Chapter 6 - Wilderness
533 Words
Night came fast in the Ashveil Forest.
Kaela had been outside pack territory for three hours when the light began to fade. The quick forest darkness always caught her off guard, even when she expected it. She set up camp on the leeward side of a limestone outcrop. It was dry, protected from the wind, and safe on three sides.
This competence was her only constant.
She specialized in being useful. In another's space, capability was her only currency.
She built a fire, ate half of the dried food she'd packed, and sat back against the rock to think.
The cold was manageable. The isolation she could handle. The quiet was the problem because of what it lacked. In the pack's territory, even the servants' quarters buzzed with a low hum at three in the morning. She had always been part of a pack. She sensed the warmth of those nearby. Their shared breaths felt like belonging.
She had no wolf.
She felt the absence, like noticing a missing tooth or a gap where a familiar weight used to be.
She poked the fire and watched the embers.
She sat there for about an hour. Then, she heard something big moving through the brush to the east.
She was on her feet before she had a plan. The knife was already in her hand. She had drawn it faster than she ever thought possible. Her stance was different from her training, but it felt right.
She stood still.
Listened.
The movement stopped.
And then, from the tree line thirty feet away, a wolf stepped into the firelight.
It was no normal wolf, especially in size. The creature stood four feet tall at the shoulder. It looked more like a small horse than a typical predator. Its true silver coat shimmered like metal in the dark, distinct from simple gray or white. When it turned, its eyes caught the firelight and reflected it green-gold.
It looked at her.
She looked at it.
Her body said: run.
Her instinct, that new instinct, the one that had been speaking up more and more since last night, said: don't.
She didn't run. She stood very still and kept the knife out but lowered, and held the wolf's gaze, and waited.
The wolf tilted its head. A slow, deliberate movement. The gesture was too knowing for an animal, too considered, too watchful.
Then, between one eye blink and the next, it was gone.
Not run away, gone. As if it had stepped sideways out of the world. Where it had stood, the firelight moved over nothing but grass.
Kaela stood very still for a long time.
Finally, she sat back down.
Lowered the knife.
Stared into the fire.
Whatever that was, she thought, it wasn't threatening her.
It was looking at her.
Like it was waiting to see what she'd do.
She slept in a way that allowed part of her to remain alert. At dawn, she woke to find flattened grass around her camp. It looked like something large had circled the site all night.
She looked at the circle.
Then she picked up her bag and walked south.
The fire was cold, but she was not.
- Writer
