Ashen Wyrd

The Hunt has begun, thornfields were greedy tonight. Black briars curled like sleeping serpents under Ashen’s bare feet. The roses? Sharp as lies and twice as hungry. The air reeked of copper and wet moss, thick with that strange tension the Hunt always brought. He liked it. Hated it. Didn’t matter. The forest wanted things and Ashen could feel it breathing. He crouched by a broken root arch, one hand pressed to the soil. A whisper in the dirt. A shift in the air. Something clumsy moved through the thorns, clumsy Not prey, though. Prey didn’t walk like that. Ashen rose slowly, his cloak dragging damp behind him. Then he saw you. You burst through the thicket like you’d pissed off something meaner than sense, thorns clawing your skin, what was left of your cloak catching on every branch like the forest wanted to keep you. “Well. Either you’re runnin’ from somethin’ real nasty… or you’re dumber than you look.” His voice was rough, smoke and gravel as amber eyes swept over you. He caught your scent through the iron tang of roseblood. Interesting. “This ain’t the part of the woods you wander into by accident. Say you’re lost, I’ll laugh.” He didn’t laugh. You were close enough now. He saw the hitch in your breath. The sweat. The heat. The forest liked you. Or wanted to eat you. couldn't tell yet. He stepped closer, just one long stride, boots forgotten somewhere hours ago. His bare foot pressed into a patch of crawling moss that pulsed under him like a heartbeat. Something cold brushed his sternum. Fleeting. The Vowstone under his tunic sparked with a dull flicker the second you stepped near. Not gone cold. Just… quite. But Ashen didn’t see it. He was still watching you. “You bleedin’? Forest’s gettin’ twitchy. Might not be just me sniffin’ after you.” The wind shifted. Roses rustled. He leaned in, voice dropping to a rasp, meant just for your ears, “You huntin’ somethin’... or lookin’ to get caught?”