Chapter 5
FIVE
SOREIA
The forest died a long time ago.
Gray trunks rise on either side of the path like grave markers—petrified, stripped of bark and branches, frozen in whatever moment of catastrophe turned living wood to stone.
Nothing grows here. Nothing moves. Even the wind seems reluctant to push through the skeletal remains of what was once green and breathing.
I don’t like this place.
Kaster moved ahead an hour ago, scouting the terrain while I maintained pace along the trail.
We’ve been traveling east for two days now, following a route that keeps us out of open ground without forcing us through territory he hasn’t already cleared.
The arrangement works. He hunts. I rest. We don’t talk about what happens after.
There is no after. There’s only the next attack and the one following that.
The path narrows ahead, funneling between rock outcroppings that force single-file passage. Beyond them, the dead forest gives way to a ravine—I see the gap in the tree line where the ground drops away. The terrain feels wrong. Designed. Like a throat waiting to swallow whatever wanders in.
I slow my steps.
The scouts are different. Smaller. Faster. Built for pursuit and reconnaissance rather than confrontation. These last two days, we’ve only encountered small packs—testing formations Kaster eliminated before I could reach for my power.
My reserves have rebuilt. Not fully, but enough. The constant ache behind my eyes has faded to a dull pressure. I can access my bloodline without bleeding out through my nose.
For now.
The path tightens further. Stone walls rise on either side, funneling me toward that gap in the tree line. Ancient watermarks stripe the rock—this ravine was carved by floods that stopped flowing generations ago. Now, it’s dry. Still.
I stop walking.
The silence is wrong.
Not the absence of sound—I’ve grown used to that. This is different. Heavier. The kind of quiet that has weight, that presses against the eardrums like a held breath.
The kind of quiet that means I’m being watched.
They come from above.
The first hunter drops from the rim of the ravine, landing twenty feet ahead of me with an impact that cracks stone.
Larger than the scouts. Much larger. Armored plating covers its shoulders and spine, natural protection that glints dull gray in the filtered light.
Its eyes find me with predatory intelligence.
Not hungry. Calculating.
A second lands behind me, blocking the path I came from. A third and fourth take positions along the rim, silhouettes against the gray sky.
Herding formation. I recognize it too late.
They drove me here. Every twist in the path, every narrowing of the terrain—I thought I was choosing my route. I was being funneled.
My magic flares in my veins, reaching for the surface. The pressure behind my eyes intensifies.
“Fuck.”
The word echoes off the ravine walls, bouncing back distorted. The hunters don’t react. They hold position, patient, blocking every exit.
I count four visible. There will be more. These creatures work in coordinated packs—they don’t commit half their numbers to an ambush.
The ravine floor stretches ahead of me: approximately fifteen feet wide, sheer stone walls rising thirty feet on either side. No room to dodge. No cover. The floor is littered with bones, weapons, the scattered possessions of people who died here before me.
Some of the bones are fresh.
The lead hunter takes a step forward. Testing. Watching how I respond.
I don’t run. Running in a ravine with no exits gets you caught faster.
Instead, I back toward the wall, putting stone at my spine and limiting their approach angles. It won’t save me. Nothing here will save me. But it might buy time.
Time for what? Kaster is scouting ahead. He doesn’t know I’m here. Doesn’t know they flanked around his patrol route to catch me alone.
This is the strategy. Separate us. Kill me while he’s occupied elsewhere.
The gods learned from the scouts. They upgraded.
The first attack comes from the left.
A hunter launches itself at me with speed that shouldn’t be possible for its bulk—armored body cutting through the air like a thrown blade. I dodge, barely, feeling the displacement of wind as claws slice past my ribs.
My magic lashes out instinctively.
The power catches the hunter mid-recovery, sinking into its core where the divine spark lives. I feel the death that wants to happen, the ending I can make permanent—
Agony splits my skull.
Not as bad as before. But bad enough. Blood trickles from my nose, hot against my upper lip. The hunter staggers, wounded but not dead, and my magic releases before I can anchor the kill.
They’re resistant. Built to endure witch magic long enough to close the distance.
The creature lunges again. I scramble backward, boots slipping on bone fragments, and slam my shoulder against the ravine wall hard enough to see stars.
A second hunter drops from the rim, landing beside the first. They spread out, flanking me, forcing me to divide my attention.
I can’t anchor two at once. Can’t even anchor one without crippling cost.
They know that. They designed this.
