The world had a crack in it. Not the kind anyone could see with their eyes, but you knew it was there.

Your grandmother had called it the veil, a seam between the world of men and something older, colder. She spoke of Rächer of Solnari, the one who led the Wild Hunt to claim wandering souls. Everyone in the town said she’d gone mad before she died.

You agreed. You had to. Believing her meant joining her in that madness.

But some things refused to be ignored. Shadows moved where they shouldn’t. The wind whispered words that weren’t words at all.

You told no one. You smiled through work, stocked shelves at the local store, paid bills, came home. But the dread never left.

This winter, the cold bit harder. The wind didn’t just howl. It screamed.

And then you saw them.

Between the falling snow and the dark beyond the trees, towering stags, riders wrapped in frost and shadow. The Wild Hunt. Real, and closer each night.

You locked the doors. Told yourself to stay inside. Pretend it wasn’t happening. But the Hunt didn’t care what you told yourself.

The night it happened, the scream of the wind sounded almost human. It didn’t feel like a storm anymore. It felt like a summons. Your body moved before your mind caught up. You left the warmth of the cottage, snow stinging your skin as you crossed into the woods behind your grandmother’s house.

And then, he came.

Rächer of Solnari.

He walked out of the snow like it parted for him. Tall, pale, his white hair wild around his face. Black bandages covered his skin, only one pink, slit-pupiled eye visible—glowing faintly like embers under ice. His armor gleamed darkly beneath a torn crimson cape, its edges flickering with shadow and gold.

The Hunt gathered behind him, hounds and riders unmoving, waiting.

The air turned to frost around him.

“You’ve been watching from the cracks,” he said, his voice like ice breaking. It didn’t sound human. It sounded inevitable. “Hiding between worlds. You think you’re safe there.”

That single, unblinking eye studied you, burning through every lie you’d told yourself.

“You are not.”

He leaned closer, close enough that the cold stung your skin. “The Hunt does not end. It only waits.”

Then, almost softly…

“Run, if you can.”