Violet's hands trembled on her bowstring.
Winterbeasts.
The word echoed in her mind, dragging memories with it—Papa's broken body, Maria's screams, blood staining white snow.
The night everything changed.
Her first life.
The night she'd hidden in the cellar while the beast tore through Greyhollow like a scythe through wheat.
But that had been one creature.
One corrupted abomination that moved alone.
The thought struck cold. What if there had been more? What if the lone beast was just the one that happened to reach the village?
What if others had been circling in the darkness all along, waiting for different prey?
"They're awakened Winterbeasts."
Bara's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. His nose wrinkled, scenting something on the wind that made his lips pull back from his teeth.
"They aren't as dangerous as the dead ones—not yet. But their souls are being corrupted with each passing moment. They're growing stronger. ."
The silence pressed closer.
Then—movement.
A deer burst from the treeline.
Violet's mind registered the wrongness in pieces:
The throat—slit open, dark fluids dripping. The teeth—too many, jutting from gums that had split to accommodate them, each one sharp as broken glass.
The flesh—still pink, still fresh, like the creature had died moments ago.
But woven through it all, pulsing beneath the skin—black vines. Thick as fingers.
Moving.
The thing that had been a deer screamed—not an animal sound, but something that tore at the ears, that made children cry and warriors flinch.
Bara's axe sang.
One swing. Clean. The blade caught the creature between neck and shoulder, severing spine and major vessels in a single stroke.
The deer-thing crumpled.
Black ichor pooled beneath it, steaming in the cold air.
"Form up!" Kari's voice snapped like a whip. "Don't let them separate you!"
The forest erupted.
More shapes lunged from shadow—a bear with too many eyes, each one weeping dark fluid.
A wolf whose lower jaw had distended until it dragged on the ground, teeth growing in spirals.
Rabbits the size of dogs, their soft fur matted with rot and those same black vines threading through muscle and bone.
The Beastkin warriors met them with steel and claw and desperate fury.
A mother bear Beastkin caught one of the corrupted wolves, her claws sinking deep.
The creature didn't bleed so much as leak—that same black ichor oozing thick as honey. She ripped its throat out.
It kept moving for three more seconds before finally collapsing.
Bara moved through the carnage like a boulder rolling downhill—unstoppable, crushing everything in his path.
His axe rose and fell with mechanical precision.
Each swing ended something that should have been dead already.
Kari was water to his stone—flowing between enemies, opening throats and hamstrings, never staying still long enough to become a target.
Her claws left trails of darkness in the air where they passed.
Violet forced herself to move.
Her first arrow took a corrupted rabbit through the eye.
It stumbled but didn't stop. Her second arrow found its heart—or where its heart should have been. This time it fell.
Aim for vital points. Even corrupted, they need those.
She nocked another arrow. A deer charged Vael from his blind side.
She released.
The arrow punched through its skull with a wet crack. Vael spun, saw the creature collapse, nodded thanks without breaking stride.
Around her, the battle continued.
A young direwolf warrior screamed as one of the corrupted bears raked claws across his ribs.
Blood sprayed.
But before the bear could finish him, three more warriors descended—teeth and claws and fury tearing it apart in seconds.
An elderly leopard Beastkin, too old to fight in the front lines, used a spear to protect the children huddled at the circle's center.
Each thrust was precise, economical.
No wasted movement.
Just cold efficiency born from a lifetime of survival.
Eivor stood beside Violet, his sword shaking in his grip. "There's so many—"
"Breathe," Violet said, already nocking her next arrow. "Pick targets. Don't freeze."
A wolf-thing lunged at them.
Eivor's blade came up in a clumsy arc but connected—caught the creature's foreleg and opened it to bone.
The wolf stumbled. Violet's arrow finished it.
"Good," she said. "Keep doing that."
The battle stretched.
Minutes felt like hours. Violet's arms burned.
Her quiver grew lighter with each shot. Around her, the Beastkin fought with the desperate strength of people protecting their last sanctuary.
Finally—the last corrupted beast fell.
A rabbit, its body twisted into something that barely resembled what it had been.
Kari's claws opened its stomach.
It tried to drag itself forward with front legs that no longer worked properly.
Bara's boot ended it.
Silence crashed down like a physical weight.
The Beastkin stood panting, bleeding, exhausted.
The ground was littered with corpses leaking black ichor that hissed when it touched clean earth.
Violet's hands shook as she lowered her bow. "Is everyone—"
Movement.
A fox stepped from the shadows.
Small. Rust-red fur. White-tipped tail. Eyes that caught the filtered sunlight and in them there was something different.
Every seasoned warrior froze.
Bara's axe came up slowly.
Kari's ears flattened completely against her skull.
The other experienced fighters shifted into defensive stances, eyes wide.
"Is he a Winterbeast too?" Vael's voice was small, uncertain.
"No." Bara's voice came rough, barely controlled. "But that thing is far worse than them."
The fox didn't move. Just stood there, watching.
Its gaze swept across the gathered Beastkin with casual contempt.
Then it spoke.
"You are awfully far from your home, aren't you?"
The voice was wrong.
Too deep for such a small body.
Too cold.
Like winter given speech.
The Beastkin flinched. Violet saw it ripple through the crowd—warriors taking involuntary steps back, mothers pulling children closer.
This wasn't any creature they knew. This was something other.
The fox's gaze shifted. Settled on Violet.
"And you, little girl." Its lips pulled back from teeth too sharp, too numerous. "It seems you have something special inside you."
Violet's arrow was nocked and drawn before thought caught up to action.
The bowstring sang.
The arrow flew true—punched straight through the fox's chest where its heart should have been.
The creature didn't bleed.
Didn't fall.
Just stood there with the arrow jutting from its sternum, head tilted in what might have been amusement.
"Beautiful." The fox's voice carried something like pleasure. "It seems you would make a fine addition to my collection."
Its body began to dissolve—not rot, not decay—
It was falling flesh turned to ash that drifted on wind that shouldn't exist in the still forest.
Within seconds, only the arrow remained, stuck point-first in the ground.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Then Bara released a breath he'd been holding. "We need to move. Now. Whatever that was, it knows we're here."
"What was that?" Kari's voice was tighter than Violet had ever heard it.
"Old." Bara shouldered his axe, already moving. "Older than the kingdoms.
Older than us." He glanced back at where the fox had stood. "And curious. Which means dangerous."
They moved.
Fast. Pushing the exhausted refugees harder than they should have, but survival demanded it.
Behind them, in the clearing littered with corrupted corpses, something watched from the shadows between trees.
***