The treeline offered a perfect, suffocating darkness.
From their hidden vantage point in the pines, Toli and Ryan stared down at the sprawling encampment of the Black Dragon army. It was a sea of canvas and fire, festering like an open wound in the frozen valley. Thousands of soldiers moved like ants through the muddy snow. The roaring of bonfires, the clash of steel cups, and the heavy, booming laughter of violent men echoed into the night.
Ryan didn't look at Toli. His mismatched eyes—one dark, one glowing with a faint, necrotic green—were locked on the camp. He was memorizing the geometry of his enemy. The patrol routes. The location of the armory. The towering brass war horns positioned on a raised wooden platform in the center square.
"When the fire starts," Ryan whispered, his voice barely carrying over the wind, "you will run to the platform. You will blow the horn of retreat. You will not hesitate."
Toli nodded frantically, his face pale and slick with a cold sweat. He was shivering, clutching his shoulder where the viper had struck.
"And if you think about running..." Ryan turned his head slowly. The green eye pinned Toli in place. "Remember the venom in your blood. If you flee, your heart will freeze in your chest. Your lungs will turn to glass. You will beg for a sword before the end."
Toli swallowed a lump of pure terror. "But... but what if the sergeants ask about Gero? What if they want to know why I came back alone?"
"Tell them he chased a stag into the deep woods," Ryan said, turning back to the camp. "Tell them he was greedy for fresh meat. They will not look for him. They do not care about you or him. To the Prince, you are just meat holding a spear."
Toli wanted to argue. He wanted to say they were brothers-in-arms. But the words died in his throat. He knew it was the absolute truth.
"Go," Ryan commanded.
Toli hesitated for a fraction of a second. He looked at this strange, terrifying boy—a dead thing that breathed, a child who ate raw flesh and commanded poison. Then, Toli turned and stumbled out of the treeline, wading into the snow toward the camp gates, the venom already ticking like a clock in his veins.
Ryan watched him go.
"You are evolving."
The voice echoed inside Ryan's skull. It wasn't spoken aloud. It was cold, ancient, and deeply parasitic—the voice of the Eye.
Ryan didn't flinch. He kept his gaze fixed on the camp.
"I was uncertain if you possessed the cruelty for this," the Eye murmured with dark amusement. "Blackmailing a man with his own agonizing death. Harvesting a soldier's soul the moment you woke. Tell me, boy... how does it feel?"
"I feel what is necessary," Ryan thought back, his jaw tight.
"His soul rests inside you now," the Eye explained, a professor detailing a morbid anatomy. "You cannot access his memories yet, for you have not burned his energy. But the arithmetic is complete. He was thirty-seven. Fate dictated he had thirteen years remaining. But poison is a thief. The venom stole three years of his life in pure suffering. You harvested the remaining ten."
Ryan remained silent.
"You feel the shift, do you not? Since the wolf?"
Ryan looked down at his own hands. He slowly curled them into tight fists. "Yes."
"Describe it."
Ryan closed his eyes. He focused on the hum in his blood.
"When I woke up... the world was too loud. Too bright," Ryan admitted quietly. "Even in the pitch black, I can see the outlines of the trees. I can smell the pine sap. I can hear the heartbeats of the birds sleeping in the branches above me. My muscles... they feel like coiled springs." He paused, a knot forming in his stomach. "And the meat. The raw rabbit. It didn't make me sick. It just tasted like... prey."
"Naturally," the Eye purred. "You did not just take the beast's years. You consumed its essence. Its predatory senses. Its strength. You are no longer entirely human, Ryan. You are part wolf. Part boy. Part something else entirely."
Ryan thought of the bloody meat. It had tasted good.
"Have you ever seen a wolf cook its meal over a fire?" the Eye asked smoothly.
Ryan opened his eyes. The green light flared slightly. "No."
"Then you have your answer. Embrace the beast."
"Be quiet," Ryan commanded. "I need to hunt."
Ryan closed his eyes again, but this time, he didn't look inward. He pushed his awareness outward.
He tapped into the wolf.
