He saw another flash—Kara’s reflection in a river, but it wasn’t her human form that stared back. It was her werewolf self, eyes glowing amber, blood running down her claws.

  “How much Glory do you need before becoming a Valkyrie?” Karl asked quietly.

  She turned toward him, startled, then sighed as realization dawned that she’d shared too much. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said, voice low and flat. “A werewolf cannot become a Valkyrie. It’s as simple as that.”

  “So we find a cure,” Karl said, forcing hope into his words. “There has to be one.”

  Kara’s lips twitched—not quite a smile. “I wish it were that easy. The System told me there isn’t.”

  That is true, Fenrir murmured in Karl’s mind, his tone more factual than cruel. The wolf cannot shed its shadow once bitten.

  Karl didn’t tell her. Some truths didn’t deserve daylight.

  His chest felt heavier with every step of his horse. Kara had lost everything, and he’d dragged her into another quest just to feel her presence beside him. The realization stung more than the cold.

  He glanced at her again. She was staring ahead, distant. He let the warmth of his thoughts slip through their pack-link—a quiet pulse of gratitude and admiration for her courage and wisdom.

  Her lips parted, and she looked at him. A flash of that brilliant white smile broke through, just for a heartbeat. It was enough.

  “They should be just ahead,” Mýra called, pointing toward a break in the trees.

  They followed her into a clearing encircled by stones blackened from old campfires. Smoke rose from fresh ones now, carrying the smell of meat.

  Before Karl could even take in the sight, the sound hit him—two groups of hunters shouting over each other, words tumbling into curses and threats.

  At least twenty on each side.

  Karl’s pulse thudded in his throat. If this went bad, they were outnumbered five to one.

  And by the looks of it, it was already halfway there.

  “We should make ourselves known,” Kara said, slowing Glær without having to say a word. “We don’t want to startle them and make things worse.”

  Karl nodded. “Agreed.” His voice came out quieter than he meant.

  The air between the trees was thin and sharp with cold. Beneath it lingered the smoke from half-burned fires. Ahead, voices barked over one another—two groups locked in a shouting match.

  Karl squinted through the branches. The Ravenjaw hunters stood in their furs and black-feathered cloaks, while the Hollowfang trappers shouted in leathers stitched with bone. Even from a distance, he could see their eyes were hard and distrustful.

  “Easy,” he muttered, though he wasn’t sure if it was to Kara, Mýra, or himself.

  He raised his bow slightly, scanning the treeline. The golden ichor the System used to mark hostiles began to move. But instead of out in front of him to mark the enemies… they drifted upward.

  Karl frowned. “That’s odd⁠—”

  The sound came a heartbeat later.

  A sharp whistle sliced the air, so fast he barely caught it before the world erupted in chaos. Something flickered past his face—then blood sprayed in a mist before him. One of the Hollowfang leaders jerked back, throat slashed open by a perfect shot.

  Before Karl could even process the scream, another arrow hissed down from above, striking the Ravenjaw leader in the neck. He collapsed in a wet gurgle, crimson spilling into the snow.

  The forest went silent for half a breath. Then the shouts came.

  Both groups froze, turning as one toward Karl and his companions. Rage twisted their faces as they saw them as the ones to blame.

  “Oh gods,” Karl breathed.

  He barely registered the smell of the blood now steaming against the cold air, the way it mixed with the pine into something metallic and nauseating.

  Not good, Fenrir growled inside him, the voice a low vibration that rattled his ribs. They think it was you.

  Karl’s heart lurched. It wasn’t⁠—

  Doesn’t matter.

  He could feel the wolf’s dark amusement in his thoughts.

  All around, men began to raise bows, knives, and hatchets, the circle of hunters closing in with fury burning in their eyes. Kara’s sword whispered from its sheath. Mýra’s tail lashed, her pupils narrowing to slits.

  Karl didn’t know who had fired those arrows—or from where—but the truth was clear enough:

  Someone wanted blood spilled here today.

  And unless he moved fast, it was going to be his.

