Jax Thorneguard's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Jax Thorneguard had hunted the enemy commander for six days, and he still had no idea where the man was hiding. He remembered a war no one else did. He remembered the commander's face from a battlefield that had turned to dust centuries ago. Now that same foe walked this world again, hunting the woman Jax had bound his soul to. Every wasted day pulled the enemy closer to Lyra. So Jax stopped waiting for a trail. He went looking for one that could not lie. He left the cabin before dark. Its amber windows glowed behind him, warm and false with safety. He would not sleep under that roof again until he knew the danger's shape. The forest swallowed the light. He drew his runed cloak tight, its marks dim now, saving their power for later. He found what he wanted at the base of an old tree. A black panther lay dead there, vines fused through its muscle, its thorned tail limp. Something had killed it and left the kill. Jax crouched and pressed two fingers to the wet earth beside it. The commander's beasts always fed. This one had been slain and abandoned, a message left for anyone who could read it. A branch cracked. Jax rose without turning. The second creature stepped from the dark. Bark-black hide, pink veins glowing under the skin, crimson flowers along its spine. Its mouth opened, lined with petal-shaped blades. It did not attack. It watched him, and behind its magenta eyes Jax saw something older than an animal. A leash. A handler. "He sent you to find me," Jax said. "He wants me looking the wrong way." The thornstalker lunged. Jax caught its jaws on his forearm, cloak runes flaring white. The blades tore fabric, not flesh. He drove his knee up, twisted, and slammed the beast into the tree. It shrieked. A pink frog leapt from the roots and vanished into the ferns. Jax pinned the creature and found the collar beneath its flowers, a strip of woven leather stamped with a mark he knew. The mark named a place. A ridge to the north, above the tree line, where the old war had ended. The commander had gone back to the one ground he trusted. He was not drifting toward Lyra by chance. He was building his strength there first, and he had baited Jax to keep him searching in the trees. Jax broke the creature's neck and stood. He had his answer. The enemy was on the northern ridge. But the bait told him something worse. The commander knew Jax was hunting. He was ready. And the moment Jax rode north, he would leave Lyra behind, alone, with no runed cloak and no guardian between her and whatever else the commander had already sent toward the village.