Branches snap behind you.

You don’t dare look back—every breath burns, the seal in your chest flaring with sickening heat. The hunters are close. Too close. The forest closes in, paths twisting wrong, roots grabbing at your feet as if the land itself is undecided about you.

You stumble into a glade lit by dying sunlight.

A man stands there, calm as stone, leaning on a staff carved with symbols you don’t recognize. He doesn’t reach for a weapon. He doesn’t run.

His gaze flicks once—past you, toward the approaching sound of pursuit. The wind shifts.

“Stay,” he says, not loudly, but with finality.

When the hunters arrive, the glade is empty.

Later, you wake wrapped in furs, the scent of smoke and fox herbs thick in the air.

Golden eyes watch you from across the fire.

“The land chose,” he tells you quietly. “Now we must live with that.”