  9

  YOU’RE NOT FROM AROUND HERE, ARE YOU?

  “That definitely makes you look guilty!” Kara shouted over the chaos.

  The moment the first arrow hit the clearing, all three turned and bolted. Kara clutched Glær’s fur, urging the elk into a dead sprint. Snow sprayed behind her in shimmering waves as the forest exploded into motion.

  “It wasn’t me!” Karl yelled, twisting in his saddle. It didn’t matter. The hunters had already made up their minds.

  Arrows hissed through the trees like angry wasps. Some crackled with lightning, others burned with blue fire, and one whistled past his ear, carrying a trail of frost. The air filled with the stink of ozone and sap as bolts ripped bark from pines.

  His horse surged beneath him, muscles quivering. Karl’s werewolf senses lit up like a beacon as every sound and scent became magnified. He could hear the hunters behind them shouting, could smell the clash of bloodlines: Ravenjaw musk, Hollowfang iron, both now turning their fury not just on him, but on each other.

  They were just waiting for an excuse, Fenrir murmured in his head, tone dripping with amusement. Mortals always are.

  Even so, a good portion of both groups had chosen a new target: the fleeing “murderers.”

  Karl’s throat clenched as he tried to form a plan. “We need⁠—”

  The words burned away as the snow under his horse blazed red, a rune glowing like molten iron. He had only a blink to register it before the world erupted upward in fire.

  Light and heat slammed upward, throwing Karl into the air. He barely glimpsed his horse vanish in a cloud of flame before he hit a tree hard enough to rattle his bones. His vision went white.

  Health: 100/120

  The snow bit cold against his face as he lay stunned, blood dripping from his nose. Smoke curled through the clearing, thick with the acrid tang of burnt fur and charred wood. Behind him, the black scar of a rune circle still glowed faintly—proof that the two clans’ “trust” had never gone far.

  “Karl!” Kara’s voice ripped through the haze. Glær skidded sideways as she tried to turn back. Through the blur, Karl saw a handful of hunters—five, maybe six—from both factions breaking off and charging through the trees toward him.

  She wouldn’t reach him in time.

  Karl yanked an arrow from his quiver, drew back, and fired at a pine high above. The arrow embedded itself deep, and he leapt with Elf Leap.

  In a blink, he was there, boots slamming into the branch as he pulled himself up.

  “Kara, fall back!” he shouted. “No use trying to talk!”

  An arrow smashed into the trunk beside his head, exploding in a burst of splinters. It hadn’t come from below.

  Karl froze, breath ragged as he scanned the canopy. Then he saw her.

  A girl crouched among the treetops like some feral spirit—long dark hair tangled, skin marked in glowing red runes that pulsed with life. She wore stitched animal pelts and almost nothing else, her bow already drawn. Her eyes burned like coals.

  She leapt.

  Her feet barely touched the branch before she unleashed a barrage of arrows faster than any human should’ve been able to fire. They tore through the air, searing the space where Karl’s head had been.

  He dropped, twisting mid-fall. Snow swallowed him. Pain jolted up his spine as he landed, but instinct dragged him upright again before the next arrow could find him.

  A roar split the air—one of the hunters charging, a bearded brute with a hammer raised high.

  “I just want to negotiate!” Karl shouted, firing an arrow tipped with frost.

  The shot hit true. The man screamed as ice spread up his thigh, locking his leg in place.

  Another came from the right, bellowing curses. Karl loosed again, an arrow burying itself in the man’s calf. He stumbled, falling face-first into the snow.

  The ground around them slicked with ice where Karl’s feet landed, thanks to his Ullr blessing, forcing the rest of the hunters to slow or risk breaking their necks.

  He backed away, his heart pounding from the adrenaline.

  “I don’t want to kill you!” he shouted, voice hoarse—but the forest had already chosen its answer.

  From above came another whistle, sharper this time.

  And the red-haired huntress wasn’t done.

  Mýra arrived just in time.

