Chapter 33 Testing the Heir
TESTING THE HEIR
NATE
The Evernight Forest in winter was a living thing, breathing fog through ancient pines that reached toward stars too distant to care about the violence brewing beneath their branches.
I adjusted the bow across my back, silver-tipped arrows whispering against each other in their quiver like promises of death yet to be delivered.
Dad walked beside me, and for the first time since Mom's funeral, he looked steady on his feet. Not whole, probably never whole again, but functional in the way that grief carved people into sharper versions of themselves.
“You sure about this?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper in air that carried sound farther than it should have.
Dad's hand moved to the silver dagger Daniel had pressed into his palm three days ago, fingers closing around leather-wrapped steel like it was a lifeline instead of a weapon.
“Every Harrington man should know how to use one,” he said, echoing Daniel's words with the careful precision of someone practicing a foreign language.
We walked in silence for a few steps, boots crunching on pine needles that had frozen into brittle sculptures of themselves. Then Dad stopped, turning to face me with an expression I hadn't seen since I was little and had nightmares about monsters under my bed.
“You know what the hardest part is?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head, not trusting my voice.
“It's not the grief. That I expected. It's not even the anger, though there's plenty of that.” He pulled the dagger fully from its sheath, studying the blade like it held answers to questions he'd never thought to ask. “It's the guilt.”
“Dad...”
“No, let me say this.” His voice carried the weight of confession, words that had been building pressure for weeks.
“I keep thinking about all the times your mother tried to tell me something was wrong.
All the nights she'd wake up scared, saying she felt like something was watching the house. I told her it was just adjustment anxiety, moving to a new town.”
The admission hung in the air between us like smoke, heavy with self-recrimination that I recognized because I'd been carrying my own version of it.
“You couldn't have known,” I said, the same words people had been telling me for weeks.
“Couldn't I?” Dad's laugh was bitter around the edges. “My wife was afraid, and I dismissed her fears because they didn't fit into my understanding of how the world worked. What kind of husband does that make me?”
“The human kind.” The words came out rougher than I'd intended. “Dad, you were dealing with reality as you understood it. Mom never told us about werewolves or witches or any of this supernatural bullshit. How were you supposed to protect her from something you didn't know existed?”
Dad was quiet for a long moment, testing the dagger's weight with movements that spoke of hours spent practicing in empty rooms when he thought no one was watching. “She knew, didn't she? Deep down, some part of her knew.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she just had good instincts about danger.” I touched his arm, feeling muscles that had grown harder over the past weeks. “Either way, it's not your fault she's gone.”
“Then why does it feel like it is?”
The question cut straight to the heart of everything I'd been struggling with since the night everything changed. Because I knew exactly what he meant, had asked myself the same thing a thousand times in the dark hours before dawn.
“Because loving someone means feeling responsible for their safety, even when that responsibility is impossible to fulfill,” I said finally. “Because admitting that some things are beyond our control feels like giving up on the people we care about.”
Dad nodded slowly, like pieces of a puzzle were finally clicking into place. “Your mother would have hated this, you know. Seeing us turn ourselves into weapons because of what happened to her.”
“Would she?” I considered the question seriously, because Mom's opinions had always mattered more than comfort or convenience. “Or would she understand that sometimes you have to become dangerous to protect the people you love?”
“She always said violence was a failure of imagination.” Dad's smile was sad around the edges, carrying the weight of memories that would always hurt. “That there was always another way if you were creative enough to find it.”
“And she was right, most of the time. But sometimes the only choice is between being violent and being dead.” I gestured toward the forest around us, toward the darkness that held threats Mom's kindness had never been equipped to handle. “Sometimes imagination isn't enough.”
Dad slid the dagger back into its sheath, movements more confident now. “She'd be proud of you, you know. Not because you learned to fight, but because you learned to stand up for what matters.”
The words hit harder than any physical blow, making my chest tight with emotions I didn't have names for. “She'd be proud of you too. For not letting grief turn you into someone bitter and broken.”
“I'm not sure I haven't become those things.”
“Dad.” I stopped walking, turning to face him. “You went from suburban engineer to someone willing to hunt monsters with a silver dagger in three weeks. That's not bitter or broken. That's adaptive. That's strong.”
“It doesn't feel strong. It feels like I'm stumbling around in the dark, trying to learn rules that should have been taught to me years ago.”
“Welcome to my entire existence since Mom died.” The admission surprised us both with its honesty. “I've been making this up as I go along, hoping that love and stubbornness would be enough to keep the people I care about alive.”
“Has it worked?”
I thought about that question seriously, weighing victories against losses in scales that never quite balanced. “So far. But every day feels like rolling dice with stakes I can't afford to lose.”
Dad was quiet for a long moment, processing implications that painted our new reality in shades he was still learning to recognize. “Are you scared?”
“Terrified,” I said without hesitation. “Every single day. But being scared and acting anyway is the only kind of courage any of us has left.”
“Your mother used to say that courage wasn't the absence of fear, but action in spite of it.”
“Smart woman.”
“The smartest.” Dad's smile was genuine this time, carrying warmth that had been missing since the funeral. “She'd probably tell us we're overthinking this. That the only thing that matters is showing up for each other.”
“She'd be right about that too.”
We started walking again, father and son learning to navigate a world that had revealed teeth and claws when they'd expected nothing more dangerous than small-town politics. But the silence between us felt different now, less heavy with unspoken fears and more comfortable with shared understanding.
“Thank you,” Dad said as we approached the patrol's gathering point.
“For what?”
“For not shutting me out of this. For letting me be part of it instead of trying to protect me from ugly truths.” His hand found my shoulder, grip strong and steady. “For still being my son, even when being my son means risking your life for strangers.”
“They're not strangers anymore,” I said simply. “They're family. And family protects family, no matter what shape it takes.”
Dad nodded, understanding passing between us that needed no words. Because that was what we'd both learned in the wreckage of our old life: that love was the only thing strong enough to survive transformation, and some bonds were worth preserving even when everything else changed.
We were both grieving differently, I realized. Dad by forcing himself into this world of teeth and claws and necessary violence. Me by refusing to step back from it, by embracing the transformation that had turned me from photographer into hunter.
Neither of us had found peace. We'd just found sharper edges.
Ahead of us, Evan led the patrol with shoulders that carried too much weight, golden eyes scanning treelines. Jonah walked at his right flank, trying to ease tension with whispered jokes that fell flat in air that tasted like coming storm.
“Why does it feel like we're walking into a trap?” Jonah muttered, voice pitched low enough that only supernatural hearing could catch the words.
“Because we probably are,” Evan replied, but he didn't slow down or suggest turning back. Because that was what leadership meant sometimes, wasn't it? Walking into traps because someone had to, because the alternative was letting fear make your decisions for you.
The forest felt wrong tonight, like every shadow held secrets and every sound carried threats. Too quiet, as if the usual nocturnal symphony had decided to take the evening off rather than witness whatever was coming.
That's when the growl came.
Low, guttural, the sound of something that had forgotten what it felt like to be anything but hungry. It seemed to emerge from the trees themselves, echoing off bark and stone until the entire forest became a throat producing sounds that belonged in nightmares.
The patrol halted as one, wolves going rigid with attention that spoke of predator recognizing predator.
But these weren't normal wolves stalking us through winter darkness.
These were rogues, creatures that had lost themselves so completely to their beasts that humanity had become just another word they'd forgotten how to understand.
Shadows burst from the underbrush like physical manifestations of violence, four massive forms that moved with coordinated precision despite the madness that rolled off them in waves.
Their fur hung in matted clumps, slick with substances I didn't want to identify, and their eyes held nothing human.