When the ashes turned gold in the dying sunlight, I turned my back on the village.
No farewell. No promise to return.
Just the road, the dead behind me, and whatever waited beyond the smoke.
Even now, as I walked, the weight of those I couldn't bring back pressed against my chest. Perhaps one day — if they harbored regrets, if their hatred burned strong enough — they might answer my call. But for now… they were gone. Truly gone.
I didn't know where I was going. Only that it had to be far from here — far from the ruins, the fire, the screams still clawing at my mind.
Maybe I should head toward the town where Sir John used to stay — the one where he came to collect taxes and inspect borderlands. Perhaps there I could see what the empire would do about the murder of their envoy… and the slaughter of a village.
I doubted they'd care much about the villagers. But the envoy… that was different. A man of the empire, killed in the shadows of nowhere — someone would come for that.
The problem was, I didn't know the way.
I knew the forest came first — Sir John and the elders had said the town lay beyond it — but I had never crossed it myself. For all I knew, it stretched on forever.
I looked down at what I carried: an oversized cloak stripped from a dead guard, the sword that had belonged to the false Sir John, and a handful of coins taken from their bodies.
That was all — except for my own clothes, somehow spared by the fire. Everything else I owned had burned with them.
All I had now were scraps taken from the killers of my people.
Irony, isn't it? They took everything from me, and I took what little was left from them — things worth a few bronze coins, maybe a silver or two for the sword.
What was I thinking? Weighing what I'd gained and lost like a merchant at a stall.
No… even a merchant wouldn't compare anything to the lives of his kin.
I should stop thinking about the villagers.
If I kept circling those thoughts, I'd never crawl out — just spiral until despair hollowed me out completely.
So I focused on the forest.
Endless trees. No light but thin shards of sun slipping through the branches. No path, no direction.
I needed a way out.
Then a thought hit me — sharp and desperate.
If I could summon the dead, maybe I could use one to scout ahead, find a path through this green grave.
Only problem — I didn't have a corpse to call.
That's when I heard it.
A low growl.
I turned.
Between the trees, a pair of eyes gleamed — blue, cold, fixed on me. A black wolf stood there, larger than any I'd seen, its fur bristling like smoke against the light.
i knew what this creature was? it was a magic beast.
It didn't move. Neither did I.
For a moment, it felt like the whole forest held its breath.
I could almost feel its hunger, its confusion. The faint tilt of its head — not quite aggression, not quite curiosity.
My hand slipped to the sword at my side drawing it without hesitation.
The wolf bared its teeth, lips curling back just enough to show the gleam of them. A sound halfway between a snarl and a warning rumbled from its throat.
But it didn't lunge.
It just watched. Eyes like dim coals, breath steady, as if it had been waiting there all along.
The air between us felt too still, too aware.Then its ears flicked, and it turned — not fleeing, just walking deeper into the forest.
I could've ignored it. Should've.But something in me stirred — that dull instinct that moves when thought refuses to.The road was gone, the sky hidden, and the trees whispered like they knew I didn't belong here.So I followed.
The wolf didn't look back. Its tail brushed ferns and thorns aside, clearing a path I wouldn't have seen on my own.Each step I took felt heavier, like the forest was swallowing me whole.The smell of burnt wood still clung to my clothes, a reminder the world behind me had already turned to ash.
Maybe this was madness — following a wild beast through nowhere.Or maybe madness was staying still.
The wolf led me deeper into the trees. The light thinned to threads, weaving gold through the mist. My footsteps barely made a sound.
Somewhere behind my ribs, a whisper rose. You follow beasts now? How far you've fallen?
I stopped. Looked around. The forest breathed, unbothered. The wolf glanced back once, eyes catching mine—then kept walking.
Go on, the voice murmured, softer now. It knows the way. Or maybe it knows you.
I clenched my jaw, said nothing. Words had weight, and I was too tired to lift any more. So I followed—deeper still—with questions and none to answer it, like whose voices was i kept hearing and where was this wolf taking me?
The wolf padded ahead, its steps soundless on the damp earth. Every so often, it paused—ears twitching, nose lifting—as if listening to something I couldn't hear. I stayed a few paces behind, one hand on the hilt of the stolen sword, though I wasn't sure if it was protection or a lie I told myself.
The forest grew stranger as we went. The trees leaned closer together, their roots like ribs pressing through the soil. What little light remained came in thin, fractured rays that made the air shimmer with dust and ash.
I couldn't tell how long we'd been walking. The silence had a way of stretching time, twisting it. Even the sound of my own breathing felt distant.
Then the wolf stopped. Its head tilted slightly, eyes glinting faint gold in the dimness. I followed its gaze and saw… nothing. Just fog, trees, and the faint suggestion of a path that might not even be real.
"You're not leading me out, are you?" I said quietly. My voice sounded too loud here, like it didn't belong.
The wolf didn't move. Didn't growl. Just stared.
And for a moment—just one heartbeat—I thought I saw something reflected in its eyes. A flicker of firelight. The outline of faces I knew.
Then it turned away and kept walking.
I followed, though every step forward felt like I was walking deeper into someone else's memory.