  Vines burst from the soil at her feet, whipping through the snow and coiling around the legs of the nearest hunters. As the roots twisted, the men shouted as they toppled face-first into the slush.

  With a guttural growl, the Huldra hurled a small glass vial that shattered against a hunter’s face. The potion burst into a soft pink mist that rolled through the clearing like perfume.

  The scent was deceptively lovely—summer rain, something warm and floral. Karl felt his vision blur and eyelids grow heavy. A pleasant warmth spread through his chest.

  Sleep, the scent whispered. Rest.

  He caught himself just in time, clamping his mouth shut and forcing his lungs to still. Others weren’t so lucky. Three hunters slumped where they stood, collapsing into the snow as the gas overtook them.

  Glær, now riderless, charged past Karl in a white blur. The elk’s antlers crashed into two archers, slamming them against a tree with a sound like cracking bone. Kara landed a heartbeat later—her sword blazing with runic fire, wings of light flashing briefly behind her as she fell from the sky. She hit the ground in a burst of heat, slicing through two men in a single, sweeping arc. Heads rolled across the snow, steam rising from the cauterized wounds.

  “We can’t keep killing them!” Karl shouted, voice breaking against the din.

  Neither woman heard. Or if they did, they didn’t care. The air reeked of burned leather now, and both Kara and Mýra were lost to the rhythm of combat.

  Karl barely had time to curse before movement above drew his eyes upward.

  The cat-like archer was still there—darting from branch to branch, her movements a blur. She loosed another volley, five arrows in a single breath.

  Karl rolled aside, snow exploding under him. Two arrows slammed into the ground inches from his ribs, but three others struck home.

  Health: 95/120

  Health: 85/120

  Health: 75/120

  The impacts drove him backward, pain flaring through his shoulder. His left arm went numb, the bowstring trembling in his weakening grip.

  She’s fast, he thought through clenched teeth. Too fast.

  If not for Sigrid’s enchanted breakfast that morning—the sweet bread soaked in rune-honey and chocolate that granted temporary resistance—he would already be dead.

  Blood steamed on the snow beneath him.

  Use me, Fenrir growled from the depths of his mind. Abandon your brittle flesh. Let the wolf hunt.

  Karl ignored the voice. Barely.

  Instead, he reached inward and triggered a different power.

  The world froze, stopping the snowflakes in mid-air. Sparks from Kara’s flaming sword drifted like lanterns caught in ice. Even the cat-woman above—half-crouched, lips parted in a hiss—was still, one clawed hand stretched toward her quiver.

  Karl exhaled slowly. His Urðr’s Vision never got old. Five seconds was all he had.

  Up close, the archer was terrifying—her skin etched with red-glowing tattoos that pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat, her eyes slit like a predator’s. She wore animal pelts that left her limbs bare, muscles coiled with impossible grace. A Freyja-blessed, no doubt. Level one by speed alone, but her presence radiated danger.

  Karl had faced a few System-blessed opponents before—Skadi the Witch among them—and the memory still haunted him.

  He drew an arrow and whispered a prayer to Ullr. Then, with a grimace, he activated the rune he’d been saving. And thanks to his Rauðvarg Cloak, the Glory cost was reduced by 10%.

  Item: Beta’s Mark Rune (Legendary)

  Effect: Mark a target for the hunt. +50% damage to marked enemy. Movement Speed: 50%. +25% damage from all sources. Duration: 10s. Cooldown: 5 min. Glory Cost: 270.

  Light flared from his palm as the rune branded her form. A glowing target bloomed over her chest, her entire body haloed in frost-blue light.

  Glory (-270): 705

  His arrow ignited with runic energy as he drew it back to his cheek.

  “Let’s see you dodge this,” he muttered.

  Time lurched forward.

  The air roared back to life. Kara shouted. Mýra’s vines snapped. But the archer vanished. The arrow struck the tree she’d been standing on a split second earlier, exploding in a wave of frost and shattered bark.

  Splinters rained down like snow. The treetop cracked, but then groaned and fell in one terrible motion.

  But the cat-woman was already gone.

