1: The Hidden One
The silver fox watched the Hidden One travel along the wooded trail.
He had followed the human and the horse for some time now. This human had always had a peculiar scent, an aroma that contained many things. The fragrance of the forest. The predator's stench. A second life burning within the first.
The fox sniffed again but could sense nothing more. Once, when the human was a kit, lost and vulnerable, she had been open to him and he had brought her comfort. Now, the Hidden One closed herself off, both to him and the surrounding wilderness, in a way he had never felt before.
And so, he followed, seeking to understand what had gone wrong.
The silver fox was not accustomed to creatures isolating themselves. Around him, the woods were alive and open. Trees smoldered with ancient persistence. Insects sparked brief lives along the loamy ground. Birds and squirrels, tempting the fox's hunger, were bursts of essence as they scattered at his approach.
But the Hidden One held her lifefire close, only a hint of it escaping her bounds. As she scanned the surrounding forest, her eyes were sky-bright and wary. Her mane, reaching past her shoulders, was bark-brown but for a single russet tress, like the color of a common fox's summer coat. She had tangled it like interwoven vines, and the auburn threads created a striking striped pattern. Like all humans, she had bundled herself in the skins of slain beasts and bore items of shaped wood and stone that shone when the sun caught upon it.
It was not only the furs that put the fox on high alert. It was her posture, her gaze, her keen awareness—all spoke of a huntress' prowess. She was a kit no longer, and he would not treat her as such. That she held her fire close only heightened the danger, allowing her to prowl almost unnoticed.
The Hidden One reached the edge of a wide meadow, amidst which a mighty creature stood. But it was not this beast nor the Hidden One's tense posture that told the fox his lurking had come to an end.
Death hung thick in the air.
It was the odor as well as a subtler sense that warned him to be wary. The fox was attuned to both and heeded them well. Though his curiosity was far from sated, he backed away from the meadow.
Prey did not linger when hunters were near.
The fox knew his place in the world's fabric. He could not protect the huntress from herself. So as the Hidden One crouched in ambush, the fox bounded away and leaped through the bright leaves to seek the dark places in between.
Pressing his way into the web of life, the silver fox wriggled for a moment, then disappeared entirely.
Select the next chapter to keep reading the sample, or pick up the full book through Amazon or Kickstarter.