Hunter In The Faerie Realm

He had hunted wolves in blizzards, boar in thorn country, and men who believed a stolen purse made them dangerous. None of them had made the forest feel awake beneath his feet.

The silver trail gleamed between the stones.

Ronan needed the stag. Its antlers would fetch enough to pay the healer who had kept his younger brother alive through winter. He had followed that animal for three days. He could not return empty-handed.

He stepped across the boundary.

The cold vanished.

Warmth folded around him, damp and fragrant with crushed fern. The moon jumped from one side of the sky to the other. Behind him, the standing stones stood in a perfect circle, though he knew they had been crooked. The mortal forest beyond them had disappeared.

The fox sprang onto a root.

“Too late,” it said.

Ronan raised the crossbow. “Too late for what?”

The ground shifted.

Not trembled. Shifted.

Roots rolled beneath his boots like knuckles turning under skin. The path ahead split into three, then five, then a dozen narrow trails. Trees leaned inward, their white bark bending toward him. Every branch bore small black leaves that whispered his name.

Ronan Alder.

Ronan Alder.

He backed toward the stones, but the circle had widened. The gap between two pillars stretched into a dark ravine filled with pale grass.

The fox vanished.

Ronan cursed and moved fast, keeping his shoulders low. The trail beneath him narrowed as he ran. Ferns snapped shut around his calves. Thorn vines whipped across his coat and tugged him sideways. He slashed one free, and clear liquid spilled from the cut, shining like tears.

The forest answered with a groan.

A tree ahead pulled its roots from the earth.

Ronan stopped so sharply his boot slid. The oak towered above him, its trunk split by a long black seam. Branches dragged through the air, scraping against one another with the sound of old bones. In the hollow beneath its roots, something breathed.

He loaded his crossbow.

“Come out.”

A pair of hands emerged first. They were gray and jointed backward at the wrists. A face followed, thin as stretched hide, with a mouth sewn shut by coarse red thread.

Ronan fired.

The bolt struck its chest. The creature folded around it, then rose again.

A second shape crawled from the hollow. Then a third.

Evil spirits.

Ronan had heard old hunters speak of them in low voices beside winter fires, but stories had given them claws, horns, and glowing eyes. These looked worse. They wore pieces of human shape without understanding how a body was meant to fit together.

The first spirit tore the bolt free.

Ronan ran.

The forest twisted with him. A trail opened beneath his feet, and he took it without knowing where it led. Branches struck his face. His knife caught on a thorn and nearly tore from his hand. Behind him came the wet slap of bare feet and the clicking drag of something with too many joints.

He vaulted a fallen trunk.

The trunk moved.

Its bark clenched around his ankle. Ronan fell hard, striking his shoulder against the ground. Pain flashed white. Before he could pull free, the spirits spilled over the roots behind him.

One reached for his throat.

A silver arrow pierced its palm.

The spirit shrieked. The sound cracked through the trees, and every black leaf dropped at once.

A woman stood on the ridge beyond the fallen trunk.

She wore a pale dress beneath a mantle of dark green feathers. Moonlight caught in her hair, turning it almost white, and two vast wings rose behind her, folded tight against her back. They were not bird wings exactly. Their feathers shone like polished ivory, each one edged in a faint gold fire.

She drew another arrow.

“Move,” she said.

Ronan hacked at the bark gripping his ankle. “A little help would be welcome.”

“You have a knife.”

“And you have wings.”

Her mouth tightened. “I am using mine.”

She released the string.

The arrow struck the root. Light burst through the wood. The bark loosened, and Ronan tore himself free. He rolled beneath the trunk as the spirits lunged. The woman’s arrows fell among them, each one burning with a clean white flame.

Ronan came up beside her with his knife ready.

She glanced at him. Her eyes were gray, but gold flickered at their centers.

“You crossed willingly,” she said.

“I followed a stag.”

“Willingly, then.”

The nearest spirit rose from the burning ferns. Its sewn mouth split open.

The woman stepped in front of Ronan.

He caught her wrist. “That thing is coming.”

“I noticed.”

“You’ll be killed.”

For one instant, surprise softened her face. Then she looked down at his hand around her wrist.

“You are bold for a trespasser.”

“I’m practical.”

“You are bleeding.”

“So are you.”

A dark line ran from beneath her sleeve. Not blood. A black vapor seeped from the wound and curled around her arm.

The spirits gathered themselves.

The woman pulled free. “Run east.”

Ronan looked through the trees. “Which way is east?”

She pointed.

The forest rearranged itself. Trees slid across the path, roots withdrawing and returning. The direction she indicated became a wall of thorn.

“That way?” he asked.

Her expression turned grim. “The realm is listening.”

The spirits rushed.

