Chapter 38 — A Hunt I Was Allowed to Join

  When I woke and stepped outside, the cold hit me immediately.

  Not sharp.

  Heavy.

  The kind that sank into skin and refused to leave.

  I headed toward the stream, but after a few steps, my breath already felt wrong—too shallow, too tight. I drew mana inward, not to burn, but to hold. To keep the cold from stealing what little warmth my body had.

  Even then, it was bitter.

  My feet brushed through the grass, and I froze—not from temperature, but realization.

  The blades were dusted with frozen droplets.

  Not frost.

  Snow—thin, scattered, incomplete.

  Winter had arrived far too fast.

  If this was only the beginning, then when it truly settled in… the forest would disappear beneath white.

  I turned back quickly.

  I had something I needed to do.

  The pack gathered when I called them—not curious, not eager, just attentive. I told them to watch.

  Nothing more.

  I began the same process as the night before.

  Slow.

  Careful.

  Mana gathered. Stone tried to answer.

  I resisted it.

  Held the pressure.

  Time passed.

  I could feel attention fading—ears lowering, tails stilling. Even Lyra’s focus thinned slightly.

  Then—

  A shift.

  A grain.

  No larger than a fingernail, dense enough that the air around it felt… wrong.

  Ears snapped up instantly.

  Lyra’s eyes widened.

  “…Impossible,” she said quietly. “Don’t tell me that’s—”

  She stared at my hand.

  “It took me five moon cycles to learn this,” she said, disbelief creeping into her voice. “And you…”

  The grain slipped from my grasp.

  It struck the stone.

  Clink.

  A clean sound.

  Not stone.

  Not illusion.

  Even Icelan stepped forward, eyes sharp with surprise.

  But when I looked at Kael—and at Cira—

  They weren’t shocked.

  They were watching me.

  Kael stepped closer.

  “That is not possible,” he said flatly. “No creature learns metal shaping in such a short time.”

  His gaze locked onto mine.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  I told them.

  About the memory.

  About what surfaced when I tried to create metal.

  At first, disbelief rippled through the pack. Quiet, restrained—but unmistakable.

  No one spoke immediately.

  They weren’t dismissing what I said.

  They were trying to understand it.

  Something about my explanation didn’t fit into anything they already knew.

  The proof lay between us—small, undeniable.

  Whatever this was, it wasn’t something they had words for yet.

  Kael listened without interruption.

  Then he spoke.

  “If that is true,” he said slowly, “then this will not be the only time it happens.”

  The air felt heavier.

  “Whatever you touched last night… it responded to what you were doing.”

  He looked at me carefully, gaze sharp, searching.

  “You are not learning faster.”

  “You are overlapping.”

  The weight of that settled into my chest.

  Later, while I stood near the edge of the extended farm and looked over the ground I’d marked out, I asked Grey a simple question.

  “Will it snow?”

  He didn’t hesitate.

  “Yes.”

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  That was enough.

  Snow would bury the field if I left it exposed. Whatever I planned to grow here would need protection—something to deflect the weight, something that wouldn’t collapse under it.

  But not yet.

  That could wait.

  Today wasn’t for building.

  Today, I would hunt with the pack.

  It was time to depart.

  I stepped away from the farm and loosened my body, stretching muscles that would soon be pushed hard. Legs. Ankles. Back. I focused on breath and balance, preparing for the long run ahead.

  The forest was already waiting.

  And so was the pack.

  I began running with them.

  Mana flowed into my legs—not to explode with force, but to strengthen them, to hold together under the strain of speed and uneven ground. Even so, my body wasn’t fully adjusted yet. Every step demanded attention.

  As my pace increased, the wolves’ pace did too.

  They had been holding back.

  Not slowing themselves—but matching me.

  And when I pushed harder, they simply adjusted again, effortlessly staying just ahead, just close enough that I wouldn’t fall behind.

  Still… today was different.

  I was better.

  The branches ahead no longer caught me by surprise. I saw them coming, read their angles, slipped past or leapt over them without breaking stride. Rocks scattered across the terrain became tools instead of obstacles—points to plant my foot, to spring from, to steal momentum rather than lose it.

