“You’re in my house,” the man stated. Gale was his name.

  Where his father was stout, he was lean. A familiar sort of build to anyone who cultivated, and likewise he was clean-shaven, with dark brown hair that ended just above his shoulders, swept back and windblown. His equally brown eyes, however, were focused on me, off-center from meeting my gaze.

  Like he was looking down…

  “Fletcher…” My words caught, fangs ready to rip open my false face. Suitable prey. “Your father encouraged me to stay the night. I’m just passing through.”

  “Did he now…” Gale stepped inside and closed the door. His footsteps were quiet, but he didn’t move with the sort of fluid grace I’d expect from a proper predator.

  I watched him pass deeper into the house. Whoever he was, I hadn’t seen him before. The Shimmering Shadows Sect was only one of two sects in this kingdom. Though, he could have gone even further afield.

  Something about his gaze bothered me, and I couldn’t help but listen in as he talked with Fletcher in another room. A clipped greeting, demands, disappointment and complaints. In moments, he reminded me of several baron’s sons I’d met. Or Shale on a bad day.

  What Gale didn’t say was why he was here, but the frustration in his voice left me a good guess: whatever Sect he’d joined wasn’t happy with his progress. Perhaps to the point he wasn’t welcomed back, but he didn’t specify. Ascended above, I can sympathize. From the way Fletcher had talked, and the fresh construction of his new room, Gale hadn’t been at the Sect long.

  His unhappiness spilled over into the town he should have called home. Fletcher stayed mostly quiet as Gale continued on.

  “...a backwater mudhole.

  “Useless fishers and hunters.

  “...associate with fallow.

  “No good company for the evening.”

  Perhaps he really was just home briefly, here to enjoy a visit with his family whose livelihoods and town he was currently insulting. Either way, it wasn’t my problem.

  Though when the conversation changed topics, I realized that might change soon.

  “Who’s the girl?” Gale asked.

  “Sapphire,” Fletcher replied. “She’s just visiting the town until tomorrow.”

  “Then why is she on my floor?”

  Fletcher’s reply came after a short pause. “She traded chopping wood for a place to stay the night.”

  “And she visited here of all places?”

  “Yes… I offered our home. Gale, are you alright?”

  “Of course I am.” His scoff was a little muffled, and a little forced.

  Their conversation more or less ended with another biting comment from Gale. He left shortly after, skewering me with another unnerving glare.

  Gale didn’t return, and the mood stayed somber through sunset. At the sound of a distant shout, Fletcher stopped me from leaving, a pained look on his face. Perhaps I should have pushed past his arm, gotten myself involved, but for just a moment, I saw Father in him. Disappointed, and perhaps frightened.

  Darkness and quiet blanketed the house, but sleep did not come easy. Every time I rolled and shuddered awake, I expected either Gale or a torrent of water to barrel through the door. Neither came.

  Morning stretched the silence further. Fletcher’s subdued mood matched my own. Even his daughter and wife seemed to have kenned on to something in the air.

  Then again, I probably wasn’t the only one who’d heard what their son had to say. Insulting their way of life, their home, and the people who’d raised him. If only I could offer comforting words—perhaps he’d come around? The cynic in me doubted it, and the cynic in me had quite the tendency to be right.

  Fletcher gave me entirely too much jerky, a firestarter, and a water flask, excusing the gifts by the wood I’d chopped. Saying no wasn’t an option, so I accepted them and a simple satchel before stealing away into the frosty morning.

  As I was leaving the village, a middle-aged woman stomped by me, red in the face, headed toward Fletcher’s house. I paused, balanced on one foot, for just a moment. None of my business, I concluded. Nothing good could come from involving myself further, and Fletcher was a well-liked, capable man.

  Besides, she may not have been going toward his house. But the shout I heard from the village’s edge made me think of last night. Footsteps padded up behind me. I turned, expecting Fletcher, but instead saw prey—Gale. I saw Gale.

  “You’re a cultivator,” he said. A statement, not a question. He leaned on a fencepost, like his slouched posture would somehow make me think more of him instead of less.

  “I am,” I replied simply, hoping it would dissuade whatever plans he had. I could take being yelled at—nothing this whelp could do would match even a single one of Mother or Father’s withering glares.

  “Does Father know you tricked him?”

  My eyebrows shot up at the accusation; my fangs tingled. “He knows that I am a cultivator,” I replied evenly. “Sprout-rank. I was not accepted into a sect.”

  “Why are you in my village?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “That sounded possessive.” And if you had let me continue, I would have been out of your village in a dozen paces.

  “I’m its guardian,” Gale answered coldly. “And you will tell me why you’ve come.”

  “I was robbed and—”

  “Who would dare rob a cultivator?”

