Only when the last traces of twilight bled from the sky did they dare to leave. Lanterns stayed dim. Voices stayed low. They stuck to the side trails and never ran in a straight line.
They didn't stop moving.
Branches snapped behind them as Theo and Nathan sprinted through the underbrush, ducking low-hanging limbs, leaping over gnarled roots.
Only when the outline of Elias's cabin flickered in the distance—did the sounds finally fade did they slow down.
Theo was breathing hard, hands on his knees when they reached the clearing. "Okay," he gasped, "so... that wasn't just a big animal."
"No," Nathan said, staring into the treeline. "It wasn't."
Inside, Elias was already packing a satchel when they burst in. "Saw it from here," he said grimly. "Didn't get a good look, but the way the trees moved... you shouldn't have come back alive."
Nathan didn't answer. He just pulled a scrap of bloodied cloth from his satchel—the piece he'd torn off when the beast had swiped past him—and dropped it onto the table.
Elias paled. "Is that hide?"
Nathan nodded.
Theo crossed his arms. "Whatever it is, it's hunting too close to the road. We need to warn the Order."
"Already on it," Elias said, grabbing a messenger bird from a small cage and tying a note to its leg. "But you two need to move. Now."
They rode hard through the night, Theo borrowing one of Elias's horses. Nathan barely spoke the entire way back, his mind replaying the encounter. The thing's massive silhouette. Its unnatural speed. The air thickening with something heavier than fear.
The Holy Order's outpost in Aramore was alive with movement when they returned. Sirah was waiting at the gate, armor half-donned, eyes narrowed.
"You're late."
Nathan dismounted. "We found it."
Theo tossed her the scroll Elias had marked. "Tracks. A hide fragment."
She scanned it, then looked at Nathan. "Injuries?"
"Not serious."
Within the hour, they stood inside the central chamber around the orb. It flickered with shifting outlines of the surrounding region, glowing red where the creature had been seen. Commander Feryn—older than Sirah, face lined like cracked leather—stood at the edge of the table, arms crossed. A scholar in deep blue robes examined the cloth sample under a magnifier rune.
"You're certain this came from the creature?" Feryn asked.
Nathan nodded. "We were close. Too close."
The scholar exhaled, stepping back from the rune.
"It's not just a beast," he said. "The hide pattern matches descriptions from over a century ago. The silver-black etching, the layered bone plating… This is Varanthas."
Sirah froze. "Impossible. Varanthas was hunted to extinction."
"So were the shadowdrakes," the scholar said. "And yet we lost half a battalion to one in the northern cliffs three years ago."
Theo blinked. "Okay, wait—what the hell is Varanthas?"
"A predator," Feryn said. "Ancient. Bred during the Collapse Era. They don't eat to survive. They hunt to cleanse. Territories miles wide, and they remember grudges."
Nathan's jaw tightened. "It didn't look lost. It looked like it was tracking something."
The orb pulsed red again, a heartbeat across the map.
"The question isn't why it's here," Feryn muttered. "The question is what drove it this far south."
Silence fell across the room.
Then Sirah spoke. "We'll send scouts to confirm. If more show up, we need to prepare. Nathan, Theo—you two are off duty for the next day. Rest. Then you're back on this."
Nathan looked at the fading red shimmer on the orb.
The room emptied around him—Theo offered a quiet pat on the shoulder before heading out, and even Arlen stopped joking long enough to give him a glance that felt like respect.
But Nathan stayed still.
The threads of the map still pulsed faintly beneath the glass, whispering possibilities, routes, warnings only half-seen. He couldn't shake the weight in his chest—the feeling that whatever they'd stumbled across in the woods wasn't done with them yet.
Not even close.
And when it returned—because it would—he needed to be ready.