  The forest rushed past in a blur of trunks and shadow.

  While the wolves broke off to deal with other predators—and a few weaker devourers that strayed too close—I didn’t interfere.

  I focused on one thing.

  Running.

  The corrupt mana was moving in our direction, faint but unmistakable. Its presence pressed against my senses like a warning.

  So I pushed faster.

  The ground shifted beneath my feet as the forest began to thin. Trees spaced farther apart. Light filtered through more freely.

  Ahead, the land opened.

  The same hunting ground I had seen days before came into view once again.

  We were back.

  And this time—

  I reached it without falling behind.

  We hadn’t reached the open hunting grounds yet.

  Not because the wolves were slow—but because anything that lived there would sense us long before we arrived, even with their auras suppressed. The land ahead was too open. Too alive.

  Instead, the target revealed itself first.

  A Gravorn.

  The same species they had brought back once before.

  It stood among the trees like a living wall—stone-plated hide, massive forward-curving horns, and a weight that pressed against the earth simply by existing. Even at a distance, I could feel it. The ground around its hooves was already fractured.

  The pups watched from far back, clustered together, Cira standing guard like an immovable shadow.

  I assumed I would be watching today.

  That assumption died quickly.

  Kael turned his head slightly toward me.

  “You will participate.”

  My pulse spiked.

  Then he finished.

  “You will face it alone.”

  For a moment, I genuinely thought I had misunderstood.

  The pack surged forward immediately after—splitting, moving with purpose—drawing the other Gravorns away, intercepting them before they could converge.

  They left me with one.

  A weaker one, comparatively.

  That didn’t make it safe.

  It was still larger than any bull I had seen on Earth. Still capable of killing me in a single mistake.

  I was told only one thing before they moved:

  Earth-based attacks.

  Then I was alone.

  The Gravorn turned toward me.

  Its eyes were dull, heavy, unreadable—but when it moved, the ground answered.

  No strategy. No preparation.

  I attacked with what I had.

  Fire.

  I gathered mana fast—too fast—and compressed it, forcing heat inward until it screamed under the pressure. A sphere of condensed flame formed in my hands, unstable but violent.

  I launched it.

  The fire slammed into the Gravorn’s chest.

  Or rather—

  It hit.

  And did nothing.

  The flames dispersed uselessly across its stone-plated hide.

  But the Gravorn reacted.

  Its head lowered.

  Its breath thundered.

  I had offended it.

  The charge came instantly.

  Not reckless—controlled. Devastating.

  If it hit me, I would die.

  I dodged sideways—

  —and realized too late it was a feint.

  The ground beneath me erupted.

  Jagged stone spikes tore upward without warning, aimed precisely where I would have been a heartbeat later.

  A pressure wrapped around my body—

  Kael.

  Mana lifted me just enough to clear the attack.

  Not intervention.

  Correction.

  The Gravorn stomped again.

  The earth buckled.

  Rocks exploded outward in a wide radius—too fast, too dense, too sharp.

  I would not have survived that.

  Kael’s mana snapped me higher, then released.

  The message was clear:

  You are allowed to fight.

  You are not allowed to die.

  The Gravorn charged again.

  This time, I didn’t retreat.

  My mana attacks weren’t working.

  My enhanced strength wasn’t enough.

  So I chose something else.

  Momentum.

  As it thundered toward me, I stepped in—not back—angling my body, timing everything down to instinct.

  Stone erupted beneath my feet.

  I jumped.

  Barely.

  I caught the Gravorn’s horns.

  The impact nearly ripped my arms from their sockets.

  The Gravorn roared and shook violently, trying to fling me free.

  Pain exploded through my shoulders.

  But I held on.

  I slid down along its neck, using its forward momentum, twisting my body under its mass and pulling sideways with everything I had.

  The Gravorn lost balance.

  Not fully.

  Enough.

  We crashed.

  Both of us.

  The ground tore beneath us as we skidded violently across stone and dirt, flesh and hide grinding against the earth. My body slammed, rolled, scraped—pain flaring everywhere—but I didn’t let go.

  Then we separated.

