The hunters' words lingered long after their fire had turned to ash.
Even as I moved through the trees, their voices clung to me like a shadow I could not outrun. I told myself it was nothing, only fear breathing life into silence, but deep down, I knew that stories had a way of growing teeth.
So I kept to the dark.
I learned to walk faster when I felt eyes on me, to melt into the folds of the forest before men could lift their torches. When travelers drew near, I became a ghost, one heartbeat, I was there; the next, nothing but a breath of wind among the pines.
But the hunts never ceased.
They called it The Hunt of the Shadow now, a sport for those brave or foolish enough to chase the witch who escaped the pyre. Men came armed with muskets and charms, muttering prayers as if iron and faith could guard them from the unknown.
One evening, as the last light drained from the sky, I heard them again. Voices, low, rough, familiar.
Dougal's men.
I froze where I stood, crouched behind a thicket of ferns, every sense sharpened to the hum of danger. Their boots crushed the frost-hardened leaves, their laughter carrying like a curse through the still air. They were close, too close.
Through the branches, I saw the glint of their steel and the bold, restless figure of Dougal himself, leading them. His face was harder than I remembered, his eyes sharper. The zeal of the hunt had etched itself into his very stance.
"Spread out!" he barked. "She's nae gone far. The witch always circles back. The scent's fresh."
He was right. The stream they followed led straight to the hollow where I had hidden for weeks. The same place where I washed my face each dawn, where my reflection sometimes frightened me more than the thought of capture.
My pulse thundered as they drew nearer. I could almost taste the metallic tang of their armor in the air. Then, with unthinking grace, I pressed myself deeper into the shadows, body still, breath shallow.
They reached the stream. One man knelt and scooped water into his hands.
"Cold as death," he muttered. "Feels cursed."
"Drink, ye fool," Dougal growled. "If the witch wished us dead, she'd have struck already."
They laughed uneasily, their courage forced. I watched, silent and invisible, as they drank from the same water that had just kissed my skin hours before. The same stream that had carried my reflection away with it.
Then another figure stepped into view, slower, quieter.
Murtagh.
He didn't follow the others immediately. Instead, he stopped near the edge of the water and crouched. His eyes scanned the ground, the footprints, the bent reeds, the faint impression of where I had knelt.
His hand brushed the earth.
And in that instant, I felt something, a pull, soft and wordless, like a memory waking between us.
"Murtagh," I breathed before I could stop myself, a whisper carried only by the air.
He froze. His head lifted, eyes darting to the trees around him.
Dougal called from up the slope. "What is it now, man? Ye seein' ghosts?"
But Murtagh didn't answer. He just stood there, his shoulders stiff, gaze searching the shadows as if he could feel me there, as if some unseen thread between us had stirred.
For a heartbeat, the world was utterly still. The wind ceased. The stream forgot to sing.
It was just us, a breath apart, yet divided by the impossible.
He whispered, low enough that none but the forest could hear.
"Ye shouldna speak, lass. Not here."
Tears stung my eyes, sudden and sharp. I pressed a hand against my mouth, trembling. He couldn't see me, but he knew.
"You're still alive," he murmured, his tone soft, protective. "Aye… good. Stay hidden. Let them think ye gone to ash."
Dougal's voice broke the moment. "Murtagh! Ye've wasted enough time!"
He gave a final look toward the dark where I stood, eyes narrowed, jaw tight, and then turned to follow the others. His hand lingered at his side as though reluctant to let go of whatever truth he'd just touched.
When their voices faded into the distance, I stepped from my hiding place. The forest exhaled again.
The place where he'd stood was still warm with his presence. I knelt by the water and touched the ground where his hand had been.
"I'm not gone," I whispered. "Not yet."
The stream carried my words away, just as it had before.
And in its quiet rippling, I could almost hear Murtagh's voice, soft and steady:
Then stay that way, lass. Stay free.
I lingered there until dusk swallowed the last of the light. And for the first time since my escape, I felt something stir that was not fear, not even hope, but belonging. A fragile tether to a world I thought had forgotten me.
Yet as I rose to leave, the forest seemed to shift, darker, heavier. The air trembled with the faint hum of the stones, that same unseen pulse whispering beneath the soil.
A warning.
A promise.
Change was coming.
And I was no longer the only soul who would walk between time.