Page 39 of The Huntmaster

I was cold—shivering despite the thick, musky furs piled over me. My breath hitched in the silence. This time I hadn't been dreaming of the crash. Instead. my mind had dragged me back to Earth, to the sterile, brightly lit hallways of the Academy and the suffocating grey of the city.

The dream had been a montage of every time I was "too much." The way the other girls would go quiet when I walked into the room, their eyes tracking me like a specimen under a microscope. “You’re just so... intense, Lyra,” they’d say, their smiles not reaching their eyes. The memory of being the girl who talked too fast about the stars, the one who was too loud, too smart, too weird. I had spent my entire life trying to shrink, trying to fold myself into a smaller, quieter version of myself just to be allowed a seat at the table. I had been bullied into a cage of my own making, told that my fire was a flaw.

But then... the dream had shifted. The cold isolation of Earth had turned into a low, vibrating thrum. A hand had been on my forehead—cool, steady, and large enough to swallow my entire face. Then a weight, heavy and possessive, settled against my throat.

I reached up, my fingers trembling as they brushed the skin of my neck. It felt sensitive, humming with a phantom heat that wouldn't dissipate.

“Kaelen…” I whispered into the dark. My voice was a thready rasp, the name feeling like a secret I wasn't supposed to know. I could have sworn I’d said it aloud in my sleep. I could have sworn I’d felt his breath, hot and smelling of the forest and something metallic, right against my ear.

But as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, the hut was empty. The willow-vine door swayed gently in the high-altitude breeze, its creak-creak the only answer to the question I was too afraid to ask.

I sat up, pulling the furs tight around my shoulders. Get it together, Lyra, I scolded myself. I was light-years from the people who told me I was too much, living in a giant tree with a warrior who viewed me as a prisoner. The "connection" I felt wasn't real—just my brain trying to find safety in the only thing nearby that was alive.

Yet, as I stared at the shadows where I imagined he’d been standing, I felt a hollow, aching void in my chest. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel like I had to be smaller. If anything, the way he looked at me made me feel like I could burn the whole forest down.

The morning suns didn't rise so much as they bled through the dense canopy in streaks of gold and crimson. I dragged myself off the furs, my body stiff and aching from the "fall" into the mud and the lingering, electric tension of the previous day. I expected the door to fly open at any second. I expected Kaelen to haul me out by the arm and bark some impossible command.

I waited, bracing myself. I splashed some cool water from a stone basin onto my face, scrubbing at my skin as if I could wash away the memory of his touch. I was ready for him. I was ready to be angry, to be cold, to demand an explanation for the mud.

But when the vine-door finally parted, it was Toren.

He leaned against the doorframe with a casual, easy grace. He held a small leather satchel and a long, gnarled wooden pole—maybe a walking stick?—and a lopsided, friendly grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Morning, star-woman," he chirped. His blue markings glowed with bright vibrancy. "Ready to see the forest without a face full of dirt?"

I blinked, looking past him at the empty walkway. "Where is Kaelen?"

Toren’s grin widened just a fraction, his eyes glinting. "The Huntmaster is... occupied. He’s headed to the southern borders for an 'audit.' Very important, very official. Lots of trees to stare at intensely until they confess their sins, I imagine."

The rejection hit me like a punch to the face. He’d left. After everything that happened in the thicket—the venom, the heat—he couldn't even face me this morning. He’d pawned me off on his friend like a chore.

"Oh," I said, my voice sounding flat. I straightened my leather tunic, trying to mask the sudden, sharp sting of disappointment. "Right. Of course."

"He said I’m to take over your training for the day," Toren continued, tossing me a piece of dried, purple fruit from his bag. "Show you how to read the ground. Find the markers. Ask you some questions." He paused, winking. "Though he told me to be 'subtle' about that last part. He thinks you're skittish."

I caught the fruit, my jaw tightening. Skittish? I’d survived a solo crash that should have vaporised me. I’d stared down the monsters of this planet, and I’d let a seven-foot alien touch me in ways that shattered my understanding of the universe. I wasn't skittish. I was furious.

"He’s running," I muttered under my breath, biting into the tart, juicy fruit.

"What was that?" Toren asked.

"Nothing," I snapped, moving past him toward the door. "Let's go. If I'm going to be a 'tracker' or whatever, I might as well start now. Lead the way, Blue."

Toren chuckled, falling into step beside me as we navigated the swaying vine-bridges. "Blue? I like that. You’re a strange one, Ly-ra. I can see why he’s so..."

He trailed off, his nose twitching as we stepped out onto a high platform. He looked at me, his gaze lingering on the flush of my cheeks, then back toward the heights.

"Why he's so what?" I pressed.

Toren shook his head. "Nothing. Just... keep your eyes on the plants today, star-woman. The forest has a way of showing you exactly what you’re trying to hide from yourself."

I looked back at the hut one last time. Kaelen wasn't at the southern border yet. I could feel it—a prickle of heat at the base of my skull. He was out there.

I told myself I imagined it, but my body didn’t believe me.

He was running, all right. But as we descended into the shadows of the lower canopy, I realised that maybe I was running, too—straight into a world that was starting to feel more like home than the stars I’d come from.

The descent into the lower canopy was a sensory overload. Toren moved with an effortless, liquid grace, his long, prehensile toes gripping the moss-slicked vines as if they were solid ground. I, meanwhile, was doing my best not to humiliate myself by sliding off a branch and into the emerald abyss below. Every time a gust of wind caught the swaying bridges, my stomach did a slow, nauseating roll.