  I rolled to a stop, barely conscious.

  The Gravorn struggled to rise.

  That was my moment.

  I didn’t feel the pain anymore.

  I gathered mana in front of me—compressed it, shaped it, sharpened it into a brutal spike of stone meant for one purpose.

  Piercing.

  I launched it.

  And layered wind into it.

  Acceleration.

  The stone tore forward like a projectile fired from a siege weapon.

  It hit the Gravorn’s neck.

  And shattered.

  Stone fragments exploded outward.

  The Gravorn staggered—but did not fall.

  My strength vanished.

  My mana collapsed.

  Kael’s presence snapped around me.

  Distance formed instantly between us.

  I barely registered the movement before I realized—

  Kael now stood between me and the Gravorn.

  And the hunt was no longer mine.

  Kael moved.

  There was no warning surge. No roar of power.

  The ground beneath the Gravorn answered him.

  A single spike erupted upward—clean, impossibly precise. Not jagged stone. Not brute force. A razor-edged petal of compressed earth, narrow at the base and widening as it rose, like a blade grown rather than formed.

  It pierced straight through the Gravorn’s throat.

  No struggle.

  No second breath.

  The spike continued upward, splitting bone, exiting through the skull in a spray of shattered stone and darkened blood before halting—perfectly still.

  The Gravorn collapsed without a sound.

  Dead before it understood it had been struck.

  Silence followed.

  Not the uneasy kind—

  the absolute kind.

  Around us, the other Gravorns faltered. Their movements stuttered. Their charges broke. One by one, they turned away—not routed, not panicked, but retreating with instinctive certainty.

  This hunt was over.

  They fled.

  Only then did Kael withdraw his mana. The spike crumbled back into the earth as if it had never existed.

  I stared at the fallen Gravorn.

  At the wound.

  At how clean it was.

  My breath slowed as the moment replayed in my mind—my final attack. The stone spike. The wind reinforcing it. The impact that should have mattered more than it did.

  If my control had been higher…

  If my shaping had been sharper…

  If the stone itself had been stronger—

  Not different.

  Just better.

  The outcome might not have changed.

  Or it might have.

  I couldn’t know yet.

  But the failure wasn’t the element.

  It was me.

  That thought settled deep, heavy but steady.

  Stone hadn’t betrayed me.

  I simply hadn’t reached far enough yet.

  And one day—

  I would.

  As I watched the Gravorn fall, its massive body collapsing into the torn earth, my hand brushed against something unusual.

  Solid.

  I looked down.

  It was shaped like wheat—but far larger than it should have been. About the size of a walnut.

  I turned it over in my fingers immediately.

  A real grain.

  Not a seed pod. Not a mutation. Not mana-formed.

  Grain.

  I lifted my head and scanned the ground.

  There.

  The plant.

  Several stalks stood nearby, their heads heavy, bent low. The shockwaves from the fight had scattered the grains across the soil—some cracked, some buried, some intact.

  I knelt without thinking and gathered the dry ones carefully, brushing dirt away and tucking them close. These weren’t for eating.

  These were for planting.

  Kael finished the hunt without ceremony. Mana folded around the Gravorn’s body, space compressing cleanly as he stored it away. When he turned, the tension bled out of the clearing all at once.

  We returned to where Cira and the pups had been watching.

  Their reactions were immediate.

  Wide eyes. Raised ears. Tails flicking with excitement.

  Flint bounced in place first.

  “The way you spun around the Gravorn,” he said, eyes bright. “That was so cool!”

  Raze nodded hard.

  “Right. You made it fall.”

  Cera stared at me with open admiration.

  “You were really strong.”

  I felt a faint, uncomfortable warmth in my chest.

  “…Thanks,” I said honestly. “But I still lost.”

  Cira didn’t hesitate.

  “We never expected you to defeat a Gravorn,” she said calmly. “That wasn’t the point. It was for experience. For learning how hunts feel.”

  Flint’s ears perked even higher.

  “So I can hunt next time too?”

  Cira didn’t even look at him.

  “Absolutely not. You’re too young.”

  Flint deflated instantly.

  I hid a smile.