The forest greeted them with silence—dense, ancient silence. Not the kind born of peace, but the kind that whispered warnings between the rustle of leaves. Arin stepped carefully over a carpet of fallen pine needles, his senses alert, his heartbeat steady.
Evelyne moved beside him, her posture graceful yet prepared. Despite the weight of House Valmont's reputation shadowing her every step, in the wild, there was a clarity to her—focused and unburdened.
They were deep in the woodland perimeter now, far beyond the garden paths and hidden away from the watching eyes of House Devain's retainers. No servants. No guards. Just them—and the unknown.
"This will be our first hunt," Evelyne murmured. "Do you think we're ready?"
Arin didn't answer at once. He crouched near a patch of torn moss, inspecting faint claw marks. They were shallow, but far too organized for any natural scavenger.
"I'm not sure readiness matters," he finally said. "We'll either adapt or fall behind."
She nodded, unsheathing her short blade with a soft whisper of steel. "Then let's not fall behind."
A strange track emerged underfoot—soft impressions that looked like a rabbit's hindlegs at first glance… but elongated, with a curling hook at the end. As if the creature leapt, twisted mid-air, and landed without fully touching the ground.
They followed the signs deeper, the light dimming as the canopy thickened overhead. Vines looped between branches like suspended nooses, and the air held an odd charge—neither hostile nor welcoming.
It wasn't long before they found the nest.
Half-buried beneath a thicket of roots and bramble, the clearing was subtle—almost too neat. Scattered within were hollowed-out tree trunks, their bark clawed and stripped clean in strange patterns.
Then came the sound.
A rustle—sharp and deliberate.
Something darted from one side of the glade to the other, too fast to catch fully. Just a blur. And then another.
Arin caught the outline.
Small.
Quadrupedal.
Roughly the size of a fox.
But its shape was wrong—spindly limbs, long ears that bent like antennae, and a tail shaped more like a hooked tendril than fur. Its coat was ashen gray with a faint green sheen—perfect camouflage among moss and bark.
And its eyes…
Glowing white.
No pupil. No emotion. Just eerie stillness.
"They're not rabbits," Evelyne whispered.
"No," Arin replied. "I've seen a description of something like this before… in the old bestiary in Father's library."
He took a step back. "Kaelinths. Not true beasts—echo-spawn. Born in deep mana glades. Skittish alone, but deadly in swarms."
"Echo-spawn?" she asked, already preparing her stance.
"They exist half a breath outside the natural flow. Not fast—just displaced. Like they move between heartbeats. You swing, and they're already gone."
One blinked in just then—literally blinked, folding into reality from a shimmer of distortion near the trees. Its claws flexed as it observed them, the air thickening where it emerged.
Arin raised his voice slightly. "Their blinks tear through space briefly. Not teleportation—displacement. The air gets dense when they land. That's our only window."
"How do we catch them?"
He glanced around, letting instinct and memory shape a quick plan. "We use their arrogance. They hunt in tight packs, but they assume their blink advantage makes them untouchable."
"And?"
"And if we control the space—tighten their landing points—we can limit their displacements. Force them into traps."
"We don't have traps."
"We have terrain," Arin replied.
Quickly, they surveyed the glade, noting natural choke points: felled logs, thorny roots, and narrow clearings. Arin guided Evelyne toward a wide boulder that offered a back wall, shielding at least one angle of approach.
"They'll come when they sense a break in formation," he continued. "One of us needs to draw them in."
"I'll take the lead," Evelyne said immediately.
"No," he countered. "Let me."
She frowned.
"I need to learn what they're capable of," Arin said quietly. "If I don't test myself now, when will I?"
Evelyne hesitated—but relented. "Fine. But if you fall—"
"I won't."
They separated—Arin to the center of the glade, Evelyne melting into the brush, her presence vanishing like mist. She had always been far more attuned to subtlety.
The forest breathed.
And then the first Kaelinth lunged.
It blinked just inches from Arin's chest—claws raking toward his shoulder.
He turned, pivoting with surprising grace for someone untrained, letting the claw skim past. His blade sang, narrowly missing the tail as it vanished again.
Another shimmer—this time from the left.
Then three at once.
The hunt had truly begun.
And it was only the beginning.