  She’s hunting you now, Fenrir purred. Good. Let’s see which of you bleeds first.

  Karl swallowed the urge to answer. He could still smell her musk lingering in the wind above him.

  Somewhere in the canopy, she hissed.

  The hunt had begun.

  “What the—” Karl’s voice caught as he spun, searching the canopy.

  She stood only fifteen feet away—balanced lightly on a high branch, glowing faintly where the Beta’s Mark rune still burned across her body. Her outline shimmered through the frost-hazed light like heat over snow. She was slower now, her movements reduced by half, but utterly unharmed.

  And utterly unafraid.

  The huntress grinned, eyes glinting like amber slits. Then she vanished, appearing a few feet closer.

  Teleportation? Karl’s thoughts raced. It reminded him too much of his own Elf Leap skill, only sharper.

  Correction, he thought grimly. She’s not low-level. She’s highly advanced in Freyja’s blessing.

  She blinked again, this time above him.

  The air hissed as she dropped.

  Her shadow fell across him—then her body slammed into his chest. They hit the ground in a tumble of snow and fur and tangled limbs. Karl’s Stamina bar plummeted the instant her claws raked across his armor.

  “Meow,” she purred, eyes wild and fevered, as she clawed and bit like a cornered cat.

  Karl grunted, twisting, throwing an elbow toward her face. “Get off!”

  She hissed, blood dripping from her lips, and went right back to tearing at him. He could feel her claws raking skin through torn leather. Her strength was erratic, but it was doing real damage.

  Health: 25/120

  I can’t keep this up. His arm trembled, the world spinning from blood loss and exhaustion. Somewhere in his fading focus, he thought of bacon. If I die… I’ll resurrect as bacon again. The thought should’ve been ridiculous, but it only reminded him that he hadn’t properly rested since the battle with the Draugr.

  If his rest wasn’t complete… his resurrection might fail.

  That flicker of fear cut through the haze, waking him up.

  Feed me, Fenrir’s voice thundered inside him. The command wasn’t a whisper this time. It was hunger, an undeniable one. FEED ME.

  “Screw it,” Karl muttered.

  He triggered the transformation.

  The change ripped through him like fire through oil. His spine arched, bones cracking, before fur burst from flesh in a ripple of shadowed light. The air became filled with the sound of snarling.

  When his eyes opened again, the world burned red.

  The huntress barely had time to gasp before his jaws closed around her shoulder. Bone gave way with a sound like snapping branches. She screamed—a sound that ended abruptly when he shook her like a rag doll, blood spraying across the snow. He flung her against a tree, and the crack of impact silenced her for good.

  Her body slid down the trunk, leaving a streak of crimson behind.

  The smell of blood ignited something deeper. The wolf surged through him. Logic shattered.

  He lunged at the nearest hunter.

  They screamed, but it was of no use. One by one, he ripped through them, every kill feeding him.

  Alpha Path (+1): lvl 4 (20/140 Reiði)

  Reiði Points (+1): 3

  Moonlight Meter: 100/100

  Glory (+20): 725

  Level: 27 (150/280)

  Each death poured warmth into his limbs, flooding his veins with savage pleasure. The snow turned slick beneath him, the air filled with steam and terror. Some tried to run, but the beast in him was faster.

  When it was over, the forest was silent except for the crackle of distant fire.

  “Karl!”

  The voice snapped through his haze.

  He blinked. Blood dripped from his fangs, hot against the cold air. Kara stood before him, still human, sword buried in a fallen hunter’s back. Her face was pale, spattered with gore.

  “That’s all of them,” she said quietly.

  Karl’s claws flexed. Rage bubbled in his chest. Why hadn’t she changed? Why had he been the monster again?

  She disrespects you, Fenrir whispered. You are the stronger beast. Make her yield.

  Karl’s vision darkened. His breath came in short, violent bursts. He could feel his claws tightening as the beast became ready to strike.

  Then something soft drifted over him—an invisible sweet mist. His head swam because of it, lowering his anger.