  “You would be surprised.” I turned, shoulders hunching themselves with a vulnerability I didn’t know I could project. “I don’t have time for this—I must be on my way. Your father is a wonderful man, Gale. I do hope you take after him. Tell the members of your village that I enjoyed their company, however brief.”

  “You could stay.” He reached out to grab my wrist; I pulled it away easily before he could.

  I stared down at his offending hand, jaw clenched, fangs nearly forcing it apart. “I cannot.” Only the nearby humans held my composure, instincts and rationality clinging on by a thread. Not strong enough to hunt so brazenly.

  “You can,” he answered, seeming to take my seething rage as hesitation.

  With a deep breath, I made fangs recede and my heart calm just a touch. Gale’s gaze wasn’t on my eyes, however, and his sudden change in attitude made no sense. A decision I hadn’t yet made seemed so clear; only the thought of his place as Fletcher’s son stayed my hand and kept me on the path of de-escalation.

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  “You’re Sprout rank,” he continued, oblivious to my war over whether he was food, or outside my rights to punish. “I’m Seedling, First Branch. I could help you. If you formed your first branch, you might be accepted even.”

  “Into what sect?” I found myself asking, worried he’d name my former sect.

  “Verdant Winds.” He puffed out his chest.

  I felt my shoulder slump in relief. And did they teach you to act like that? Like a spoilt baron’s son?

  With great difficulty, I forced a smile. “Thank you for the offer, but my destiny lies elsewhere. I really must be going if I’m to make the most of the daylight.”

  “Then let me go with you, at least for a day. If there are people willing and capable of robbery, they may have chased you here. I know how to make a camp and can fight them.” Again, there was something glittering in his eyes. He had a small pack with him too, but not enough for a comfortable night in a tent.

  Had he sought me out, or was he fleeing his actions in town?

  Perhaps mistakenly, I placed the look in his eyes as the typical arrogance so many of his type had. Where did the son of a hunter go, and where did the entitled cultivator begin with Gale? My vitae-starved body wanted only one thing, but I was not quite convinced to indulge. “Thank you, but I will be alright.”

  He followed me. “Just for today, I insist.”

  I looked around and noticed eyes on us. A face in a window here, a woman turning from a washing line there. One face in particular stood out: a young woman peering out from behind a house, a tear-inflamed eye burning with fury above a red, hand-shaped mark on her face.

  My jaw tightened yet again. “And what if I decline?”

  “These are my lands; I will simply follow you to ensure you are true to your word.” He glanced behind us, but the girl was already gone.

  “Very well. I suppose I would prefer someone to speak with rather than someone who merely follows my shadow.”

  He stepped in line next to me. “Your accent changed.”

  “A habit. My family wanted me ready for marriage,” I lied easily.

  Gale clearly didn’t buy it, but he kept in step with me nonetheless. It was all I could do to keep talking, so that my fangs didn’t bury themselves in his neck the moment the village faded from sight behind the trees.

  All the while, his eyes roved over me. Azalea’d warned me about the gazes and proclivities of men. Until now, I’d thought of my own actions and been certain she was mistaken. A crawling feeling rattled my spine and I couldn’t shake that girl’s hate-filled gaze from my mind.

  The road out of town was not particularly ill-maintained, but it was not terribly well-traveled either. Weeds poked up through the packed dirt and trees leaned in from the sides, half-empty branches casting jagged shadows. Gale walked like he owned the place; lord of his own little fiefdom, just as oblivious to the local lord as the local lord was to him.

  A tiny little fish in a tiny little bowl.

  Soon, winter would be here. What would life be like then? I asked him; he answered simply. Little bits of the hunter’s son tried to break free from the pall weighing him down. They were snuffed out without mercy.

  Fletcher was apparently a man without merit, lacking ambition. Unwilling to take what is his. Someone who could have led their family to the greatness Gale now chased.

  Was Gale’s father a different person than the man I met? Fletcher had made a family and a comfortable life—he had no need for further ambition. And I knew of ambition. An old addiction that had once hollowed me out and left me with only promises I could hope to fill that void.

  Was I like Gale? This man spouting words in front of me, his eyes staring anywhere but my face? This man who’d taken a comfortable life and crushed it to pieces for a chance at a sliver of power?

  In a way. Just that simple thought made my blood boil, my legs want to rip free and tear into something.

  No, I wasn’t like Gale. No person had looked at human me with such raw, unbridled hatred as that single, red-rimmed eye had pierced into Gale.

  As the sun was starting to set, I moved off the road to look for a nice tree to stay the night in. Gale followed, of course.

  “What made you decide to take on the mantle of cultivation?” I asked, hoping my wording would get an answer. Something that could absolve the man I was was getting more and more worried I would eat.

  He leaned against a tree. “I wanted more, and I had the potential. Once I understood, it made me realize how much time I’d wasted, down in the mud with the fallow.”

  I took a deep, steadying breath. “Your father cares deeply for you, you know.”

