The woods sang. 

All around him, Fia could hear the answering calls of Ithíofan’s wolves. Some had been former members of his pack, others he had picked up roaming through the darkness of death. All of them eager to run the earth once more. 

Fia rarely used the pack in its entirety, a full sixteen members strong. In fact, the last time he had called upon them, he had been moments away from the defeat that had left him chained to the empire. A last-ditch effort that had allowed the rest of his men to escape, his own inevitable loss bleeding red and inescapably raw at his feet. The memory of that afternoon scratched at his heart. He let the wolves’ howls drown the words it would have spoken to him. 

At this moment, he couldn’t afford to suffer the effects of his imperial contract. 

The thief galloped ahead of him but not nearly close enough for Fia to reach out and restrain him. Every time Fia thought he had gained another few yards on him, the ground beneath the horse shifted, the shadows lengthened, and the distance snapped back to the same several horse-lengths they had been just seconds before. 

He should have known, however. 

Now that he had a better look at the horse, he knew. Rujökipar. A shadow-runner. Creatures that commanded time and distance in the dark. The silver dusting the horse’s hindquarters and the shimmer that made a mirage out of its mane and tail betrayed the animal’s true nature. Waxing and waning. Ebb and flow. Always in a cyclical fashion, its command over the space between the thief and himself would be unassailable unless Fia could find a way to interrupt it. 

That was simply a matter of when and not if. Unless this thief had more tricks up his sleeves, which Fia couldn’t entirely discount, interrupting his rhythm still rested well within Fia's ability. Even so, he couldn't forget the magic that had crawled through the shadows of Syehnäki, how it had only hinted at the thief’s capacity for shadow work. 

Taken all by itself, it was a strangely terrifying prospect. That one could be so beloved by the dark. 

But rather than fear it, a small part of Fia, an honest part, delighted in that knowledge. Yet, all he could do at this moment was run the man down. He couldn’t think far beyond that single fact. It drove him forward, steered his every thought, and any time Fia attempted to contemplate some other idea, some other instance of what if, the ice crept into his chest, and everything alive in him course corrected.

If ever there was a cursed existence...

He caught flashes of movement in the woods to his left and right. The wolves were closing in around them. Several had hunkered down, pressing themselves flat against the earth in the far distance, waiting to take up the chase when the thief and his horse finally passed them. Ithíofan fell into step behind Fia, loping easily as his stride ate up the ground with a hunger known only to those on the hunt. 

Snarling. 

Not from Ithíofan, but somewhere off to Fia’s right. More movement blurring the shadows. Fia counted two smaller creatures harassing one of the wolves. Both black as the night around them, only the flash of white teeth, the pink of their tongues giving them away as they harried the wolf racing before them, nipping relentlessly at its tail and hocks.

Ithíofan veered off in pursuit, but before he could get more than five yards from Fia, he whipped around and snapped at the shadows seething behind him. He dragged one creature from the darkness with a strangled hiss only to have a second one erupt in its wake with all the fury of a god denied their idea of justice. 

Golden eyes glinted in the darkness like a lantern set upon a sill, calling the lost back home. 

Drimgair. 

Dream hunters.

A smile broke over Fia’s mouth. He couldn’t stop it any more than the ocean could help yearning for the shore. Excitement, near feverish, rushed through his veins. Beneath him, Bháridnac snorted and lengthened her neck, stretching herself out as Fia’s energy flooded through her. They wouldn’t catch the thief like this, though. Not with his rujökipar mount. Always a step ahead. Like trying to race against moonlight, never quite able to outpace it. 

Several of the wolves had managed to free themselves of their pursuers, though. Most with help from their packmates, who, instead of taking up the chase, had backtracked to engage the drimgair, enabling a handful of wolves to run free of harassment. Fia whistled, the sound as piercing as a sudden tragedy cutting into a life. 

Everything went silent. 

Those wolves, still capable of running unhindered, closed in on the thief and his horse. They criss-crossed in the path before him, slowed down to run alongside him, never quite able to sink their teeth into the horse’s hocks or grab at its tail. Fia watched as the thief looked left and right, taking in the wolves’ attack patterns and trying to sort out their strategy. 

“Déitois d’aforan, do you remember your place?” Fia said. The smile lingered over his lips, unshakeable.  “I give you leave to rise once more, so come and reclaim what was yours.”

A chorus of howls and eager barking flooded the woods. Panting, the wolves continued to chase the thief, though the hunt began to take a different shape. While they ran after and around the thief and his horse, they slowly shifted their positions, drifting away from the thief’s left side and creating a wall of teeth and hunger on his right. 

