Veyla Shadewhisper's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The trail split at a fallen Silvershade Tree, its silver-blue glow washing both paths. Veyla knelt where the ground forked. The alpha's dragging foot had scored the soil left and right, one drag down each path. She could not tell which mark was fresh. Her spear glowed sick green in her grip. The green-capped toxin dried at its own pace. Guess wrong, and she would waste its strength on the walk back. She pressed her ear to the cold soil. Wind moved the leaves. A spring bubbled far off. No wingbeats. Both paths ran quiet. Her eyes had brought her here, and her eyes lied. She sat back and shut them. A shape moved between the trees. Veyla dropped low. Then she saw the toxin-glow of a second spear, and the hunched form crouched over a fungal cluster, scraping gills with a carved tool. Seren Velyx. They hunted the springs alone, chasing a stalker of their own. Veyla had shared a harvest circle with them once. Seren had not spoken the whole time. They did not speak now either, only lifted their chin toward her spear. "That's not deathcap," Seren said. "No." Veyla crouched beside them. "I lost the alpha at the fork. Both drags read the same." Seren capped their container. They rolled their left forearm into the light. A patch of skin stayed dark where the glow should run. "Mist did that. Two days numb." They said it flat, then let the arm drop. "You don't smell it. You hear it. So listen for what a big body does to a small one." Veyla frowned. Seren pointed down the left path, then the right. "Prey scatters from the killer. Follow the empty path." Veyla shut her eyes again. Down the left path, glowflies droned thick and steady. Insects at rest. Down the right path, nothing. No droning. No small wings. Silence, the way a room goes silent when a predator enters it. The alpha had cleared the right path of everything alive. "Right," Veyla said. She opened her eyes. Seren was already turning back to their fungi. "Then go right." Veyla went. The right path narrowed and climbed. The silence held, and then it broke. Wingbeats, slow and heavy, the sound she knew over fresh kills. She froze behind a trunk. Ahead, the alpha perched on a broken Silvershade, wings folded, violet plumage swallowing the glow. Its dragging foot hung crooked beneath it. The toxin on her spear still shone bright and wet. She had not wasted it. She had found the alpha. But the perch sat high, past any thrown spear, and the creature faced her way. Its luminous eyes swept the trees. One noise now and it would take wing. Veyla pressed flat to the trunk and held her breath. She had the poison. She had the target. She did not yet have the shot.