Ronan seized her hand and ran in the opposite direction.

She stumbled once, then kept pace. Her fingers were cold, though heat shimmered along her skin. Behind them, the spirits tore through the thorn wall. Their cries followed, thin and furious.

The path dipped steeply. Ronan leaped a stream and landed on slick stone. The woman crossed without touching the ground. Her wings opened for one beat, lifting her over the water, then folded again.

Ronan stared despite himself.

She caught him looking. “Have you never seen an angel?”

“Not one who runs from ghosts.”

“They are not ghosts.”

“What are they?”

“Hungry.”

The stream behind them stopped flowing. Water climbed upward in a shining column. The spirits emerged from it, their bodies stretched long and dripping.

The woman released Ronan’s hand and faced them.

“Keep going,” she said.

He looked at the dark forest ahead, then at the creatures closing behind. “Not without you.”

“You do not know me.”

“No.”

“You do not know this place.”

“No.”

“Then you are a fool.”

“Likely.”

Something almost like a smile touched her mouth. It disappeared when the first spirit struck.

She lifted both hands. Gold light burst from her palms, forming a curved shield. The impact drove her backward. Her boots carved lines through the moss.

Ronan saw the spirits pressing against the shield, their fingers melting through the light. He saw the black wound spreading up her arm.

He also saw the forest watching.

The trees bent toward the struggle. Roots surfaced in rings. Pale flowers opened beneath Ronan’s boots, each one showing a tiny red mouth.

The realm wanted a choice.

Ronan drew his hunting axe.

He had brought it to kill a stag. He swung it now at the root nearest the angel.

The blade bit deep.

The forest screamed.

Every tree around them shuddered. The spirits recoiled as if struck. The angel’s shield flared, throwing them back across the stream. Ronan wrenched the axe free and swung again.

The ground split.

A black fissure opened between him and the spirits. They tumbled into it, clawing at the edges. One caught the angel’s ankle. She cried out and fell to one knee.

Ronan dropped the axe and grabbed her around the waist.

“Hold on.”

“Do not touch me!”

“Too late.”

He hauled her away as the fissure snapped shut. The spirit’s fingers vanished beneath the earth, leaving three black marks across her boot.

For a moment, there was only the hiss of the wounded forest.

The woman leaned against him. Her breath trembled against his throat.

Then the trees began to whisper again.

Claimed.

Claimed.

Ronan felt something tighten around his left wrist. He looked down. A thin silver line circled his skin, brightening until it formed a small mark like an open eye.

The woman saw it.

Her face went still.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I cut a root.”

“You answered the realm.”

“I was trying to save you.”

“That is worse.”

The silver mark burned. Ronan staggered, and a vision struck him - not an image, but a direction. Deep woods. Black water. A tower of white stone beneath a red moon. Something waited there, patient and certain.

When the vision broke, he was on his knees.

The woman crouched before him. Her wings had loosened, and one golden feather lay against the moss.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Ronan Alder.”

“I am Ariel Sable.”

The name settled strangely in the air, as if the forest recognized it.

“Angel,” Ronan said.

“Among other things.”

“Are you the one claiming me?”

“No.” Her gaze dropped to the mark. “Something older has noticed you.”

“That sounds encouraging.”

“It is not.”

She reached inside her mantle and drew out a compass. Its casing was made of dark silver, etched with curling faerie script. No needle rested beneath the glass. Instead, a narrow thorn floated in a pool of black liquid.

She pressed it into his palm.

The compass snapped shut around his hand.

Ronan tried to pull away, but the metal tightened like a cuff. The thorn inside spun once, then pointed toward the deeper forest.

“Take me back,” he said.

Ariel’s eyes held his. “I cannot.”

“Then tell me how.”

“You must follow the compass.”

“It points away from the threshold.”

“It points where the realm has chosen to take you.”

Ronan gripped the casing until its edges cut his skin. “I did not agree to that.”

Ariel touched the silver mark on his wrist. Her fingers were gentle, and the gentleness unsettled him more than the spirits had.

“You crossed,” she whispered. “Now it has a claim.”

The forest opened behind her, revealing a path that had not been there before. Blue mushrooms glowed along its edges. Far ahead, something large moved between the trees, breathing with a slow, affectionate rumble.

Ariel rose.

“If you want to survive until dawn, stay beside me.”

Ronan looked at the compass. The thorn pointed deeper.

He thought of the vanished trail, the living trees, the spirits waiting in the dark. He thought of Ariel’s hand in his and the warmth that had passed between them before either could deny it.

Then the compass pulled him forward.

Ronan stepped onto the new path.

Behind him, the forest closed.

End of chapter one. 39 more chapters and about 81,823 words in the full book.