Page 51 of The Huntmaster

"He's not himself," I muttered, moving toward the cage. I reached into my pockets, but they were empty. I had left my medical kit in the hut, and I didn't have the key to the lock. I looked around the damp room, my eyes landing on a cluster of glowing, pale-blue flora growing in a damp crevice near the floor—Lumia-moss. Sora had mentioned it was a natural antiseptic, though it required a direct application.

"How old are you, Sky?" I asked softly, my voice echoing in the hollow root.

He tilted his head, his spindly limbs shifting. "Three sun-cycles since the deep-birth. I am... young-kin. Not yet a hunter."

Three sun-cycles. He was barely more than a toddler in their terms, yet he spoke like a soul that had seen centuries of shadow. I reached up and gripped the hem of my inner tunic—the soft, homespun fabric Sora had given me—and tore a long, wide strip of cloth from the bottom.

"I'm going to help you, okay? But you have to trust me." I reached through the bars, my fingers plucking the Lumia-moss from the wall. I crushed it between my palms until a thick, glowing sap coated the fabric.

Sky flinched as I reached for his mangled leg through the slats of the cage, but he didn't pull away. He watched with a wary, burgeoning curiosity as I cleaned the black, oily discharge from the gash and wrapped the makeshift bandage around his thin limb.

"Listen to me," I whispered, meeting his pale gaze. "I will do everything I can to keep you safe. But you have to be honest when they question you. Tell them about the humans in the deep. Tell them why your people want the metal. If you give them a reason to see you as an ally rather than a parasite, I can help you."

"The truth is a sharp stone, star-woman," he clicked softly. "It cuts the one who holds it."

"Better a cut than a cage," I countered.

I opened my mouth to ask more about the "fallen stars" he’d seen, but a sound suddenly tore through the silence of the roots.

It was a shrill—a high-frequency shriek that didn't sound like a command or a warning. It was a raw, visceral sound of pure agony that vibrated through the very floor beneath my feet. It was the sound of a man screaming with his lungs and his soul at the same time.

"Kaelen," I breathed.

My body moved before my mind could catch up.

I didn't wait. I scrambled out of the chamber and sprinted for the exit. I didn't care about the guards at the entrance or the fact that I was trespassing. That sound was a fracture.

I took the vine-stairs three at a time, my lungs burning as the altitude increased and the air grew thinner, more charged with the electric hum of the three moons. By the time I reached the transition platforms, my legs felt like lead, and the internal rhythm in my chest was a deafening roar.

I burst onto the High Roost, gasping for air.

The platform was a scene of wreckage. Several ornamental lanterns had been smashed, and a heavy wooden training post had been snapped clean in half, the splinters scattered like bone. Kaelen was pacing the perimeter of the branch, his movements jagged, his posture hunched like a wounded beast.

His markings were bleeding light, flashing in a strobe-like pattern that seared my retinas. He wasn't looking at the moons. He was staring at his own hands.

As I stepped closer, my heart stalled. His claws were fully extended and glinting in the moonlight. He was digging them deep into the meat of his own palms, dragging the sharp points through his skin. Dark, iridescent silver blood was dripping from his fists, staining the bark beneath his feet. He was mutilating himself just to feel a different kind of pain—to drown out the siren call of the fever with the cold reality of a wound.

"Kaelen!" I cried out.

He spun around, and for a terrifying second, I didn't recognise him. His face was a mask of primal hunger and tortured restraint, his golden eyes completely consumed by the black of his pupils. He looked less like a tribal leader and more like the storm he had been trying to outrun.

The same heat from the thicket. From my dream—wild, consuming—hit me all over again.

"Kaelen, stop!" I shouted, moving toward him despite every survival instinct screaming at me to run the opposite way.

He spun on me, his chest heaving, his eyes nothing but two black voids rimmed with a dying, flickering ring of gold. He barked something at me, a string of harsh, staccato consonants that sounded like breaking glass.

"I don't understand you!" I snapped, my own agitation peaking. "Talk to me in a way I can understand, or just shut up and let me look at your hands!"

I didn't wait for his permission. I stepped into his space, closing the gap until the heat radiating off his skin felt like standing in front of an open furnace. I reached out, pressing my palms flat against the centre of his bare chest.

The contact was electric. His entire body jerked, tensing into a corded mass of muscle that felt like living stone. For a heartbeat, I thought he might actually strike me, but then he let out a long, shuddering hiss, and his head slumped forward. His skin was scorching, a fever that went deeper than his blood, radiating a primal energy that seemed to vibrate against my own palms.

As I looked up at him, my breath hitching in my throat, I felt it. Pressed hard against my lower abdomen was the undeniable, rigid evidence of his struggle—a heavy, burning weight that made the air between us turn liquid.

My thoughts scattered, spinning into a dark, dizzying whirlpool. I should have been terrified. I should have been repulsed by the sheer alien intensity of him. Instead, a heavy, pulsing ache bloomed in my own core, a sudden, frantic surge of desire that made my legs feel weak. Great, I thought with a dizzying edge of sarcasm, blame the moons. Blame the alien pheromones. Blame the fact that I’ve officially lost my mind.

But looking at the silver blood dripping from his palms, I knew he wasn't going to make it through the night. He was a pressure cooker seconds away from a catastrophic explosion.