driving the boot blade up under his ribs. His breath rattles once, then fades.
Rourke’s rifle cracks, the sound deafening in the cabin. A figure collapses at the window. Vera swings the hatchet with a cry, splitting another’s shoulder as he charges through the door. Abigail screams, clutching the satchel tight.
More pour in. The cabin erupts into chaos, blades clashing, wood splintering, firelight strobing across faces twisted in rage. I lose count of how many fall, only that each heartbeat brings another body to the floor.
Then, silence again. My chest heaves, sweat stinging my eyes. The floor is slick with blood. Rourke leans on his rifle, cursing, his cheek split open. Vera stands near Abigail, the hatchet trembling in her grip. The girl’s sobs echo, high and piercing, until Vera pulls her close and whispers her into quiet.
I cross to the door, scanning the treeline. Lights lie abandoned, burning low. The rest fled into the dark. Cowards, or messengers. Either way, we cannot stay.
“They’ll return,” I say. My voice is hoarse. “With more.”
Rourke spits blood onto the floor. “And what then? We keep running until the world ends?”
I don’t answer. Because I know the truth: Declan will not stop. He will burn every tree, every house, every field to smoke before he lets us slip away. The hunt is not ending. It is only beginning.
I clean my blades in silence, my reflection glinting sharp and cold in the steel. Vera watches me with an unreadable expression, her hand smoothing Abigail’s hair. She knows the weight pressing on me, even if she cannot share it.
For the first time since the tower, I feel it fully, the truth I’ve tried to deny. This is not survival. It is war. And war does not wait for the willing. It consumes, dragging us all down to its depths.
The bodies lie heavy in the cabin’s silence. The fire gutters low, smoke curling through broken shutters. I drag the last corpse outside, leaving it in the frost-bitten grass. When I return, Abigail hides her face from me, clinging to Vera’s side. She has seen too much. I try not to look at her eyes, because I know what I’ll find there. Fear. Of me.
We cannot linger. Dawn presses closer, the horizon faint with gray. The air smells of blood and ash, a trail the Crown’s hounds will follow. Rourke bandages his cheek with strips of cloth, muttering curses under his breath. Vera tightens Abigail’scloak, then lifts Marta’s satchel with steady hands. She is pale, but her voice does not falter when she says, “We move now. Before the ground freezes our tracks into stone.”
I lead them north, deeper into the trees. The forest is brittle with frost, each step crunching underfoot. We move in silence, broken only by Abigail’s soft sniffles. I hear every sound as though the world itself has sharpened to a blade: the snap of twigs, the whisper of branches, the thrum of distant drums. My senses stretch thin, half man, half shadow.
By midday, we reach a ridge overlooking the river. The water cuts silver through the valley, fast and merciless. Across its far bank, I see them, riders bearing the Crown’s colors, their formation tight, their eyes sweeping the treeline. They hunt with purpose now, the patience of the game over. Declan drives them with an iron will.
Rourke groans. “They’re herding us. Just like I said.”
