The shore welcomed them with sand and stone.
Violet stumbled onto solid ground and her knees buckled.
She caught herself on a rock, palms scraping against barnacles, breathing hard.
The world swayed—not from the whale's movement anymore, but from her body forgetting what stillness felt like.
Around her, Beastkin collapsed onto the beach in various states of relief and exhaustion.
Bara stepped onto the shore last, his massive frame blocking out the sun.
He looked at the dense forest ahead—ancient pines rising like cathedral columns, their canopy thick enough to swallow light.
He inhaled deeply, chest expanding, then released the breath in a long, slow exhale.
His shoulders dropped.
Tension bled from his frame like water from a wrung cloth.
Kari landed beside him with far more grace. She stretched her arms overhead, spine popping audibly, then rolled her neck with a satisfied grunt.
"Solid ground," she murmured, closing her eyes. "Finally."
Eivor hit the beach on his hands and knees, pressed his forehead to the sand, and made sounds that might have been prayers or sobs. "Thank you, thank you, thank you—never again, never, I'm never getting in a fish again—"
"We have to get back somehow," Bara pointed out.
"THEN I'LL WALK!"
Vael wandered a few paces away, staring at the treeline with open curiosity.
His tail swished back and forth—the first genuinely relaxed movement Violet had seen from him in days.
"Is this where you live?" He turned to look at her, head tilted. "It's so green. And quiet."
"Not here." Violet pushed herself upright, brushing sand from her palms.
The grit stuck to old blood from where the barnacles had cut. "I need to see where we are first. Can I see a map?"
One of the otter guides overheard. He waddled over, pulling a waterproof case from his pack, and extracted a salt-stained map. He unrolled it with practiced efficiency, weighting the corners with smooth stones.
"We're here." His webbed finger tapped a point on the northern coast. "Just past the Svara Range. Two days from the trade port, if you're interested in supplies."
Violet leaned over the map.
Her eyes traced the coastline, moved inland, found the mountain range—
There.
Her heart kicked against her ribs.
Greyhollow sat nestled in the foothills, marked with the smallest dot.
The cartographer had barely bothered with it—too remote, too insignificant.
Close. So close.
"How far?" Kari appeared at her shoulder, reading the map with a warrior's eye for terrain and distance.
"Maybe... a month's march?" Violet's finger traced the route. "Through the forest, over two smaller ranges, then down into the valley where my village sits."
"A month." Bara stroked his beard. "With this many refugees, moving carefully to avoid detection... yes. A month sounds right."
Violet looked up at him. "The forest route is safest.
The roads will have patrols, especially after what happened in the Valley of Winds.
If the capital thinks any Beastkin survived, they'll be watching."
"Agreed." Kari studied the map for another moment, then nodded. "We follow the girl. She knows this territory better than we do."
Bara clapped his hands once, the sound cracking across the beach like a whip. "You heard her! We move through the forest! Gather your groups! We leave within the hour!"
The Beastkin stirred into motion. Mothers collected children.
Warriors checked weapons and supplies. Elders conferred in low voices, already planning the march.
Violet folded the map carefully and handed it back to the otter. "Thank you."
He tucked it away. "Try not to die out there. Bad for business if word spreads that we deliver passengers to their deaths."
"Comforting," Eivor muttered.
The otter grinned, showing sharp teeth. "We aim to please."
Within the hour, they were moving.
Four thousand Beastkin melted into the forest like shadows returning home.
***
The cottage smelled of woodsmoke and drying herbs.
Garrett pushed through the door, game bag slung over his shoulder.
Three rabbits and a grouse—not a bad haul for late autumn.
His leg ached where the Winterbeast had shattered it years ago, the injury flaring in cold weather.
He set the bag on the table and looked around.
Maria sat by the fire, hands idle in her lap. She stared at the flames but didn't seem to see them.
Her tea had gone cold hours ago, the cup forgotten beside her chair.
"Any luck?" She didn't look up.
"Enough for a week if we're careful." Garrett pulled off his coat, hung it by the door. "Saw tracks near the old den. Something big. Probably a bear preparing for winter."
"Mm."
The sound was absent. Distracted.
