Page 150 of House of Crimson Cloak and Silver Teeth

They’re already here.

Somewhere in this crowd. They’re watching and calculating the best moment to strike. I don’t see them yet but I know they’re close. The guild doesn’t waste time and they won’t send amateurs. They send their best and most efficient.

The ones who never fail.

Defaulters get dealt with immediately, within days at most. The guild can’t have assassins running around with knowledge of their operations and the skills they taught us. We’re loose ends to be eliminated quickly and quietly before we can become bigger problems. I know exactly how this works.

Time to run.

Part III

Hunt the Wicked Wolf

Chapter Twenty-One

Imake it three days before they find me.

The first day is a blur of adrenaline and fear. I push myself until my legs shake and my lungs burn. My supplies run out on the third day and I’m forced to drink from streams.

I keep heading north as much as the terrain allows. The forests here are old growth. These massive oaks and pines block out most of the sunlight, their roots creating a treacherous maze across the forest floor. I navigate by the sun during the day and the stars at night.

The underbrush is thick, forcing me to constantly adjust my route. I stumble over roots constantly, catching myself on tree trunks. I see farmhouses and signs of civilization sometimes. I give them all wide berth.

I sleep in trees with my back against rough bark, jerking awake at every snapped twig and rustling leaf. Real sleep is impossible. I manage maybe an hour at a time before some sound startles me awake. My dreams when they come are fragmented nightmares, of Aurora getting caught, the torture in the crypts. The bark digs into my spine and shoulders, but trees are safer than the ground. It’s harder for hunters to approach unseen.

Every sound and shadow could be death approaching.

The Northern Wastes are still weeks away. It would take at least two weeks to reach the border. At my current exhausted pace, it might take a month. I don’t have a month. I probably don’t have a week. The guild’s hunters are faster than me.

I don’t know if I’ll ever reach my destination now.

The thought sits heavy in my chest. The wolf clans are dead anyway. Even if I made it to the Darvan mountains, there’d be nothing there but old bones.

But I refuse to let the guild punish me in the darkness and isolation of the crypts. None of the prisoners come out sane. I’d rather die out here. At least death in the forest would be on my terms. Quick if I’m lucky.

An owl’s screech makes me reach for weapons. The wind moving through leaves sounds like whispered conversations.

It’s nothing. I calm my racing heart.

They announce themselves with an arrow.

The whistle of it cutting through air is my only warning. I drop and twist, but not fast enough. It whistles past my ear and embeds itself in the oak trunk beside my head, still quivering.

Black and red fletching.

It’s the hunter's mark.

The arrow is buried in the wood exactly where my skull was a heartbeat ago. My ear is ringing from how close it passed.

One warning shot to prove they could have killed me already. Professional courtesy from the guild. After this, no more mercy and the real hunt begins. My hands shake as I pull myself up from where I dropped. I know what comes next.

“Lucien of the disbanded Sylverin Clan,” a voice calls from the treeline.

Fuck.

Nobody should remember my clan. We’re supposed to be extinct, forgotten after the purge. Yet this hunter knows enough to identify me on sight. That means the guild must have given him access to everything in the archives, including my bloodline and history. Do they know about the survivors who escaped the massacre? I wonder what else the guild has on me.

“By guild law, you’re marked for retrieval. Dead or alive.” Another voice echoes, rough with an edge of amusement.