Chapter 35 Harper
HARPER
We crouch behind the boulder, its cold surface biting through my clothes as if it resents being turned into cover.
Poppy hunches over beside me, her curls brushing the stone each time she leans forward to steal another glance at the clearing.
Her breath trembles against my shoulder.
Ares waits on my other side, unnervingly still, like the forest carved him from its trunk and hadn’t yet decided whether he belonged to us or them.
Poppy peeks again, then snaps back, pulse hammering hard enough that I feel it through the rock.
“There's at least fifteen,” she whispers, voice tight. “Fourteen poachers… and-” Her face drains. “A Wendigo.”
The word hits harder than any spell. My head falls back against the stone, eyes lifting to the sky as if begging it for a reprieve. The memory of that creature’s claws dragging across our carriage flashes beneath my ribs like a knife. The Wendigo’s shriek still lives in the back of my skull.
Ares leans in, his breath brushing the curve of my ear. It shouldn’t make my pulse trip, not in a moment like this, but my body hasn’t yet learned to ignore him.
“How many are wearing your father’s mark?” His voice is quiet, sharpened to something deadly.
“All of the poachers,” Poppy whispers. “Armbands with a serpent. Just like the one on your arm.”
Ares’s jaw tightens. Even without looking at him fully, I can feel the shift, his magic thrumming low beneath his skin, waiting, tasting the air for blood. My own senses heighten in tandem, my magic prickling hot beneath the surface of my palms.
Poppy makes the mistake of leaning out again, gesturing wildly as she tries to count the movement below. The brush of her hand catches too much light. A few scattered groans ripple through the clearing. Dirt shifts beneath heavy boots.
“Poppy-” I start, but Ares’s hand shoots out, gripping her forearm and yanking her back with a precision born from near-death routines.
A blast of magic slams into the boulder, shaving off a chunk of rock exactly where her head had been. Shards rain down over us, stinging my cheek. The air fills with the metallic tang of awakened spells. The ground quivers with approaching footsteps.
My wand is in my hand before I register the motion. Instinct blinds reason, my body pushing forward, ready to meet whoever is coming.
Ares’s fingers close around my arm, stopping me just long enough for his eyes to meet mine. They’re almost luminescent in the darkness, threaded with adrenaline and something unnervingly close to exhilaration.
“Don’t hold me back-” I snap, hearing the crunch of approaching boots.
“I’m not,” he murmurs, his grip loosening as he draws his own wand from beneath his coat. The smirk that pulls at his mouth is hungry. “I want to shed first blood.”
Before I can demand an explanation, he moves.
One whispered incantation ripples from his tongue, spoken the way only someone raised in my father’s shadow would know how to shape it.
The force of his magic whips through the clearing, an invisible cyclone of pressure and malice.
The nearest five men lift from the ground as if snatched by the wind, their limbs bending at grotesque angles.
Bones snap like brittle twigs underfoot. Ares doesn’t even flinch.
Their cries split the forest, abruptly choked off as blood begins streaming from their eyes and mouths, pulled free by a spell that demands too much from the body it touches. I recognize the magic instantly. Shadeborne magic, not the kind taught, but the kind inherited through suffering.
My father would be proud of such mastery.
Ares wields it without hesitation.
The Wendigo hisses across the clearing, drawn by the violence, its long limbs twitching with anticipation. Leaves rattle against its hide as it prowls forward, skeletal jaws unhinging with hunger.
And still, Ares stands steady, shoulders squared, expression carved from cold stone. Magic coils around him like smoke, alive and eager, waiting for him to direct the next strike.
Poppy is still pale, her face slack with disbelief as she tries to process what Ares did to the first cluster of men.
Her hands tremble so violently she has to brace herself against the rock beside her.
The forest feels tighter now, like the trees themselves have gone rigid, waiting for the next rupture of violence.
Across the clearing, the Wendigo shifts its weight.
Foam spills from its jagged mouth in thick ropes, eyes sunken and wild as it locks onto the only threat that matters to it.
..Ares. The creature lowers itself into a disturbing crouch, claws carving trenches into the mud as it prepares to launch straight for him.
Around it, the surviving poachers hover in uneasy arcs, no longer reckless.
They’ve seen too much. They’ve watched Ares fold their comrades into grotesque shapes.
Fear sharpens their movements. Makes them cautious.
