The storm hadn't broken.
By the tenth day, it was clear: the snow wasn't just weather—it was a warning. Something in the land had turned against them.
The death came quietly.
A young sentry named Thalen, barely seventeen. He had gone out at dawn to check the outer watchpoints. When they found him, he was upright—frozen stiff in a standing position, his eyes wide open.
There was no blood.No wound.Only two tiny puncture marks at his throat.
Zareena stood over the body in the candlelit infirmary, her hands still and cold.
"What could do this?" someone whispered."Starvation?""Some beast?"
But the healer shook his head. "He didn't starve. His heart stopped fast—like it was… drained."
Zareena said nothing. Her gaze lingered on the boy's neck, on those strange, precise marks. As if something had taken only what it wanted, and left the rest behind.
Later, she called for the gate logs. No entry. No signs of passage.
Then came the second sign.
That evening, Renna the watchguard reported something strange—a figure in the trees. Not a beast. Not one of theirs. Tall, unmoving, wrapped in black.
"No breath in the air," Renna whispered. "No shadow. I swear, Lady Zareena… it was watching us."
The figure vanished the moment eyes touched it.
That night, Zareena couldn't sleep.
She sat at the high window of her chamber, watching the forest line below. The frost fog drifted, soft as breath. Silence wrapped around the fort like a cloak.
But something in that silence felt wrong.
Then—a flicker.
Far below, at the edge of the trees: a glint of silver. A figure, tall and still, half-shrouded in snow and pine. She couldn't see a face, but she felt the weight of its gaze.
It was not human.
It didn't need to speak.
It wanted her to know it was there.
Zareena didn't look away.
She didn't run.
She simply whispered, to no one at all:
"You're late, aren't you? The monsters always arrive when we're at our weakest."
The figure vanished like mist.
And far away, under the trees, a voice said softly:
"She sees."