Elowen woke with her heart already racing.
The dawn light was soft.
Her fear was not.
The room was quiet.
No screams. No horns.
Only her own breath, fast and shallow.
She pressed a hand to her chest.
The echo of last night's wind still clung there.
Ash. Fur. Iron. Hunger.
It hadn't been a nightmare.
The horn on the wind had been real.
So had the coarse attention brushing the valley like a hand testing a door.
On the surface, everything was normal.
Underneath, she felt it.
The valley's heartbeat was too fast.
"That makes it worse," she muttered.
Danger that didn't show its shape scared her most.
At the communal hearth, people were already lining up for porridge.
The smell of oats and boiled roots filled the square.
It should have been comforting.
Instead, the air was thick with quiet dread.
She tasted it under every forced smile.
Fear. Old and new.
Eldra Hearthveil handed her a bowl.
Her hands, usually steady, trembled just a little.
"You look tired," Eldra said.
"So do you," Elowen answered.
Their eyes met.
No one said the word raids.
They didn't need to.
Elowen moved to the bench near the well.
Voices drifted from the elders' corner.
Low. Tight.
"…another village emptied," one man murmured.
"East ridge this time."
"Maybe it's just rumors," someone said.
Their hope was thin and brittle.
"Rumors don't leave claw marks on border trees," another snapped.
"Or burn watchtowers."
Elowen's spoon stopped halfway to her mouth.
She hadn't heard that part.
Her stomach clenched.
A younger woman leaned closer to the group.
"What about the ones they take?" she asked in a fast whisper.
"Is it true? About the dens?"
No one answered at first.
Shame rolled off them in waves.
No one wanted to say it out loud.
Elowen didn't want to hear it.
But her empathy pulled her toward the words like a hook.
"Work slaves go to mines," Eldra said.
"Deep pits. No sun. No names."
Everyone knew that part.
They could picture chains and picks and broken backs.
They hated it.
"And the others?" the young woman pressed.
"The pretty ones? The… soft ones?"
Heat burned Elowen's cheeks.
She knew who they meant without saying it.
Girls her age. Girls who looked like her.
Eldra's jaw tightened.
"Beastmen keep them closer," she said.
"For warmth."
The word was too mild.
The feelings under it were not.
Images pushed into Elowen's mind.
Not clear pictures.
Just flashes.
Hot breath on skin that didn't want it.
Laughter that sounded like snarls.
A girl biting back a scream because screaming made them eager.
Revulsion slammed through her.
The bowl shook in her hands.
"Dens," one elder muttered.
"Pleasure dens. Night-warmers and bed-chattel."
Another spat into the dirt.
"They call them 'pets' when they're in a good mood."
"Enough," someone snapped.
"You'll scare the children."
"Maybe they should be scared," another answered.
"So they run if they hear chains."
Elowen stood.
Her legs were unsteady.
Thalor appeared at her side as if the earth had pushed him up.
His staff tapped once on the packed dirt.
"Walk with me," he said.
They left the square together.
Behind them, the murmurs thickened.
Beastmen. Mines. Dens. Lost valleys.
The words followed like a bad smell.
"Too much?" Thalor asked.
"Yes," she said.
"No."
She shook her head, frustrated.
"I don't know."
"You feel everything they try not to admit," he said.
"That's a hard weight."
"It's not just weight," she muttered.
"It's like I can't pretend anymore. I can't say, 'It won't happen here.' Not after hearing all that."
"Good," he said.
She stared.
"Good?"
"Lies make roots shallow," Thalor answered.
"Shallow roots fall with the first hard wind."
He looked toward the oaks.
"The wind is changing. We can't afford lies."
They walked in silence for a while.
Birdsong trailed them half-heartedly.
Even the forest sounded nervous.
At the bend of the stream stood a small hut with gray smoke trickling from its chimney.
Elowen knew the place.
Healer Neris lived there.
"Why here?" she asked.
"Because you asked last season what the dens feel like," Thalor said quietly.
"And I said you weren't ready for the answer."
His gaze was steady.
"You're not ready now either. But the world won't wait for you."
Her throat went dry.
"Neris… was taken?"
"For three winters," Thalor said.
"She came back with more scars inside than out."
Elowen's heart clenched.
"I thought she was just… quiet."
"Quiet can hide many things," he said.
He knocked on the door.
"Enter," a rough voice called.
They stepped inside.
The hut smelled of herbs, smoke, and something sour underneath.
Old fear.
Neris stood by a table, sorting dried leaves into piles.
Her hair was streaked white at the temples though she wasn't yet old.
A faint ring of scar tissue circled her throat.
Collar-mark.
Elowen's chest tightened.
Her empathy reacted before she could brace.