  Gale shrugged. “...I know. But, none of that matters anymore. He will learn that too, in time, perhaps. The village means nothing.”

  “Then why did you come back?”

  Anger flashed in Gale’s eyes, but he hung his head. “I wished to show them that something superior had come from the mud of the fallow. Perhaps see if there was another with potential.”

  I didn’t think even he knew the answer with how jumbled of a lie that was. “The mundane are still people, Gale. They’re still your family, and your father deserves your respect. He saved me from the river without even asking my name.”

  “And if you were stronger, you would not need saving,” Gale said, his jaw resolute.

  My heart hurt watching him. “Let’s just make camp, alright?”

  “Why did you become a cultivator, Sapphire?” Gale asked, not moving a finger to help as I started picking rocks for a firepit.

  I looked up at him, and answered with a brutal honesty that shook me. “Because I had no choice.”

  He looked at me strangely, like he had no idea what to make of the answer.

  After another minute of working with no help, I glanced at him again. “Are you going to do anything? We’re far enough away now, you can go home.”

  He glanced back the way we’d came, where the road was well out of sight. He looked for a long time, like he was making some decision. “Before I go, I think you owe me for escorting you.”

  “I’m not paying you,” I answered, standing up and dusting off my hands. The firepit was about done—just needed to get tinder.

  He shook his head and his eyes traveled lower, body language somehow both hesitant and frightening. “You’re a lot better than that fisher’s daughter, so you can choose what we do. Maybe you’ll like it enough to stay with me.” To my growing horror, he continued, “You won’t need to worry about cultivation. I can protect you, make you comfortable.”

  “Leave,” I hissed in a way that thrummed through my whole torso. “Now.”

  “Let’s make it fun for both of us. You owe me for my hospitality.”

  “I owe you nothing.” I forced my fangs to stay inside, but it was getting harder. Please don’t make this choice; I can see your hesitation. “What would your father think?”

  Gale stopped mid-step. An entire war played across his features.

  “You can go back, you can apologize. Don’t become a monster.” I didn’t know what he did, and I hoped so desperately I was wrong. Not for Gale, but for Fletcher. How could that man’s son act like this?

  The war finished; Gale lost. “Too late,” he said in a frigid voice. “Get on your knees.”

  I met his gaze, like I was searching for a sign I shouldn’t give in to my instincts. Or maybe trying to excuse the fact that I was about to do just that. How many more people would he hurt? How many people had he hurt?

  Perhaps Azalea was an exception. Perhaps giving commoners who had no concept of noblesse oblige power rivaling an entire militia was a mistake of the sects. Perhaps this apple had just fallen far, far away from the tree.

  I slapped Gale. He reeled.

  “Run or die.” My words were a hiss, the silk of my human mouth tearing at the corners. I knew already that I didn’t mean them; my prey would not escape, and I was still so very hungry.

  “You bitch!” He lunged for me. Somewhere well short of First Ring in speed.

  Match him, don’t exceed him. Let him graze you, retreat where no one can hear the screams.

  Gale was unarmed, and I was still constrained by human-shaped silk. When he reached to grab me, I ducked under and swept a leg. Before he got up, I’d moved further in. Next, he threw a punch; I blocked with a forearm and retaliated with a strike that sent him reeling.

  Immediately, Gale sprang up and chased me. My poor prey was so absorbed that he couldn’t tell when he was outmatched. Confusion reigned: he alternated between strikes and grabs like he was unsure what exactly he wanted out of the fight.

  All the while I pulled us deeper into the darkening forest.

  He raged, I danced. Together, we moved into dark thickets, scraping bark and sending plumes of leaves toward the ground. My prey moved like an errant gust rather than a swirling breeze. Into a valley, up against a rock.

  Vitae boosted his body, gave him his name, and left him well short of a threat. Pitiable, but my pity had long been spent.

  The prey lunged for my wrists; I grabbed his instead, vice-like. Eyes wide, he fell into me and we rolled in the leaves. I landed on top, my jaws and legs finally, joyously tearing apart the silk of my guise as I stared down at him with eight eyes.

  His scream died in a choked gasp as I latched into his neck. The first fangs engaged and he went limp. The next drew blood into me. The last, thin, wicked needles pierced down until they hit vitae.

  Strength surged into me, and my legs locked around my prey. A long, contented hiss echoed through the small valley, and in moments my prey—no, Gale—went still under me.

  I pulled away, gasping, heaving. My legs flipped me over, scuttling. Dead, desiccated, the body of the young man whose father I deeply respected looked so fragile. For now, the hunger was gone and in its place, clarity reigned.

  Hesitant, arm reaching forward, I took one step toward Gale’s body. I blinked and my arm was gone at the elbow, a fountain of black blood erupting from my stump.

  “Hoped I didn’t have to do this,” a gravelly voice said from behind me.