The decision was made before dawn.
Theo could hear the Warden's voice echoing up the stone corridors, sharp and cold, as he spoke to Magda and the captains of the watch.By the time the sun touched the eastern wall, the courtyard was alive with movement — not the slow, careful steps of the keep's normal morning, but the brisk, purposeful rhythm of people preparing for danger.
Magda found Theo leaning against the inner gate, the sword across his lap. Her expression told him she'd been given orders she didn't agree with.
"They want to hunt it," she said.
Theo's stomach tightened. "Outside the wall?"
"Yes." She leaned closer. "And they're bringing you."
They didn't take the main gates. Instead, the hunting party — six guards in bronze armor, Magda, Theo, and the Warden — slipped through a smaller sally port built into the western wall. It was half-hidden by a tangle of thornbrush and covered with heavy wards.
The moment Theo stepped through, the air changed. Colder, heavier. The world beyond the wall seemed sharper — every line of the frost-bitten grass etched in silver, every shadow stretching a fraction too long.
The Warden led the way, his coat buttoned high against the wind. "The shadow won't be far from where it watched the wall last night," he said. "It likes to linger."
Theo glanced at Magda. "And what happens if we find it?"
The Warden answered without looking back. "We drive it into the old circle and bind it there. That will weaken the body behind the wall."
"And if it doesn't come quietly?" Theo asked.
"Then we cut until it does."
They moved in silence after that, following the frozen stream toward the thickets. Theo kept one hand on the sword, feeling its hum quicken whenever they passed certain patches of ground. Once, they stopped, and Magda knelt to touch a deep, three-pronged gouge in the frost.
"It's been here," she said.
Theo crouched beside her. "Today?"
"Last night," she said. "Probably watching you."
The Warden gestured them onward. The thickets loomed ahead — a mass of black branches clawing at the pale sky.
Inside the thickets, the light dimmed. Frost clung to every branch, and the air smelled faintly of iron. The hum in Theo's sword grew sharp enough to ache in his grip.
One of the guards signaled. "Movement."
Theo squinted. Something pale was slipping between the branches ahead — tall, thin, head tilted just enough to be wrong. The shadow.
It stopped when it saw them.
For a long moment, no one moved. Then the Warden raised his hand, and the guards fanned out, circling to cut off its escape.
The shadow only smiled.
"You came out," it said, voice low and hollow. "Good."
Magda's knuckles whitened on her axe. "Keep talking and we'll see how good you feel with a binding chain around your throat."
The shadow tilted its head. "You think I fear chains? I've worn them longer than your keep has stood."
The Warden stepped forward, his black-hafted axe ready. "We're not here to talk."
The hum in Theo's sword surged so violently he nearly dropped it. The shadow's gaze shifted to him.
"Little wolf," it said softly. "They tell you they're hunting me. But it's the other way around."
The Warden barked an order, and the circle closed. The guards moved in, chains tipped with bronze sigils glinting in the frost. For a heartbeat, Theo thought it might work.
Then the shadow moved.
It didn't run. It didn't dodge. It folded, its body bending at impossible angles, sliding between the chains like smoke. A guard cried out, his arm rimed with instant frost, and the circle broke.
The shadow stepped back, still smiling. "You'll open it for me, little wolf. Sooner than they think."
Then it was gone — slipping into the deeper dark of the thickets, leaving only the frost where it had stood.
The Warden swore under his breath. "We go back."
"That's it?" Theo said.
"That's it," the Warden said. "If it won't be bound, then it's waiting for something. And we can't afford to give it that yet."
Theo glanced back toward the dark where the shadow had vanished. The hum in the sword hadn't faded. If anything, it was stronger now — and in its rhythm, he thought he could hear something new.
Not a voice this time.
A knock.
From the seam.