Garrett lowered himself into the chair across from her, wincing as his bad leg protested. He'd been walking too long today.
Pushing too hard. But the hunt had been necessary—both for food and for the excuse to be away from the cottage, away from the weight of waiting.
"She'll come back," he said.
Maria's hands clenched in her lap. "You don't know that."
"I do."
"How?" Finally, she looked at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, shadowed. "How can you possibly know that?
She's been gone months, Garrett. Months. And before that, she was different. Wrong. Like someone else was wearing her face."
Garrett pulled his pipe from his pocket but didn't light it. Just held it, turning it over in his rough hands.
"She doesn't seem like Violet anymore," Maria continued, voice breaking. "She seems... Troubled, in search of soemthing. Like someone who's seen things no child should see.
"Maybe." Garrett nodded slowly. "Or maybe she's just becoming who she was always meant to be."
"She's nine, Garrett."
"In years, yes." He set the pipe down. "But pain ages people. You know that. And she's been in pain her whole life—this cursed illness, Calla's poison, whatever darkness she's been carrying that she won't speak of."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Sometimes children grow up within nights.
One day they're playing with dolls, the next they're staring at you with eyes that have seen too much. It happens. Especially to those who suffer."
Maria's breath hitched. "I just want her safe."
"I know." Garrett's voice softened. "But she's not the kind of child who stays safe.
She's the kind who runs toward danger to protect others.
Like you.
Like me, once." He smiled faintly. "She may not have our blood, but she's ours, Maria. Which means she's stubborn as winter and twice as cold when she needs to be."
"That's not comforting."
"It's honest."
Maria wiped her eyes. "I hate this. Waiting. Not knowing."
"I know." Garrett stood, moved to the stove, and poured fresh tea. He pressed the warm cup into her hands. "But she'll come back. And when she does, we'll be here. Ready. Whatever she needs, whatever she's been through—we'll face it together."
Maria held the cup but didn't drink. "What if we're not enough?"
"Then we'll find a way to be." Garrett returned to his chair. "That's what family does."
They sat in silence after that. The fire crackled. Outside, wind rattled the shutters. The cottage held them both—warm, safe, waiting.
But the waiting was its own kind of torture.
And they both knew it had only just begun.
***
Two weeks passed in the forest.
The Beastkin moved like ghosts through the trees—silent, careful, leaving almost no trace of their passage.
Scouts ranged ahead and behind, watching for threats. Hunters brought back game. The wounded grew stronger.
It was almost peaceful.
Almost.
But something was wrong.
Violet felt it first—a prickling at the back of her neck, a wrongness she couldn't name. The forest was too quiet.
No birdsong.
No rustle of small animals in the underbrush.
Just silence, thick and oppressive.
They'd entered the deep wood three days ago—the ancient heart of the forest where trees grew so close their roots tangled beneath the earth, where the canopy blocked out the sky entirely, where humans rarely ventured.
Animals lived here that had never seen a human face.
Creatures that predated the kingdom, that remembered older laws.
But now—
Nothing.
The forest was empty.
Bara's voice rumbled from ahead. "Something's not right."
"I feel it too." Kari moved to his side, ears flat against her skull. Her hand rested on her weapon. "For a green forest, it's too quiet."
Violet scanned the shadows between trees. Looked for movement, for eyes, for anything. But the forest gave nothing back. Just that pressing, suffocating silence.
Then Bara stiffened.
Kari's eyes went wide.
"Everyone!" Bara's voice cracked like thunder. "Huddle together! NOW!"
The Beastkin responded instantly. Warriors moved to the outside.
Mothers pulled children into the center. Elders formed a second ring of defense. Within seconds, they'd created a living fortress—vulnerable flesh protected by claws and teeth and desperate courage.
"What's happening?" Eivor's voice was high, frightened.
Vael moved to stand with the warriors, his small frame tense with readiness.
Violet nocked an arrow, scanning the trees. "Bara? What is it?"
The massive polar bear Beastkin's nostrils flared. "We're surrounded."
"By what?" Violet's hands tightened on her bow. "Surrounded by who?"
Kari's voice came flat. Final. "Monsters. Winterbeasts."
The word fell into the silence like a stone into still water.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened... And then...