Sir Aldric Thornhaven knelt in the cold mud and pressed two fingers to the dead man's throat. No pulse. The farmer lay near his broken fence, chest torn open. Aldric had sworn to keep Floeridge safe from the Fel beasts of the wild. As Captain of the Guard, he had walked the outer walls that very morning. Now something had slipped past them, and a man was dead. The claw marks in the dirt were wide and deep. Aldric measured one against his gloved hand. The beast stood tall, and it moved fast. He followed the tracks to the fence line, where they stopped. Rain had washed the trail away past that point. If he could not find the beast's path, it would strike again by nightfall. A woman stood at the farmhouse door, watching him. The dead man's wife. She wore a stained apron and heavy boots, and her hands would not stay still. She was the only one who had seen it. "Mistress Harwell," Aldric said. He rose and kept his voice low. "I am sorry. I need to know what you saw." Ruth Harwell did not cry. She stared past him at the body. "It came from the trees. Low to the ground. Gray, like ash." Her voice shook, but she pushed on. "It went back that way when it was done. Toward the water. Not the road." Aldric turned. The tracks by the fence pointed toward the road, away from the water. "You are certain?" "I watched my husband die," she said. "I am certain." He believed her. The clear tracks were a false trail. The beast had doubled back to hide its true path. Aldric walked past the fence toward the stream, ignoring the marks he was meant to follow. Twenty paces on, he found it: a single print in the soft bank, toes turned toward the water. Then another. The trail ran along the stream, hidden by reeds. He followed it until the light began to fail. The prints led to a low cave mouth beneath a rise of stone. Bones lay scattered at the entrance, some old, some fresh. This was no lone hunter passing through. The beast had made a den inside his walls. Aldric crouched and studied the ground. He counted the prints. Large ones, and smaller beside them. Not one beast. Several. A grown Fel and its young. He drew his sword an inch, then let it fall back. One knight could not clear a den alone, not in the dark. He marked the place in his memory and turned back toward town. The Lampshingle Tavern glowed ahead, its lamp bright against the coming night. His men would be there. He would need every one of them. Aldric had found the trail. But the danger was no longer a single beast on the loose. A whole nest of them nested behind his walls, and morning would come too slowly.

The tavern was warm and loud when Aldric pushed through the door. His guards filled two tables near the fire. He set his gloved hands flat on the wood and told them what he had found. A den. A mother Fel and her young, beneath the stone rise by the stream. Silence spread across the room. His men were fighters, not woodsmen. Not one of them knew that ground. "I need someone who can lead us to the cave mouth in the dark," Aldric said. "The reeds hide the trail. A wrong turn and we lose the whole morning." No one spoke. His youngest guard studied his boots. The stone rise was a maze of gullies and false banks. Aldric knew the way once, in daylight. He could not swear to find it again before dawn. A serving woman set down a tray of cups. She had bright eyes and a red dress laced tight at the waist, and she was grinning at him. "You're all sitting here glum as wet dogs," she said. "Over a hole in the ground." She was the tavern girl who poured for half the town. She wiped her hands on her apron and leaned against the table like she owned it. "It is more than a hole," Aldric said. "And I have no one to guide me to it." "Then you've been asking the wrong table." The girl jerked her chin toward the corner. A woman sat alone there, a cup untouched before her. Ruth Harwell. The farmer's widow. Aldric had not seen her come in. "That one grew up on the stream," the serving girl said. "Trapped rabbits under that rise before you wore that fancy armor, Captain." Aldric crossed the room. Ruth did not look up. Her hands lay still on the table for once. "Mistress Harwell," he said. "Is it true? You know the stone rise?" "Every gully." Her voice was flat. "My husband and I ran lines there for years." She finally met his eyes. "You mean to kill the thing that killed him." "I mean to kill all of them," Aldric said. "But I cannot find the den in the dark. Not without you." A blue-furred cat wound between the table legs, its white tail brushing Ruth's boot. She reached down and touched its head, and something in her face eased. "I'll take you," she said. "At first light. I know the safe banks and the ones that give way." She stood. "But I lead. You keep your men behind me until I say." "Agreed." Aldric felt the weight lift from his chest. He had his scout. Ruth pulled her shawl tight. "There's mud on the low path. Bring rope." She walked past him toward the door, and his guards watched her go. She was no longer only the woman who had seen the beast. She was the one who would take them to its door.

At first light the party reached the stream. Ruth crouched at the muddy bank and went still. Aldric knelt beside her. Fresh drag-marks scored the earth, deep and wide, pointing away from the den. Something heavy had been hauled down to the water in the dark. "The mother hunted overnight," Ruth said. "She dragged a kill back this way." Her jaw tightened. "She may not be in the den when we get there." Aldric weighed it. A den with only the young was easier to clear. But a mother Fel loose in the reeds could circle behind them. "Then we move now," he said. "Before she returns." He waved his guards forward. Ruth caught his sleeve and held it. "You said you'd follow me. The near bank gives way. We take the ridge." A voice cut in from above. "Or you follow the marks." A young woman sat on the stone rise, legs hanging over the edge, twin daggers on her hips. Black suit, black ponytail. Aldric's hand went to his sword. He had never seen her, and no one had heard her climb. "Easy, Captain. I've been up here since dark." She dropped down light as a cat. "There's a green stone in that cave. Glows. I came for it. Then I heard the beast leave." "You're a thief," Aldric said. "Raven," she said. "And I watched the mother go north an hour ago. She hasn't come back." She jerked her chin at the drag-marks. "That's an old kill, dragged out, not in. Your widow's half right. The den's empty of the big one." Ruth stood. "You don't know these banks." "No," Raven said. "But I know the cave's open and the mother's gone. That won't last." She looked at Aldric. "You want the young dead, you go now." Aldric decided fast. "Ruth leads. You watch the north for the mother. Call if she turns back." Raven shrugged and slipped ahead along the ridge. Ruth guided them down a firm shelf of rock, past the bank that would have swallowed a man. The cave mouth opened black beneath the rise. Inside, the young Fel huddled in a nest of bones. Two of them, half-grown, teeth already long. They came at the men snarling. Aldric met the first with the heavy sword and cut it down. His guards took the second against the wall. It was done in moments. Then Raven's voice rang from the ridge. "She's coming. Fast." The mother had heard her young die. Aldric turned toward the light. A green glow caught his eye deep in the nest, a gem cut with pale fire, humming under his boots. The thief had not lied. But there was no time for it now. Outside, something huge crashed through the reeds, and the ground shook. The young were dead. The mother was between them and the town.

