Page 48 of The Huntmaster

He turned to look at me, and for the first time, I saw the true depth of the struggle. His pupils were nearly as dilated as Kaelen’s had been, the gold of his irises flickering like a dying candle in a gale.

"Many of us, myself included, managed to find a temporary balance tonight because of the attack. The need to defend the Nest—to kill the Vakras—provided a vent for the pressure. Rage and duty are very effective anchors for the fever. They give the body a direction to vent the heat."

He let out a long, shuddering breath that puffed white in the air. "But do not think it is easy. I am struggling even now to keep my hands from shaking, to keep my thoughts from drifting into the dark. And for a Huntmaster? For Kaelen? His connection to the Pulse is deeper than any of ours. He is the lightning rod for this Tribe. He feels every tremor of the forest, every shift in the wind, every drop of blood spilt. And the Moon Festival is only a few nights away. The fever hasn't even peaked yet. He is fighting a war inside his own skin."

"The Moon Festival," I repeated, the name feeling like a ticking clock in the back of my mind. "What happens then?"

"The Great Resonance," Toren whispered, his gaze fixed on the silver moons above. "It is when the three become one. It is the time of the Joining. If a male cannot master himself by then..." He trailed off, the implication hanging heavy in the air.

"Toren."

Sora appeared from the shadows near the Healers' Hut, her expression stern despite the visible exhaustion etched into her features. She walked over and placed a firm, grounding hand on her brother’s shoulder. "Enough. Go. Check the perimeter of the lower branches one last time, then you must rest. Your Pulse is screaming, brother. If you do not settle, you will be of no use to the watch tomorrow."

Toren nodded slowly, casting one last, unreadable look at me—a look that felt halfway between an apology and a warning—before disappearing into the darkness of the upper walkway.

Sora turned to me, her violet markings glowing with a soft, weary warmth. She reached out, her fingers calloused but incredibly gentle as she wiped a smudge of dried silver blood from my cheek.

"Adjustment is different for all of us, Lyra," she said softly, trying to offer a reassurance I wasn't sure I could accept. "Do not judge Kaelen by the standards of your world or even ours. For some of us, the moons bring a song we can hum to. For Kaelen, they bring a storm that threatens to uproot him. He is simply trying to keep that storm from breaking over the Nest. He leaves because he fears what he might do if he stays."

"It feels more like he’s letting the storm drive him away from the people who need him," I said, my shoulders finally sagging under the weight of the night.

"Perhaps," Sora conceded. She smiled then, a small, secretive curve of her lips that made me narrow my eyes in suspicion. "But tomorrow, we will give you something else to focus on. The others... they have suggested a preparation. A gift, of sorts."

I perked up, my scientific curiosity warring with my exhaustion. "A preparation? What kind? Is it medical? Some kind of cultural ritual?"

Sora chuckled, a light, melodic sound that felt like the first normal thing I’d heard in hours. She began to push me gently but firmly toward Kaelen’s hut, her touch leaving no room for negotiation. "You ask too many questions, star-woman. It is a tradition. You will see when the suns rise. For now, you have done more than enough for our people. You have saved our kin tonight, and for that, you have earned your peace."

"Sora, wait—is it about the ship? Did they find something?" I tried to dig my heels in, but she was deceptively strong.

"Rest, Lyra," she insisted, her voice soft but final. "Do not worry about the Huntmaster tonight. The hut is your sanctuary. The wood will hold your secrets. Just sleep."

I stood at the hut's entrance, watching her lithe form walk back toward the healers. The village was finally settling into a tense, watchful quiet. I looked up at the high branches where the shadows were thickest, wondering if Kaelen was still up there in the High Roost, staring at the moons and fighting the primal monster in his blood.

I stepped inside the hut, The silence was deafening. I was alone, but as I lay down on the furs, my skin still buzzing with a frantic, unspent energy, I realised that "rest" was a fantasy.

My mind was a chaotic loop: the silver blood, the shrieks, Toren’s proud gaze, and the way Kaelen had looked at me—like I was the only water in a desert he was forbidden to touch. Yet my body didn't seem to care for the rules.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw silver blood blooming like spilt mercury against skin; every time I breathed, the scent of wood-smoke and ozone—Kaelen’s lingering scent—mocked me from the empty furs.

I couldn't stay here. My skin felt too tight, my mind a frayed wire humming with an unspent, anxious energy.

I sat up, my heart hammering against my ribs. I needed air, and more than that, I needed to know if the "storm" Toren spoke of had finally broken Kaelen. I slipped out of the furs, my movements ghost-quiet. I didn't need boots; the leather-wrapped soles of the tribe-wear were silent enough against the bark as I eased the woven door open and stepped out into the night.

The village was a cathedral of shifting silver shadows, the bioluminescence of the Alu’un dimmed to a watchful, sleepy glow. I didn't head for the upper Roosts where Toren said Kaelen had gone to "settle his blood." Instead, a strange, magnetic pull drew my feet downward, toward the massive, gnarly roots that anchored the Alu'un to the earth.

As I descended a spiralling vine-stair near the base of the trunk, the air grew thick and damp. I heard it then—the low, guttural murmur of voices. It wasn't the melodic, flowing song of the healers. It was the sharp chatter of hunters on high alert. I flattened myself against a massive, moss-covered ridge of the trunk, peering down.

Two hunters stood guard at a vertical fissure in the tree’s base. They were leaning on their spears, their markings a dim, watchful amber.

What are they hiding down there?

I had never seen a Vakra. I’d only heard the hissed stories, the descriptions of "hollow" things that lived in the rot, and I had seen the brutal evidence of their handiwork on the hunters I’d just patched up. Suspicion gnawed at me. In every colony or outpost I’d ever visited, the dark places at the bottom were always reserved for the things people wanted to forget.

I waited until a gust of wind rattled the canopy, giving me a momentary veil of sound then slipped around the far side of the trunk. I found what I was looking for—a secondary ventilation knot, an opening barely wide enough for a human to squeeze through.

I wriggled inside, the smell of damp earth and old sap filling my lungs. The further I descended into the hollowed-out root system, the colder it became. The walls were slick with a pale, weeping fungus. This was their version of a brig, a place where the light of the moons couldn't reach.

Finally, the tunnel opened into a small, damp chamber. Bioluminescent fungi clung to the ceiling, casting a sickly, pale light over a cage made of reinforced iron-wood.