Instantly, the chaotic roar of the camp shattered into a thousand distinct, crystal-clear sounds. He could hear the crackle of individual logs in the bonfires. He could hear the wet squelch of boots in the mud. He could hear whispers from a hundred yards away.
First, the gate guards.
"...told my wife I'd be back with silver by the spring thaw. If I'm late, she'll skin me."*
"Better her than the Snow Emperor's heavy cavalry."
"Ha! True enough. Pass the flask."
Ryan tuned them out, pushing his hearing deeper into the camp. He found a massive cluster of voices—dozens of men stomping their boots in unison, roaring a brutal, drunken marching song:
"We ride the storm across the world!
We drink the blood of the weak and old!
We take their lives, we take their gold!
The Dragon King, his wings unfurled!
All nations burn before us!"
Ryan's fingers dug into the bark of the pine tree. These were the men who had slaughtered his neighbors. The men who had left his father looking like a pincushion. The men who had let his mother freeze in the bloody mud.
He forced his breathing to slow. Control. Focus. Anger makes a hunter sloppy.
He shifted his hearing again.
"...Who in the hell is taking the spiced wine to the commanders' pavilion?! If the Prince is kept waiting, I will personally mount someone's head on a pike! Move!"*
Ryan's eyes snapped open.
The commanders' pavilion. The officers were all in one place. Eating. Drinking. Drunk on their own victory.
It was perfect.
Moving with a terrifying, fluid grace, Ryan slipped out of the treeline. He didn't walk like a human boy anymore. He stayed low to the ground, moving from shadow to shadow, his boots making absolutely no sound against the snow. He bypassed two drunken patrols, slipping behind a row of supply wagons until he reached the rear of the massive cooking tent.
The smell of roasting pork and boiling grease was overwhelming. Ryan pressed his back against the heavy canvas and listened.
Inside, a man was screaming—the head cook, his voice cracking with stress.
"FASTER! Turn the spit! The Vanguard has been marching in the snow for a week! They want hot meat and they want it now! If they aren't fed, they'll roast me, and then they'll roast you! MOVE!"
Pots clanged violently. Fire roared. Knives chopped frantically against wooden blocks.
Then, a small, trembling voice spoke up. A boy. No older than Ryan.
"M-Master Gobin? Please... can someone else take the trays to the commanders' pavilion tonight?"
The frantic chopping stopped. The cook sighed. His voice dropped the anger, replaced by a heavy, exhausted dread. "Why, lad? What's wrong?"
Ryan leaned closer to the canvas.
"The officers..." the servant boy whimpered, his voice thick with unshed tears. "The way they look at me when I pour the wine. It makes my skin crawl. I... I came here to hold a sword. I wanted to be a soldier. Not... not their plaything."
A heavy silence fell over the kitchen.
"Listen to me, boy," the cook said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "We are low-born dirt. Do you understand? To men in silk and steel, we are not human. We are furniture. You came to be a fighter, but now you carry trays. Is it unfair? Yes. But do you know what is worse?"
The boy sniffled. "What?"
"Refusing them," the cook said grimly. "If you say no, they will beat you to death where you stand. And once you're dead, the common soldiers will do to your corpse exactly what the commanders wanted to do while you were breathing." The cook's voice softened, filled with a horrific pity. "I do not want to bury you, lad. So you keep your mouth shut. You pour the wine. And if they want to... play with you... you let them. You close your eyes, and you survive. Survival has no pride. Do you understand?"
Ryan heard the boy choke back a sob. "Yes, Master Gobin."
"Good. Now take the tray and go."
Footsteps hurried toward the back flap of the tent.
Ryan melted perfectly into the shadows of a stacked crate. The tent flap was pushed aside, and the servant boy hurried out into the cold night. He was thin, shivering in a ragged tunic, carrying a massive silver tray loaded with flagons of hot, spiced wine. Tears were freezing on his cheeks as he walked.
Ryan watched him from the dark.
He felt a brief, phantom ache in his chest—a ghost of the boy he had been yesterday, the boy who would have tried to help. But the wolf within him didn't care about crying boys. The wolf only saw prey. And right now, the crying boy was simply a trail of blood leading straight to the alpha's den.
Ryan stepped out of the shadows and silently followed the boy toward the center of the camp.