Read Chapter 17: The Last Hunt Begins

The château’s library had become an armory. Maps covered the long oak table, weighted down by ammunition boxes and coiled rope. Étienne worked in silence at the far end, his father’s rifle disassembled across a felt cloth, each part oiled and inspected with the methodical patience of a man preparing for a funeral.

Claire watched him from the doorway. He hadn’t looked up once since she’d entered.

“You’re going to burn through that barrel if you keep polishing it,” she said.

“It hasn’t been fired in twenty years.” He ran a thumb along the bolt’s edge. “It needs to remember what it’s for.”

She crossed to the table and set down her own kit—a leather roll of tranquilizer darts, a glass vial of milky solution, and a scalpel in a worn case. “Tranquilizers won’t stop what we saw in that cave.”

“No. But they’ll slow it down long enough for the rifle to finish the job.”

“You plan to shoot your brother.”

Étienne’s hands stilled. The silence stretched taut between them.

“I plan to shoot the thing wearing him,” he said. “Whatever’s left after the graft—that isn’t Gaspard. Not anymore. I made peace with that in the cave.”

Claire said nothing. She didn’t have to. He could feel her doubt like a cold draft through the room.

Giancarlo lumbered in, a canvas satchel slung over his shoulder, his bandaged arm resting in a sling. He dropped the bag on the table with a heavy clank. “Explosives. Enough to bring down the château’s eastern wall if we need a distraction.” He glanced between them. “Or a funeral pyre, if it comes to that.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t.” Marc appeared behind him, unfolding a roll of thin wire and small metal discs. “I’ve been working on this since we left the canyon. Seismological sensors—the kind we used to monitor avalanche activity. If I string them in a perimeter around the château, they’ll register anything moving on the ground. Even something that walks on two legs pretending it’s a wolf.”

Étienne looked up at last. “They’ll detect Gaspard?”

“They’ll detect *anything* the size of a man or larger. Whether it’s your brother or one of his children, we’ll know the moment it steps off the property.” Marc laid the sensors in a neat row. “But I need to place them within a hundred meters of the walls. That means getting close before the assault.”

“We’ll do it during the descent.” Étienne reassembled the rifle, seating the bolt with a decisive click. “We go in under the fog, set your net, then breach the courtyard from two angles.”

“Two angles?” François entered, carrying a worn leather-bound book. He set it on the table beside the maps. “The text I found suggests the hunter’s bond works best when both strikes land within the same heartbeat. But it doesn’t say who should wield the second blade.”

Étienne’s jaw tightened. He had been avoiding this question since the cave. He didn’t want to think about who would stand beside him when it came time to kill his brother—because whoever it was would have to be willing to strike true even if Étienne hesitated. Even if the face beneath the fur was still recognizable.

“I’ll do it,” Claire said.

Étienne shook his head. “No.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“I do. I’m the one who—“

“Who what? Who knows him best? Who has the most to lose?” She stepped closer, her voice flat and hard. “You’ve already admitted you might hesitate. That’s exactly when I’ll be most useful.” She placed her hand on her scalpel case. “I’m not going to let you fail because you’re remembering a boy who died twenty years ago.”

The room went quiet. Étienne stared at her, something flickering behind his eyes—anger, or recognition, or both.

François cleared his throat. “The bond is forged by choice, not by blood. If Claire is willing, the ritual requires only that both hunters speak their intent before the hunt begins.” He opened the book, tracing a finger along a faded passage. “And that they share a single breath before striking.”

“Romantic.” Giancarlo’s mustache twitched. “I’ll stick to explosives.”

“You’ll be on the ridge,” Étienne said. “If it runs, you collapse the canyon mouth behind the château. We don’t let it escape into the high pass again.”

Giancarlo nodded, but his hand drifted to his bandaged arm. The wound had gone sullen and red-edged, and Étienne could see the fever lurking in the Italian’s eyes. He wasn’t fit for a climb, let alone a firefight. But Giancarlo would never admit it, and Étienne didn’t have the time to argue.

“What about the dogs?” Marc asked. “The creatures in the courtyard—wolf-things, whatever they are. If they’re anything like what we saw at the cave, a rifle won’t drop them fast enough.”

“Salt,” François said. “Blessed salt, thrown in a line between us and them. The old texts say it confuses their sense of the hunt—they can’t track through it.”

“And if they just jump over it?” Claire asked.

François smiled thinly. “Then you’d better hope your darts work faster than their teeth.”

Étienne stood, slinging the rifle across his back. He tested its weight, the familiar balance settling into his shoulders. His father had carried this weapon in the war, through passes not unlike these, against enemies who wore uniforms instead of fur. He wondered what the old man would think of him now, hunting his own blood through the mountain dark.

“Bless me,” François said softly, stepping forward. He raised his hand, fingers tracing the shape of a cross in the air. “Before we go, let the Lord—“

“No.” Étienne’s voice cut through the room like a blade. “No blessings.”

François’s hand froze. “Étienne. I only mean to—“

“I know what you mean to do.” Étienne turned to face him, and for a moment the mask slipped, showing the raw, worn grief beneath. “You mean to make this holy. To make it righteous. But there is nothing holy in what I’m about to do, and I won’t pretend otherwise.” He gestured at the table, the maps, the weapons. “This is a murder. I’m going to kill my brother—whether he’s still in there or not. I won’t dress it up in your faith so I can sleep at night.”

François’s face went pale. He lowered his hand slowly, the book closing in his grip. “I wasn’t trying to absolve you,” he said. “I was trying to strengthen you. There’s a difference.”

“Then keep your strength.” Étienne picked up his pack. “I’ll carry my own.”

The silence that followed was heavy enough to trap sound. Giancarlo broke it, hefting his satchel. “Midnight. The ruined lighthouse on the ridge. We all know the way.” He looked around the room. “Try not to die before we get there.”

He left without waiting for a reply. Marc followed, folding his sensors into a padded case. François lingered a moment, looking at Étienne with something between pity and disappointment, then tucked the book under his arm and went out into the dark.

Claire remained.

“That was cruel,” she said quietly.

“He deserved the truth.”

“He deserved kindness. You gave him a wall.” She walked toward the door, then paused with her hand on the frame. “You push everyone away, Étienne. Your team. A man who only wanted to help. And you’ll push me away too, when it matters most. I’ve seen it before.” She looked back at him, her eyes unreadable. “I just hope you push me away *after* I’ve driven the scalpel home. Because I’m not letting you face him alone.”

She left.

Étienne stood alone in the library, his father’s rifle cold against his back. The maps spread across the table showed the château and the canyon, the lines and contours of the mountain that had taken so much from him. He traced the route from the lighthouse cliff down to the courtyard, then stopped.

His fingers rested on a small notation at the edge of the map—a mark he hadn’t placed there.

Fresh ink. A single word, in a handwriting he recognized from twenty years of reading it in his brother’s diary.

*Soon.*

Étienne’s blood went cold. Gaspard had been here. In the château. While they prepared their attack, he had walked among them, touched the same table, left his mark like a dog pissing on a fence.

And no one had seen him.

He looked at the door. Claire was gone. The others were somewhere in the dark, preparing for a raid against an enemy who was already inside their walls.

The hunt had begun.

But it seemed the beast was hunting them too.