The room lurched.
For a heartbeat, she wasn't in the hut.
She felt a heavy collar cut into her neck.
Rough hands at her shoulders.
Hot breath near her ear.
A deep voice saying, "Mine. You have no name now."
Shame flooded her.
Not her own.
Neris's.
Elowen gasped.
Her hands flew to her own bare throat.
No collar.
Just air.
"Easy," Thalor murmured, steadying her.
His hand was a rock at her back.
"So," Neris said.
"You finally brought her."
Thalor inclined his head.
"The wind has changed."
Neris snorted.
"The wind has been wrong since the first beastman decided humans were toys."
Elowen swallowed.
She forced herself to speak.
"You were… in a den."
Neris's jaw worked.
"Yes."
"Why did they keep you?" Elowen asked.
The question tumbled out.
"I mean… why you and not—"
"Because I screamed nicely," Neris said flatly.
"And because they liked my hair."
Shame punched through Elowen again, sharp and bitter.
Not Neris's this time.
Her own.
"That's wrong," Elowen blurted.
The words felt helpless.
Small.
"Of course it's wrong," Neris snapped.
"That doesn't stop it."
She grabbed a clay jar and set it down hard.
"The wolves want warmth. The lions want display. The boars want obedience."
Her mouth twisted.
"None of them care if the human in their bed is a person or a pillow."
Images slammed into Elowen's mind again.
Not detailed acts.
Just impressions.
A girl forced to laugh at her own degradation.
Another lying still as a corpse so she wouldn't cry.
Hands gripping fur because there was nothing else to hold onto.
Her stomach lurched.
She braced on the table.
"Why are you showing her this?" she whispered to Thalor.
"Why make me feel it?"
"Because raiders don't knock politely," Neris said.
"And beasts don't wait for you to understand them before they break in your door."
Thalor's voice was gentler.
"Your gift is empathy. Untrained, it will drown you. Trained, it might keep you and others alive."
"How?" Elowen asked.
Her voice shook.
"How does feeling their pain save anyone?"
Neris studied her for a long moment.
"You can feel when a mind has snapped," she said at last.
"When someone's about to give up. To lie down and become 'thing' to survive."
A muscle jumped in her cheek.
"I almost did once."
"But I didn't," Neris said.
"Because someone in the next cell cried for me. Not for herself. For me."
She met Elowen's eyes.
"Empathy is a chain too. One we choose."
Elowen nodded slowly.
Her own fear didn't vanish.
But something solid formed under it.
"If they come," she whispered, "they'll want girls like me for dens."
Thalor flinched.
Neris looked away.
"Yes," Neris said bluntly.
"They will."
The words hurt.
They also cleared a fog she'd been hiding in.
"Then I need to know more," Elowen said.
Her hands still shook, but her voice steadied.
"I need to know how they think. What they want. What breaks them. What doesn't."
"Spoken like someone who refuses to be a pillow," Neris muttered.
A grudging respect warmed the air for a moment.
Outside, a horn sounded.
Closer than last night.
Sharpened.
All three of them froze.
The sound cut through the hut like a blade.
It vibrated in the clay walls.
It echoed in Elowen's bones.
Neris went still, every muscle locking.
Old terror flared in her like an old wound ripped open.
Elowen felt it like her own.
"No," Neris whispered.
"Not again."
Thalor moved to the door.
He pushed it open and stepped out, eyes narrowed.
From the doorway, Elowen saw a smear of dark smoke on the horizon.
Too thick for cooking fires.
Too thin for wild storm.
Raid smoke.
Her heart hammered.
Each beat said the same thing.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Thalor's face hardened.
"That's not our valley," he said.
"Not yet."
Yet.
The word felt like a hand closing slowly around her throat.
"They won't stop with that village," she said.
"No," Thalor agreed.
Neris leaned heavily on the table.
Her fear was a raw, open thing.
Her hatred was sharper.
"Listen to me, girl," Neris said.
"If they take you, they'll try to turn you into a thing. A body with no voice."
Elowen met her gaze.
Her own fear pounded loud.
"I won't let them," she said.
Neris's stare didn't soften.
"Good. Make that oath now, while your wrists are still free. It's harder to make it with a collar on."
Elowen looked once more at the rising smoke.
The horn was silent again.
But the wind carried its echo.
If the raids came here, beasts wouldn't want her for the mines.
They would want her warmth. Her body. Her fear.
They would try to chain her mind and skin both.
She felt terror.
She felt shame.
But under them, something else took root.
Hard. Cold. Clear.
If they ever touched her, she would feel every hunger in them.
And she would search that hunger for a weakness.
Empathy would not just be a wound.
It would be her weapon.