Ashborn: The Hunter Who Returned Before the End

Chapter 7 — The Glass Wolves

Rook did not recognize him.

That fact should have comforted Kael. Instead, it made the room feel more dangerous. The man who would one day sacrifice an entire army stood before him with a younger face, a clean conscience, and no idea that Kael remembered the shape of his last apology.

“You’re the E-rank hunter from the quarry,” Rook said. “Kael Veyr.”

“That’s what the card says.”

Rook studied the blood on his coat. “You’ll join my investigation team.”

“No.”

The guildmaster coughed. “Kael, this is not a request.”

“Then arrest me again.”

Rook’s mouth twitched. “You’re either brave or foolish.”

“I’ve been both. They feel similar from the inside.”

By evening, Kael, Seris, and two Warden soldiers were traveling toward the abandoned village of Lorn. The guild claimed missing livestock had attracted glass wolves from the northern ravines. Kael knew the truth. Lorn was the first place where the Hollow King tested human memories against monster instincts.

The village lay beneath a hill of white stone. Its houses stood intact, doors open, tables set, stew cold in blackened pots. No bodies remained. The silence was worse than a battlefield.

Seris dismounted and touched the mud. “Tracks.”

Kael saw them. Four-legged shapes with claw tips like shards of window glass. The wolves had circled the houses, but none had entered through the doors.

“They were invited,” he said.

One of the Warden soldiers laughed nervously. “By whom?”

A child answered from the bell tower.

“By me.”

They looked up. A boy of nine crouched beneath the bell, holding a kitchen knife. His cheeks were streaked with soot.

“My name is Toma,” he said. “The wolves promised they would bring my mother back.”

The first wolf leaped from a roof.

Kael pushed Seris aside and raised his shield. The beast struck like a thrown spear. Its body was translucent, made of smoky glass, and its teeth reflected memories instead of faces. Kael saw Elia lying dead in the street. He nearly lost his grip.

Seris stabbed through the wolf’s flank. The creature shattered, but the pieces crawled across the mud toward her boots.

“Burn the fragments!” Kael shouted.

He seized a lantern, poured oil across the shards, and set them alight. The flames burned blue. Three more wolves emerged from the houses.

The soldiers broke formation. One screamed when a wolf touched his helmet. Kael caught the soldier by the collar and dragged him clear, then drove his sword through the creature’s throat. The Ash Mark showed the true heart as a red point beneath its jaw.

“Stop looking at what it shows you,” Kael told him. “Look at where it is.”

The soldier nodded, trembling.

Together, they forced the wolves toward the village well. Kael remembered the well had been sealed with an iron grate. In the first timeline, the hunters opened it and released the rift beneath Lorn. This time, he kicked the grate shut and used the wolves’ momentum against them.

Seris fired into the last creature’s chest. Kael struck the exposed heart.

The glass wolf broke apart.

Inside the well, something whispered Toma’s mother’s name.

The boy dropped the knife and ran toward it.

Kael grabbed him before he reached the grate.

“She isn’t down there.”

Toma screamed and bit his hand.

Beneath the boy’s sleeve, a circle of black letters glowed around his wrist.

Kael pulled the sleeve down before the soldiers could see. Toma struggled, kicking hard enough to bruise his shin.

“Let me go! She is down there!”

“What is your mother’s name?”

“Mira.”

The answer came too quickly, as if memorized. Kael had seen the Hollow King use names as hooks. It could imitate a dead person perfectly, but it could not remember the small imperfections that made them human. Mira would have had a chipped front tooth. She would have called Toma by a private nickname. She would not have promised to return from a well.

Kael crouched until they were eye to eye.

“Your mother is gone,” he said. “But you are not. If you come with us, we will find out who took her.”

Toma stopped biting.

The boy looked past Kael toward the well. Deep below, a voice whispered, “Little sparrow.”

Toma began to cry without making a sound.

Kael carried him from the village while Seris burned the last fragments of glass.

The child’s silent sobs followed them through the dark.