Killian Allenwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

The raven had circled Killian's camp for three days. On the fourth morning, he stopped pretending it was chance. He crouched by the cold fire and counted what he had. Bow. Twelve arrows. A folded scrap of parchment with one name on it — the name a stranger had pressed into his palm at a tavern six nights ago, then vanished before sunrise. Killian had not killed the man. Someone else had wanted that name buried. Seven years of hunting the people who slaughtered his family, and this was the closest he had come. He would not lose it to a bird. The raven perched on a low branch above the ash pit. Sleek black feathers. Red eyes fixed on him. It did not startle when he stood. That told him enough. Trained. Someone's messenger. Someone's eyes. Killian drew an arrow slow and set it to the string. The raven tilted its head, curious, almost patient. He aimed. He held. A growl behind him. He turned without lowering the bow. A wolf stood at the tree line, black-furred, yellow-eyed, close enough that he should have heard it approach and hadn't. It was not looking at him. It was looking at the raven. The wolf lunged. The branch shook. Feathers scattered. The raven shrieked once and broke skyward, one wing dragging. It cleared the trees and was gone north. Killian kept the arrow nocked and turned the point on the wolf. The wolf sat. Yellow eyes on him. Not panting. Not circling. Waiting. "Whose are you," Killian said. The wolf did not move. He stepped sideways to the ash pit and toed apart the cold logs. Under the third log lay something that had not been there when he banked the fire last night. A small iron token, black, stamped with a mark he had seen once before — on a strap of leather at the massacre site, seven years ago. He had carried the memory of that mark like a splinter under the nail. His hand shook. He closed it around the token. The wolf stood and walked three paces north, the direction the raven had flown. It stopped. Looked back. Killian understood two things at once. The watcher knew where he slept. And something else knew the watcher. He could run south and lose both. He could follow the wolf and lose the choice of being hunted alone. The name in his pocket was a thread. The token was a second thread. The wolf was offering a third, and threads were what he had traded seven silent years to find. He kicked dirt over the pit. Shouldered his quiver. Slung the bow. "Slow," he told the wolf. "I shoot what I don't trust." The wolf started north at a walk. Killian followed, arrow still on the string, the raven's shriek still in his ears, and the name in his pocket suddenly the smaller of his problems.