Fia knew they all sensed it. His observations of the thief indicated a man intimately aware of the shadows. There was no way he didn’t sense it. The thief leaned low over the side of his horse, precariously balanced as it continued to race forward. He dragged his fingertips across the dark earth of the forest floor, then righted himself before the trunk of a large cedar could behead him. 

That same feverish feeling threatened to consume Fia as he watched it all play out. 

Recklessly bold. Tenacious. 

The world closed in on him, and still, the thief sought ways to fight. Fia hadn’t missed the thief’s fingers dripping with inky liquid after he had skimmed them over the ground, how the shadows crawled up along his forearms and stained his skin with the same darkness of the world beyond. 

They had a name for such mages back in his home country. Different from Shadowscrawler. Different even from radhasgài, the word once used before the empire thought unity under its banner better than peace treaties and collaboration.

Ancaenallí islidoruin.

The one betrothed to dark dreams.

Those who did not merely swim on the surface of their respected element, as most of the main elemental mages did, but rather linked some part of their soul to the darkness and became caretakers as much as they did users of all the shadows had to offer. It was a two-way pact. Not only could the mage elect to cut off their relationship at any time, though not without sacrificing some part of themselves in return, but the shadows themselves could sever the bond if they ever felt abused by the partnership. 

It explained the fondness the dark had for this man. 

Linking himself to the shadows of this forest gave the thief full knowledge of its layout and any disturbances from beyond the shadows’ gates. 

But a step too late. 

To his left, the ground shook as the shadows parted and left a gaping chasm in the darkness. From it, rising in swift succession, a wall of trees, their trunks so tightly pressed together a squirrel would struggle to inhale in the space between them. They shot up taller than the surrounding cedars, oaks, and winter cherry trees and overtook their shadows, not consuming but infiltrating them, creating a symbiotic life form as the soul of one temporarily shared the space of another. Their branches wove together, crafting an impenetrable wall of black leaves that nearly blotted out the moonlight. Pale lavender light pulsed around their roots and painted the insides of their hollows. 

Old gods of the forest. 

Already, the line of trees outran the thief and his horse, effectively blocking off any westward escape for the thief. To his right, the wolves continued to chase him. They zig-zagged across his path, causing the thief’s horse to snap its teeth when they threatened to push it closer to the shadow-steeped trees. However, as hard as it tried, the horse could not outpace the arboreal barrier Fia had woken from its slumber. 

Even so, the thief still attempted to combat Fia’s latest play.

Slinking up from the shadows at the base of the trees, thick vines of the same inky black dripping from the thief's fingers crawled up and tightly around their trunks. Probing each inch, testing for weakness, seeking to overwhelm or pull apart. The vines reached out for one another, intertwining themselves and fashioning a rope of their bodies. Down in the darkness, deep below the forest floor, something tugged on the anchor they had made. A groan rose up along the line of shadow-trees. 

Fia whistled again. This time, the sound sat heavy on the wind. 

With a round of snarls and growls, the wolves pulled themselves away from the thief and melted into the surrounding forest. A way out left unguarded. The thief glanced over his shoulder. Their eyes met. Fia waved his hand toward the open path.

And, just like that, the wall of shadow-trees split into two with a crack as sharp as lightning splintering one of their trunks. The main body of the wall continued forward unconcerned, but the offshoot sprang from the ground with alarming swiftness and cut directly in front of the thief’s path. 

Fia turned his mount sharply to the right to avoid crashing into the pair in front of him. The thief’s horse squealed and threw its head as the wall reared up before it like truth cast before a lie, insurmountable. The ground beneath the horse churned, shadows turning to quicksand and slowing the horse’s movements. 

“It’s fine, Ähtviarn,” the thief shouted as he leapt from the horse’s back. “Go home now.”

The horse rolled one blue eye and snorted. It attempted to turn around, but the shadows stuck to its hooves and made each step an exercise in persistence. After a moment, the horse shook its mane, pawed at the ground, and cast one last glance at its rider before it plunged into the shadows and disappeared. 

When the thief looked at Fia, he wore a smile that had nothing of resignation hung on it, only amusement. Bitter amusement and maybe a sadness Fia didn’t want to name. He shrugged at Fia, then flashed him a quick salute before turning to run.

As that familiar chill entered his chest, Fia opened his mouth and said, “Athairólthain, he is yours."