Correns POV
The blood was still on his fingers.
He didn't look back at the corpse. He didn't need to. The man was dead. That was enough.
He moved like the wind between the trees, quiet and low. He slipped through the forest as if he was born for this. The others hadn't noticed him. Not yet.
He'd killed Scar-Neck quickly and quietly. He cut through him like rotted fruit and left the body where it fell.
But that part wasn't what Corren kept thinking about.
It was the sound.
The way the knife sank. The way the breath stopped. The way the blood came in pulses, then in nothing.
That thought lingered in his mind.
And now it wasn't screaming anymore.
It was singing.
He didn't take the heart. He could have. He should have.
But that one wasn't worthy.
Scar-Neck was no challenge. No honor. Just meat. Practice. His parents deserved better. Their legacy demanded it.
He needed more.
Corren found a hollow under the roots of an oak, hidden beneath vines and stone. He crawled in, curled up tight, and waited.
Hours passed. Voices echoed through the woods—distant, angry, accusing.
They'd noticed. Of course they had.
"Reece!?" one of them barked, his voice cutting through the forest like a bullet. Another, deeper and colder, said, "Shut up. You'll scare off the animals."
So they called him Reece.
Corren now had a name for himself.
That made him real. That made it easier.
The group passed through—six or maybe seven of them. They were tense and alert. One kept glancing over their shoulder. Good. Let them be scared. Let them feel like prey for once.
He watched from the pit as they argued and fumbled over who was to blame. A couple joked to ease the tension. One laughed too hard. He'd kill that one next.
Not for the laughter.
For the nervousness behind it.
When they finally moved on, Corren didn't follow right away.
He waited.
He listened.
He buried the blood-soaked cloth deeper in his pack, cleaned the black blade with water from a nearby stream, and wrapped it in silence.
He pulled the Reaper, the chained scythe, from the ground and twirled it once. It felt heavier than before. Like it was learning. Like it knew what it had done.
He whispered to it, his voice dry.
"One."
That night, Corren didn't sleep.
He crouched in the highest tree he could find, landing between twisted branches like a bird with steel bones. Below, the hunters made camp. Firelight flickered off their weapons and their tired, angry faces.
He watched them.
Studied them.
The way they sat. The way they spoke. One of them kept dozing off when he thought no one was looking.
Corren marked him.
Weak. Tired. Alone.
Not yet. But soon.
The hunger in his gut didn't whine. It waited.
That was the difference now. It didn't control him. It trusted him.
It knew he would feed it again.