The dead young Fel lay in the nest behind Aldric. Outside, the mother filled the cave mouth. She was twice the size of her offspring, black-furred, teeth wet. Her eyes fixed on the men who had killed her young. The only way out was the way she blocked. Aldric raised the heavy sword. He knew it was not enough. She would reach him before he cut deep. His guards pressed to the walls. The mother crept forward, low and slow. Aldric backed a step. His boot struck something hard. The green gem in the nest. It hummed against his heel, its pale light crawling up the cave wall like smoke. A shape dropped from the rise above the cave mouth. Raven landed light behind the mother, daggers already drawn. She had followed the beast down instead of running. "You can't win this straight, Captain," she called. "Split her." Aldric understood. "Draw her eyes," he said. "I take the neck." Raven whistled sharp. The mother twisted toward her. Raven danced back into the light, slashing at the beast's flank, quick as a fly the hand can't catch. The mother swung a paw. Raven was already gone. But the cave was tight. The next swing caught her arm and threw her into the wall. She dropped hard and did not rise fast. The mother turned back to Aldric, her side now open. He had one heartbeat. He drove the heavy sword up under her jaw with both hands. Bone cracked. The beast screamed and reared, wrenching the blade from his grip. She crashed down on the nest. Her weight snapped the green gem beneath her. The stone burst. A wave of cold light rolled through the cave. It struck the mother and she froze mid-thrash, muscles locked, eyes wide. Frost spread across her black fur. For three breaths she stood like grey stone. Then she toppled, dead, the sword still buried in her throat. Silence. Dust and pale sparks drifted down. Aldric pulled his blade free and stood over the body, chest heaving. He crossed to Raven and knelt. She held her arm against her ribs, teeth clenched. "You came back down," he said. "You could have run." "Running left you dead," she said. "Dead men don't pay." But she looked at the shattered gem on the cave floor, and her face changed. The green stone was gone. Only broken shards remained, their light fading. Aldric followed her eyes. The thing that saved them had also destroyed her score. He gathered the largest shard. It still hummed faint, and the frost had not fully melted from the mother's fur. This was no ordinary gem. Whatever slept in it had killed a Fel in one breath. "The den is clear," Aldric said. He closed his fist around the shard. "But this needs answers. And someone in Floeridge will want to know what breaks a stone like this open."

The dead mother Fel cooled in the nest behind them. Aldric held the largest green shard in his fist. It still hummed against his palm. Raven was already moving toward the cave mouth, one arm pressed to her ribs. She meant to leave. He could see it. She had come for a payday, and the stone that broke had taken it from her. "Wait," Aldric said. Raven did not stop. "Den's clear. You don't need me now." "I need to know what this is." He stepped after her into the daylight. "You watched this cave for days. You knew the beast's habits. You know things I don't." She turned. Her face was flat. "I know it was worth a year's coin whole. Now it's gravel." She flicked a hand at the shard. "You broke my payday, Captain. Not much left to talk about." Aldric had no coin to match a year's score. He had lost men to Fel breaches. He had buried three captains before him. He knew the shard mattered more than gold, and he could not let her walk off with what she knew. "You saw it before I did," he said. "In the nest. Before the fight. Tell me what you saw, and I'll pay for the telling. Guard's coin. It won't match a whole stone. But it's real, and it's now." Raven watched him. A thief measures a mark fast. He let her measure. "There were two," she said at last. "Not one gem. The mother kept the second deeper in the nest. Smaller. Blue, not green." She nodded at his fist. "That one you smashed lit up when your steel touched it. The blue one didn't. It just sat there. Cold." Aldric went still. "Where is the blue stone now?" "Where you left it." She almost smiled. "You were too busy not dying to look." He ducked back into the cave. He dug through the frost-stiff fur and the ruin of the nest. His hand closed on something smooth and cold. He drew it out. A blue gem, whole, unbroken. It did not hum. It sat quiet in his palm like a held breath. He carried it into the light. Raven leaned against the stone rise, watching. "That one's worth more than the green," she said. "Whole always is." "Then you'll want to see where it goes." Aldric held her eyes. "Ride back to Floeridge with me. Help me learn what these stones are. I'll pay your keep, and if there's coin at the end of it, you get a cut. A real one." Raven pushed off the rock. She looked at the blue gem, then at him. Greed and doubt fought in her face. "One cut," she said. "And I walk when I want." "Agreed." She fell into step beside him. Aldric closed his fist around the whole blue stone. He had kept her. Now he had two mysteries to answer, and no idea what the unbroken one would do.