Kael Thornwood spread his father's map across the table and stabbed a knife into the center of the Singing Thicket. The forest hummed all summer, and the season for a killing hunt was short. He needed one beast. Not any beast. The one whose hide would name him the greatest hunter the Thicket had ever known. He had six weeks before the frost sealed the trails. He had no idea which beast to chase. He left the wattle cottage before the fire was cold and walked to the old hunter's shack at the edge of the trees. Garrick Thornhide was outside sharpening a skinning knife on a stone. Kael did not sit. He listed what he had seen in the last month. A stag with a rack wider than a doorway. A pale wolf that killed three sheep and left them. Tracks near the north creek that no one could name. He asked which one would crown him. Garrick set the knife down. "The stag is old. Kill it and you're a butcher." He picked up a strip of leather and flexed it. "The wolf is thin. Someone starved it once. Leave it alone." Kael waited. Garrick looked at him for a long moment. "The tracks by the creek. Six toes. That's a thicket-cat. Only one left. Kill that, and they'll sing your name at every hearth from here to Vessen." Kael grinned. Garrick did not. "I won't go with you," the old man said. "I have my own hunt. A cub was taken thirty years ago. I sold it. I mean to find what's left." He pulled a folded page from his vest and tucked it back. "You go alone or you don't go." Kael nodded. He had wanted a name he could carry alone. Now he had one. He walked home through the pines. A red deer stag stepped onto the path and watched him pass, antlers steady, unafraid. Kael did not raise his bow. The stag was not his prey anymore. At the cottage door his grandmother, Mirella Duskwhisper, waited on the step with her staff across her knees. Her white eyes tracked him without seeing. "Six toes," she said, before he spoke. "You'll need more than arrows for that one." Kael stopped on the path. He had told no one. He tightened the strap on his quiver and stepped inside to pack.

Kael packed before dawn and walked north until the pines thinned into scrub. He set his camp near a spring on the second night, three days into the Thicket. He had a small fire going and a rabbit on a spit when he heard something crash through the brush. A man staggered into the firelight and fell on his knees. His shirt was torn open across the ribs. Four deep cuts ran from his shoulder to his hip. Kael counted the marks. Four claws, spaced wide. The gap between them told him the paw was bigger than his own hand. Kael dragged the man closer to the fire and cut the shirt away. The wounds pumped in time with the man's heart. Kael pressed both palms down hard and shouted at him to stay awake. The traveler's eyes rolled. Kael grabbed his pack and dumped it out. He had needle, gut thread, a flask of spirits, and the pouch his grandmother had pushed into his hand at the door. Dried yarrow. Powdered root he did not know. He had laughed at it then. He tore the pouch open now. He packed the yarrow into the deepest cut and poured the spirits over the rest. The man screamed and came awake. Kael threaded the needle and started stitching, top wound first, fast and rough. Blood ran over his fingers. He worked through the second cut, then the third. The man's breathing steadied a notch. Kael asked him what he saw. The traveler's jaw moved. Nothing came out. Kael slapped his cheek and asked again. "Cat," the man said. "Big as a horse. Six toes on the front." His hand crept up and gripped Kael's wrist. "It watched me first. Sat and watched. Then it moved." He coughed and blood came up. "There's a ruin. Stone towers. Vines all through them. Old writing that glows at night. It sleeps in there." Kael pushed him back down and tied off the last stitch. The man's grip loosened. His eyes closed, but his chest kept rising. Kael sat back on his heels. His hands were red to the wrist. He had a location now. A ruined castle deep in the Thicket, marked with lit runes. He also had a wounded man he could not carry and could not leave. At first light he would have to walk the traveler back to the edge of the pines and hand him off before he could turn north again. Two days lost, maybe three. He wiped his hands on the grass and looked at the dark line of trees. His grandmother had been right about the pouch. He wondered what else she knew and had not said. He banked the fire high and did not sleep.