When I woke in the early pre-dawn the first thing that I noticed was the alter.
My wood.
Not by the shelter wall where I had left it. Heaped instead in a ridiculous, straight-backed columnâeach log pressed flat against the next, balanced so carefully it looked like the work of masons, not hands. It was taller than I could reach even if I had jumped, intricate and seemingly perfectly balanced so no log tipped into another and the gaps between pieces were thin enough to make the wind whistle through like so many off-key flutes.
I froze. For one long, dizzy moment I thought I must be seeing it wrong. How in all the names of the forgotten gods had this happened?
Then my mouth went dry and the only possible explanation struck me like a blow.
The Fenrathi. The Fenrathi had been here.
While I slept. In my camp, touching my wood with his paws.
I dropped into a crouch, fingers itching for my bow propped against the wall of my shelter. I spun slowly, eyes combing every shadow, every thread of snare, every threadbare edge of the shelter. Nothing else was out of place. No food was missing. No bow shifted from its hiding spot. My traps were still set, still waiting. There were no footprints. No scent lingered but woodsmoke and pine.
Just the wood. Stacked and balanced like an alter to the most ridiculous of gods.
The more I stared, the stranger it became. Was this a warning? A threat? A ritual, some Fenrathi curse stacked high in front of my door? Or was it mockeryâpetty, pointless, the kind of cruelty children play?
My gut twisted. Why the wood? Why only that?
If he watched, let him see I had noticed. Maybe thatâs what he wanted? If he wasnât going to kill me perhaps he just wanted me to see what my silene had spurred in him. Let him see that I knew he had been here, in my camp, while I slept, and spared me my pitiful little human life.
I fetched my axe and grabbed a log from the edge of my clearing, propping it and splitting. I would cut new wood for my fire.
----------------------------------------
From the ridge above, Brannok grinned sharp as a knife, teeth flashing in the last drag of daylight. He had watched her stop, her shoulders lock, her eyes narrow. He had seen the pulse leap at her throat, the way her hands tensed like a trapped animalâs. The bafflementâoh, that was sweet. Sweet as blood, sweet as fire.
She looked at his tower of wood like it was a curse, like she was trying to puzzle out what spell it carried. He almost laughed aloud, so hard his ribs ached.
This was better than fury, better than screams. This was confusion. This was the human girl bent around herself, wondering why, why, why.
But thenâshe cut new wood. No curse spat. No tantrum. No broken sticks hurled at the sky.
Her silence slashed deeper than any insult.
Brannokâs grin faltered, just a little. He leaned forward, claws digging the rock, waiting for the crack, for the mutter, for the smallest hiss of temper. None came. She only turned back to her chopping, back to her work, back to ignoring him as though he were nothing more than a gust of wind through the pines.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Not even a baffled what?
His silence would have been broken by just that word directed towards him. He was ready to leap down into her clearing and give her a piece of his mind.
The restraint seared him.
She was mocking him, in her own quiet way. Denying him the sound of her anger, denying him the pleasure of her voice.
His ear burned where the arrow had torn it. His teeth ground together.
Fine, Little Fire. If silence was her weapon, then he would sharpen his claws and strike harder.
He bared his teeth to the dawning light catching fire in his pelt, grin sharp and savage again. Next time, she would not be so quiet.
___________________________________
The next day, I hunted long and far, ranging out beneath the cold arms of pine until the light sagged toward evening. I returned bone-tired, bowstring cutting into my palm, longing for nothing more than fire and food.
Instead, I stopped dead at the sight before me.
My campâflipped.
The shelter that had faced east now leaned west. My firepit crouched at the opposite end of the clearing, stones arranged in the exact same pattern as if lifted whole and dropped again. The stacks of wood, the small dug cache, even the scatter of pine needles and mossâall reversed, all mirrored, as though the world had turned inside out while I was gone.
For a long, blank moment I could only gape, too stunned even for fear.
I dropped my bow and crept closer, searching for some fault, some sloppiness that might betray who had done this. But there was none. Every piece was in its place, perfectly opposite the way I had left it. Even the absurd tower of wood. Even the single flipped logâlying now on the mirrored side, exactly as if I had dropped it there myself.
My skin crawled.
This was not the careless mischief of children. This had taken patience. Hours of it. All day, perhaps. I had been gone since dawn. Someoneâno, not someone, himâhad spent every one of those hours moving, arranging, building, and resetting until the clearing itself looked like a reflection in a pool of water.
Why?
I walked the mirrored camp in slow circles, heart thrumming with awe and dread, eyes drinking in every absurd detail. Not a single snare touched. Not a single knife misplaced. My rabbit hides still stretched on their racks. My bowstring uncut. Not a mark of violence. Just thisâthis painstaking reversal.
It was ridiculous. It was baffling. And it wasâ¦impressive.
Who spends an entire day on such a thing? To what end? To show me he could? To mock? To remind me that my time, my effort, my labor meant nothingâthat in a breath, he could undo it, twist it, turn it on its head?
I bit my lip against the wild urge to laugh. It was too absurd, too much. My whole camp flipped like some childâs game.
But I did not laugh. I said nothing. Only stood there, baffled, impressed, and deeply unsettled, wondering why?
----------------------------------------
On the ridge, Brannok crouched in shadow, grinning sharp as a wolf, teeth flashing in the last drag of daylight. He had worked himself ragged for this, sweating in silence, moving her world piece by piece until it stood backwards. Hours of labor, all for the expression on her face.
And there it was. The gape. The wide eyes. The slack mouth. Shock, confusion, awe.
He had her.
He waited for the stormâfor the swearing, the fury, the throwing of hands to the sky. For the fire in her voice that would feed him more than any kill.
But she said nothing.
Only silence. Only wide-eyed bafflement.
His grin sharpened, then soured.
She denied him again. Denied the sound, denied the fire, denied him everything but her silence.
Brannok dug his claws into the rock, tail lashing in his mind though his body stayed still. Fine. Let her hold her tongue. Let her swallow her fire. He would drag it out of her yet.
The girl could not stay silent forever.