Veyla Shadewhisper coated her spear tip one slow pass at a time, the way her trainer taught her before a bad dose cost him two fingers. The toxin glowed faint purple under the twilight canopy. She had tracked this Gloomstalker's dragging foot for half a cycle, and she meant to kill it. But this was not a normal Gloomstalker. It was the alpha, the one whose hunts had emptied three settlements and left their people counting their last stores of food. She pressed her ear to the cold soil and listened. Wingbeats, slow and heavy. The alpha roosted somewhere above the village huts. Veyla had heard those wings before, over a fresh kill, and she knew the truth in her gut. Her spear coating would not be enough. On a normal stalker, one full dose barely slowed the legs. This creature carried twice the bulk. It would shrug off anything she could scrape from her containers tonight. She went to the one person who might know a stronger poison. Silvaeth Dreamcaller, the seer who guided the dying through Venara toxin so they could return. Veyla found her outside her hut, sorting sealed containers by the glow of a fungal lamp. Silvaeth did not look up. "Ask it," Silvaeth said. "My dose won't drop the alpha," Veyla said. "It's too big." Silvaeth set down a container. "Then don't use the deathcap." She reached into a fold of her cloak and drew out a tiny cluster of mushrooms, green caps dotted with yellow, glowing sick and bright. "This kills a plainsstalker with one wound. It will drop your alpha." Veyla did not take it. "Your last patient. The Venara dose that went wrong." "He survived," Silvaeth said. She said it first, like she always did. Then, after a beat: "Three days. I did not sleep for any of them." Her hands stayed steady on the cluster. "This one is worse. Prick your own skin and you will not wake. Not even I could pull you back." Veyla held out her palm. "I trust my hands." Silvaeth studied her a long moment. Then she pressed the cluster into Veyla's grip and closed the fingers over it. "One pass. No more. Coat it and set it down." Veyla worked in the dark outside her own hut. She crushed a single cap and dragged its paste along the spear edge, slow, cold, one stroke. The metal glowed a deeper, wrong shade of green. She sealed the rest away and did not let it touch her. The alpha's wings started again above the huts. Veyla lifted the spear. The weight in her hand had changed. Her old dose could never have pierced that bulk. This new poison could kill anything it touched, including her. She stepped toward the sound.

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.

Veyla held still behind the trunk. The alpha perched high on the broken Silvershade, wings folded, eyes sweeping the leaves. Her poisoned spear glowed green in her hand, useless. The creature sat far past any throw. One bad cast and the toxin would drip into the soil, wasted. She needed a way to strike from here, and she had none. A soft click reached her ear. Not the alpha. Behind her. Veyla turned her head slow. A small hunter crouched in the brush, no taller than Veyla's shoulder. Bright rune marks glowed pale blue across her scalp. She held a carved blowgun across her lap, a frostelk-skin bag hanging from its center. Sivara Frostwhisper. Veyla knew her only by name, a Frostbark hunter who dropped bucks with darts while others still lifted their spears. She was tracking her own prey. Now her dark eyes fixed on the alpha instead. "Too high for a spear," Sivara whispered. Flat. A fact. "I know." Veyla's jaw tightened. "I have one throw. I can't waste it." Sivara looked at the green glow on Veyla's spear tip. She knew a killing dose when she saw one. "Then don't throw." She unrolled her dart bag. Inside lay slender darts, tips dark with Venara sap. "My range beats yours. Give me the poison." Veyla's stomach dropped. "It kills on contact. One scratch and you're dead." "So I won't scratch myself." Sivara held out a bare dart, steady. No fear in her hand. "Coat it. Slow. One pass." Veyla knelt beside her. She drew her scraping tool. Her trainer had lost two fingers to a bad dose, and she had watched it happen. She pressed the tool to her spear tip and lifted a thread of green toxin. One pass. She laid it along the dart, cold and even, the way she coated everything. Sivara did not flinch. She held the dart by its far end and slid it into the blowgun. The alpha shifted. Its dragging foot scraped bark. Sivara raised the blowgun to her lips. She breathed once, then blew. The dart hissed up through the leaves. It struck the alpha in the throat, below the jaw. The creature screamed and burst from the perch. Wings hammered the air. It climbed, then wobbled. The green toxin was already working. It crashed through branches and vanished over the ridge, dragging its bad foot behind it. "Hit," Sivara said. She lowered the blowgun. "But not down. It flew." Veyla stood. Her spear still glowed full and wet in her hand. She had not thrown it. The poison had reached the alpha another way, and the target lived, wounded, fleeing into ground she did not know. "Then we follow," Veyla said. "Both of us." Sivara was already moving toward the ridge.