My breath comes fast and harsh. Fear-copper coats my tongue. The ravine walls amplify every sound—my heartbeat thundering in my ears, the scrape of claws on stone, the wet rasp of hunter breathing.
Three more emerge from the shadows ahead. Seven total. They fan out in a semicircle, patient as executioners.
I’m dead.
The certainty arrives without panic. My magic is insufficient. My body is inadequate. Seven hunters against one Anchor witch in a kill zone designed specifically for this purpose.
I reach for my power anyway.
If I’m dying here, I’m taking at least one of them with me. Making it permanent. The gods will feel that loss even if they don’t feel mine.
The lead hunter coils to spring.
Then the world catches fire.
Dragonfire tears through the ravine from above.
White-hot destruction pours down like molten judgment, catching three hunters in its initial blast. They don’t scream—the blaze erases them too fast, flesh to ash in the space between heartbeats. The stone walls glow orange where fire splashes against them. The air itself seems to ignite.
Kaster drops into the ravine behind the flames.
He doesn’t announce himself. Doesn’t check if I’m injured. Doesn’t acknowledge my existence at all.
He lands among the surviving hunters and starts killing.
The violence is absolute. No hesitation.
No wasted movement. He rips through the first creature before it can turn to face him, claws punching through armored plating like it’s paper.
The second manages to lunge at him—he catches its throat mid-leap and uses its momentum to slam it into the ravine wall hard enough to crack stone.
The remaining hunters adjust, flanking him with coordinated precision. They’re not panicking like the scouts did. These creatures were built to fight dragons. Built to survive exactly this kind of engagement.
One of them gets its claws into his side. He growls—not pain, fury—and rips the creature’s arm off at the shoulder. It staggers back, already regenerating, god-given power knitting flesh and bone.
I watch the wound seal.
Then I move.
Power slams into the wounded hunter before conscious thought catches up.
The power sinks deep, bypassing the creature’s resistance through sheer desperate force. I feel the death—the ending the universe has been waiting for. My bloodline exists for this moment. To make things stick.
The hunter dies.
Dies and stays down. The regeneration stops. The flesh stays still. Permanent.
Fire lances through my skull. Blood runs from my nose in a hot rush. My knees want to buckle, but I lock them and reach for the next target.
Kaster is still fighting—three hunters converging on him, their coordination forcing him to divide his attention between offense and defense. He’s taking damage. More than before. These creatures are designed to endure dragon violence, to trade wounds until the dragon exhausts.
They’re wearing him down.
A hunter breaks from the pack, angling toward me instead of him. I’m the weaker target. The easier kill.
The Anchor catches it three feet from my throat.
The anchoring is messy—I don’t have time for precision. Power floods out of me in a ragged wave, overwhelming the creature’s resistance through volume rather than skill. It collapses, twitching, and then stops.
Dead.
My vision wavers. The ravine tilts sideways.
Kaster roars—not at the hunters, at me. “Stay up.”
Two words. Not concern. Command.
I stay up.
We find rhythm in the violence.
He breaks them. I anchor them. The pattern emerges without discussion—instinctive, immediate, like we’ve been fighting as one unit for years instead of minutes.
A hunter lunges at him. He catches its charge, redirects the momentum, and tears open its throat. The creature staggers back, stolen power already trying to heal the wound—
The Anchor slams into it. The healing fails. The hunter drops.
Permanent.
Another comes from the left. He pivots, puts himself between the creature and me, and takes its claws across his shoulder rather than let it reach where I’m standing.
The sacrifice has to be strategic. He needs me anchoring kills, can’t afford to let them eliminate me mid-fight.
But the way he moved—
I don’t have time to examine it.
Three hunters left. They’ve realized the pattern. Changed tactics. Now they’re targeting me directly, ignoring Kaster to close the distance before I can anchor another kill.
He intercepts the first. I anchor the kill.
The second gets past him.
My magic reaches out—weak now, scraping the bottom of my reserves. The power catches the hunter two feet from my face, sinking into its core with desperate force.
The anchoring holds. Barely.
The creature dies. I sway on my feet.
One hunter left. It’s backing away now, retreat taking precedence over attack. It’s seen what happens when I anchor kills. It’s learning, adapting, preparing to report what it’s witnessed.
Kaster doesn’t let it run.
He closes the distance before the creature reaches the ravine edge, catches it by the skull, and tears its head from its body in a single savage motion.
The corpse falls. God-light reaches for it, trying to rebuild.
I anchor it before the process can begin.
The hunter stays down.
Silence falls over the ravine.