Thalen Corveil had never felt smaller in his life.
Not when his father abandoned him at the war college gates.
Not when he stood on the dueling field, bruised and bleeding as richer boys laughed.
Not even when he faced that flaming panther.
It was the look in the beast's eyes—that colossal, ancient wolf—the moment before it vanished. That was what shook him. It hadn't looked at him with rage. Or pity. Or anything human.
It looked at him the way a mountain might observe a leaf.
Now he couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. Could barely think.
He packed before dawn. No fanfare. No armor. Just his sword, his boots, a waterskin, and a crust of dry bread.
No one tried to stop him. Not really. Not after what they'd seen.
The Vale was colder than before.
Thalen followed his memory, then instinct. The moss was flattened where paws had passed. Trees bore faint burns—clean, precise. Where the magical beast had died, the grass refused to regrow. It was like the world remembered what happened.
Thalen walked for hours, deeper than he'd dared before.
The birds didn't return. But something was always watching.
He reached the clearing just as the sun began to fade. Mist clung to the tree roots like old ghosts.
He called out, once. "I know you're there."
Nothing.
Then he knelt, laying his sword across his knees.
"I didn't come to worship," he said. "Or beg."
The wind shifted.
Behind him, trees stirred.
A shape passed between trunks. Silent. Fluid.
Then he was there.
Zacian stepped into the clearing like a wraith made of silk and steel. His eyes glowed in the gloom. The sword at his side did not float now—it drifted, coiled in slow, precise circles as if tasting the air.
Thalen turned his head slightly. "You saved me."
Zacian didn't speak. Not yet.
Instead, he circled Thalen once. Each pawstep was deliberate, impossibly quiet for something so large. The blade rotated with him, edge gleaming in flickers of pale light.
Then—without warning—he struck.
Thalen's body moved before his mind did. He rolled sideways, barely dodging a sweep of the glowing blade. The air hissed as it passed.
Zacian didn't stop. He moved like water with the memory of fire, testing, measuring.
Thalen drew his sword. Raised it in a textbook guard. Blocked the next strike. Slipped on the third.
Zacian was everywhere. Graceful. Inevitable.
Thalen lost his blade after seven exchanges. It flew into the brush. He hit the ground hard.
He didn't scream. Didn't plead.
He just looked up, breathing ragged, waiting for the kill.
Zacian stopped a hair's breadth away, his blade poised like a comet frozen mid-flight.
Then his voice came—not spoken, not thunderous. Just… there. Inside Thalen's skull. Calm. Final.
"You move like a thought. Loud. Unfocused. Unworthy."
Thalen coughed. "Then why am I alive?"
The golden eyes narrowed.
"Because the world is cruel. And I am not."
Zacian stepped back.
Thalen sat up slowly, arms shaking. "You… you're not just a beast."
Zacian's gaze didn't change.
"Beasts do not need to explain themselves."
Thalen dared a smile, blood in his teeth. "But you speak like a man."
A pause. Long and cold.
Then:
"I remember being smaller. But not weaker."
The sword floated beside him again, gleaming like a second moon.
Thalen stood. Unsteady, but tall. "You could have killed me. You still could."
Zacian turned to leave.
"Return tomorrow. If you are still alive by then, I will teach you."
"Why?" Thalen called after him.
The wolf paused.
"Because you looked at me. And didn't close your eyes."
And then he was gone, vanished between trees as the mist swallowed him.
High in the trees, several glowing eyes blinked shut.
The forest, once silent, began to stir again.
And far to the east, on a spire of cracked obsidian, Vundra felt a flicker of unease. Not fear.
But expectation.
The Swordwolf had chosen a boy.
That meant the world might soon choose sides.