Good. They should be terrified.
“Follow behind us,” I whisper to Poppy, gripping her arm when she doesn’t immediately react. Her breath hitches. “Stay low. Any cages you see...unlock them. Free whatever you can.”
The instruction jolts her back into her body. She nods quickly, wiping sweat from her brow as she hunches lower and prepares to move.
I turn toward Ares. He’s already scanning the field, calculating distance, spell range, death toll. There’s a glint in his eyes I’ve only ever seen in my father. Except on Ares, it isn’t cruelty. It’s purpose.
I raise my wand and move first.
The nearest poacher barely has time to inhale before my magic hits him.
His body folds violently inward, the air punched from his lungs in a ragged croak as he collapses at my feet.
I don’t stop. The Wendigo is trying to break free of the pain anchoring it, claws dragging furrows through the dirt as it pushes up with trembling limbs.
My focus sharpens into a blade.
My wand lifts again and I seize its ankles in an unyielding grip of force.
The memory of bones cracking burns across my mind, giving the spell shape.
Power surges down my arm. The Wendigo screams, a piercing shriek that rattles leaves from the trees.
Blood floods its legs, swelling beneath its skin.
The creature thrashes, choking on its own agony.
Somewhere beside me, Poppy screams my name.
I pivot just in time to see movement, steel glinting, a shadow emerging behind me.
Ares reacts faster.
His hand clamps around my arm and yanks me toward him with such force my breath bursts from my lungs. A blade slices across my side a heartbeat too late, just grazing where I stood. Pain blooms hot and immediate, radiating through my ribs.
Another poacher leaps from the brush and seizes Ares’s wrist, twisting sharply until his wand flies from his grip and skitters across the ground. He curses beneath his breath. I stumble into him, shoulder colliding with the solid heat of his chest before I right myself.
The physical contact sparks my pulse to life. For a sliver of a second, even through the chaos, his arm steadies me, firm and grounding...almost protective.
Then everything explodes again.
I shove the poacher who grabbed him, slamming my shoulder into his ribs until he stumbles back.
Ares drops to the ground in a controlled roll, snatching up his wand mid-motion.
Before the man can recover, Ares is on him, angrier this time.
He pins the man and drives a knife deep into his chest, the wet choke of impact echoing through the trees.
Another poacher lunges at me.
He bypasses the wand entirely, going straight for brutality. A knife glints near my face as he slams his weight onto me, tackling me backward. The world tilts, sky, branches, dirt, all blurring, until I hit the ground with a bone-rattling thud. My breath leaves in a sharp cry.
His knee digs into my sternum, crushing, pinning me in place. I claw at his thigh, nails scraping for leverage, for pain, for anything to free myself, but he’s heavy.
Ares finishes off his opponent, chest heaving, eyes already scanning for me.
He sees me pinned beneath the poacher.
And something in his expression snaps.
The look he gives the man atop me is not human. It’s lethal.
I’m barely able to draw in a breath before the poacher digs his filthy finger into the open slice at my side.
The pressure splits the wound wider, sending a jolt of white-hot pain through my ribs that nearly knocks the sound out of me.
His weight bears down with an ugly confidence, knee pinning my sternum, breath thick and sour against my cheek as he growls his taunt.
“Shouldn’t keep running from him, Harper-”
The words drag across my nerves like a dull blade.
My vision blurs, then sharpens, then blurs again.
I claw at his thigh, trying to shove him off, but he’s unyielding, reveling in every twitch of agony he pulls from me.
Blood trickles warm beneath my shirt. The forest spins. My heartbeat crashes against my ears.
And then his voice is cut short.
Not by a threat.
Not by a scream.
By a wet, brutal choke.
His body slumps forward, heavy and boneless, crushing the air out of my lungs. The sudden weight forces a gasp from me, but even that is smothered beneath him. His head lolls to the side. His eyes are already vacant.
Ares rips him off me.
He drags the corpse away with a single vicious motion and flings it hard enough that it thuds against a tree trunk. Without hesitation, without even a breath to mark the shift, he drops to his knees beside the body and drives his knife into the man’s chest. Once. Twice. Again. And again.
Blood spatters in sharp arcs across his face, streaking his cheekbones, soaking the dark strands of hair clinging to his forehead. His breathing is ragged, feral, fueled by a rage so focused it almost hums.