Beneath the towering fangs of stone that gave Fangridge its na, the air trembled with tension.
Livius stood atop a jagged platform carved straight from the mountain’s bones, the wind whipping his dark mane like a beast’s tail. His chest rose and fell with barely leashed fury, bare feet planted firm on bloodstained stone. Around him stood the elite warriors of Fangridge—towering giants with shoulders as wide as boulders, their skin tattooed with ancient war symbols, their arms thick with muscle and dried blood.
And yet... they looked away.
Their eyes, eyes that had once stared down mammoths and monsters, refused to et Livius’s.
"You call yourselves demigods," he growled, voice low, dangerous. "The strongest of Fangridge. You wear the bones of your kills and call yourselves conquerors. But your brothers were slaughtered like prey—and you co to with nothing?"
No one spoke.
Livius’s eyes flared like fire caught in obsidian.
"I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!"
His roar cracked through the stone valley, birds scattering from their nests high above. Even the wind seed to retreat. A few warriors flinched, shoulders jerking as if struck.
"You were guarding the mountain." He pointed toward the misty peak that lood in the distance, its summit wreathed in cold clouds. "That beast—the mystical one, the creature that’s lived there for centuries—never moved, never stirred, never left. Not until now."
He took a step forward. The warriors stepped back.
"And the mont it vanishes... my warriors die. Not from claws. Not from stone. Not from beasts." His lips curled. "From a blade. A clean cut. No weapon can slice through flesh and bone like that. No beast strikes with precision. Tell —what lives in this land that can do that?"
The silence was loud. Suffocating.
One of the warriors swallowed. Another clenched his fists, jaw trembling.
Livius scanned them. "You think this is over? You think this is a tale to be buried in the dirt with their bones?"
His voice dropped, quiet now, but far more terrifying.
"No. This is the beginning of sothing wrong. I can sll it. The ancestors are restless. The earth groaned last night. I felt it in my bones. Sothing stepped into this world that does not belong here."
He looked up at the sky, where storm clouds gathered like a pack of wolves circling.
"This was no mortal act. Whoever did this... if they are not a god, then they are sothing worse."
Murmurs rippled through the warriors, fear crawling beneath their skins like fire ants. One man—a warrior with a scar running from his eye to his collarbone—stepped forward, voice shaking. "Master Livius... we searched the entire mountain. There were no tracks, no scent, no blood trail. Whoever—or whatever—did this vanished like smoke. It’s as if they were never there."
Livius turned his gaze on him, and the warrior shrank under it.
"You think I care about your excuses?"
He pointed toward the distant mountain.
"Find it. Find them. Drag them here in chains or in pieces. I don’t care if it’s a god or a shadow from the underworld—bring answers. Or I will burn every inch of this cursed land until I find the truth myself."
The wind howled again. This ti, it almost sounded like laughter.
A bad on.
Far above them, the mountain growled.
(THE NEXT MORNING) AT ISABELLA’S HUT
The fur Isabella usually slept in—soft, thick, well-worn—was now drenched. Soaked straight through.
Her skin was clammy, her hair plastered to her forehead like a lted wig, and everything slled like fever.
That sour, sticky sll of a body cooking itself from the inside out. She wasn’t just sick. She was dying prettily.
Her breath ca in shallow pulls, lips parted, too dry to close. The fever was brutal, swallowing her whole.
It sat on her chest like a beast, weighing her down with every wheeze. Her throat? Sandpaper and fire. Her muscles? Useless. Useless and rude. Every twitch, every faint movent, felt like a blade dragged across her bones.
She knew they were in the room. Opehlia. Shelia. Luca. All of them. Their shadows danced behind her closed lids, their voices filtered through like a bad dream underwater. Muffled, anxious. Too loud. Too hot. Too close.
But she couldn’t open her eyes.
Sweat in the eyes is a kind of pain no one talks about. That burning salt that slides down when you’re helpless. One wrong blink and it’s a hellstorm. So no, she wasn’t opening her eyes. She’d suffer with dignity, thank you.
But god she really felt bad.
Also were they dumb? Why were all three of them packed into her hut like it was the last warm cave in winter? Had a monster appeared outside and she missed it? Because it felt like the real monster was inside—and it was her damn fever.
This hut was the size of a closet, and they were in here like giant warm-blooded trees, breathing out heat and anxiety and taking up her oxygen. She needed air, not body heat. She needed space, not panic.
She appreciated the care, really. But if they weren’t going to be useful, maybe they could go outside and form a prayer circle or sothing.
No one was even wiping her sweat properly. Only Opehlia tried, and that was just sotis—every few minutes before she got distracted again and started panicking like she was the one dying.
"If you’re that worried," Isabella wanted to croak, "then wipe my forehead and stop yelling about it." But the words got stuck in her throat, bubbling in that fever-thick fog.
Her entire body ached. Her joints felt like they were being unscrewed slowly, like soone was trying to reassemble her wrong. If she so much as twitched, it sent lightning up her spine.
And yet, deep in her fever-cooked heart, she still thought, If I ever survive this and return to that mountain... there better be so kind of rare, god-tier beauty product up there waiting for . Gold-leaf lipstick. A unicorn-horn exfoliator. Sothing.
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