Chapter 4
FOUR
KASTER
The cave offers barely enough space for two bodies with distance between them.
She settles against the far wall without prompting—putting maximum separation between us in the limited space. Smart. Also pointless. If I wanted her dead, distance wouldn’t save her.
Her breathing slows within minutes. Evens out. The rhythm shifts from conscious control to genuine rest.
She’s asleep.
Either trusting my senses to catch threats, or too exhausted to care about the risk.
I study her in the darkness.
Lean frame. Dark circles beneath closed lids. Hands that tremble even in sleep. She’s been running for a while. Fighting longer. Her body is consuming itself to fuel magic that costs more than she can afford.
The scout she killed permanently. That’s why the others fled.
With enough power, an Anchor could kill things that aren’t supposed to die.
The thought surfaces without warning.
She shifts in her sleep. Her hand twitches, fingers curling around nothing. A dream, maybe. A nightmare. Her breathing stutters for a moment before evening out again.
I watch her.
She’s a liability. A complication. A wandering beacon that will draw worse things to my territory if I let her stay.
I shouldn’t have left that ridge to find her.
I did.
Dawn breaks gray and cold everywhere except here.
She wakes slowly—a gradual return of consciousness that marks genuine rest. Her eyes open, focus, find me still in the same position.
“You didn’t sleep.”
I don’t respond.
She pushes herself upright and checks her body with practiced precision.
“The scouts will track me.” She meets my gaze. No pleading. No manipulation. Facts. “More of them. Probably worse. Whatever I did that caught their attention, they’re not going to stop.”
“Then you have a problem.” I let the words land. No softening. No offer. Just the blunt edge of a fact she already knows, and the silence afterward to see what she does with it.
“I can be useful.”
“You can barely stand.”
She flinches. Covers it quickly, but I catch the reaction.
“That’s temporary.” Her mouth tightens. “The cost scales with use. Give me a day to recover—”
“You’ll slow me down, draw more monsters, and eventually die in a way that creates problems I’ll have to solve.”
Silence.
She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t plead. Looks at me with those dark eyes, calculating odds I already know.
She’s dead without help. We both understand that.
This witch is outside my parameters.
The scouts she attracts will enter my parameters eventually.
The hunting grounds spread flat and endless under morning sun.
I lead her through the heart of my territory—not the border zones, but the real domain. Burned earth and bone fields and constant low-level fire that keeps this place inhospitable to everything except me.
Her power flickers weakly in my awareness—recovering, not active. The Anchor signature beats with each heartbeat, a steady rhythm beneath the exhaustion. Given time, she’ll replenish. Given more time, she might be useful.
Scouts appear twice during our crossing.
Small packs, two or three creatures each. Reconnaissance units testing my territory’s edges. I kill them without breaking stride—fast, brutal, final. The bodies stay down long enough for us to pass.
She watches me work. Studies the technique without commenting.
The second pack tries a flanking maneuver I haven’t seen before—two engage directly while the third circles behind. I adjust mid-fight, dropping the flanker first, then turning on the others before they can regroup. Ash rises in my wake.
One of them nearly reaches her before I end it. The proximity sends a spike through my skull—losing her compromises the hunt. She’s the only thing that makes kills stick.
I finish the kill and move on.
After the killing is done, she speaks.
“The retreat angles, the timing—they’re not random.”
I knew that. I’d noticed the same behavioral shift.
But hearing her articulate it confirms that my reading wasn’t paranoid projection—
“They’ve been doing it for months. Maybe longer.”
“So have the ones hunting me.” She matches my pace, breathing harder but maintaining distance. “At first, they tried to kill me. Now they test. Probe. Wait.”
“When did it change?”
“After I killed the first one permanently.” She touches her face where blood dried hours ago. “Three weeks ago. Before that, they were relentless. After, they got strategic.”
Three weeks. Running alone, burning herself dry, while these things learned her.
Which means they’re planning.
I don’t ask how she found my name. Don’t ask what drove her east instead of any other direction.
None of that matters.
What matters is that she’s here now, drawing attention I don’t want.
What matters is that her magic tastes like endings.
What matters is that when I look at her, my teeth ache in a way I’ve never experienced.
I don’t like it.
By nightfall, we’ve crossed the central bone fields and reached the eastern edge of my territory.
The ground shifts here—less ash, more exposed stone. Geothermal vents dot the landscape, releasing sulfur-tinged steam in irregular intervals. The temperature isn’t stored dragonfire anymore; it’s natural, unpredictable, dangerous to anything that doesn’t know the patterns.
I know the patterns.
I indicate a depression between two rock formations. Defensible. Concealed. Close enough to a vent line that my fire signature will blend with the background.
She drops without argument. Her legs give out—controlled collapse onto stone still radiating from the day’s sun.
Magic depletion. Faster than I expected.
“You need food.”
Surprise flickers across her face before she smooths it away.
“I haven’t—” She stops. Considers. “I don’t remember when I last ate.”
I leave without explaining and return twenty minutes later with a rabbit-sized creature from one of the vent colonies. Dead. Cleaned. The meat will need cooking, but that’s not a problem in territory where fire is always available.
She stares at it like she’s forgotten food exists.
“Fire. If you need it.”
“You’re offering to cook for me?”
“I’m offering fire.” I position myself at the depression’s edge, facing outward. “What you do with it is your concern.”
The sounds of movement follow—gathering stones, arranging fuel, the stripped-down work of staying alive in hostile terrain.
A small fire crackles to life behind me. The smell of cooking meat fills the small space.
Behind me, she eats like someone remembering that bodies require sustenance. Fast at first, then slower as her system registers the intake. The Anchor pulse strengthens marginally with each bite.
I watch the horizon and track her recovery without turning around.
I notice when her breathing evens into sleep.
The instinct that keeps me facing outward, guarding the entrance—I don’t name it.
The night passes in silence. No scouts test the perimeter. No god-made horrors breach my territory.
She sleeps behind me, trusting my vigilance without asking for it.
I don’t sleep. Haven’t slept since she entered my domain. The fire in my blood keeps exhaustion at bay, but even without it, I wouldn’t close my eyes.
She’s stronger the next morning.
Not recovered—true recovery takes longer than one night. But stronger. The trembling has stopped. Her steps are steadier. The Anchor beats with more definition.
I lead her east without discussion.
The scouts are massing. I feel it in the way the air pressure changes, in how sounds carry across my territory. They’re preparing. Coordinating.
Coming.
Whatever hunt brought this witch to my domain is about to escalate.
I could send her away. Point her toward the wastelands and return to my solitary territory, my clean boundaries, my simple rules.
Instead, I adjust my patrol route to keep her in my sight lines.
Instead, I position myself between her and every potential approach angle.
Instead, I tell myself this is practical. Protecting my territory from the complications her death would create.
She walks beside me now instead of behind. Close enough that her shoulder nearly brushes my arm when the terrain narrows. Close enough that her scent fills my awareness. Close enough that I could reach her in a heartbeat if anything attacked.