The trees grew thinner the further west he walked, slowly giving way to brittle plains and jagged ridges dusted with old, wind-swept snow. There was nothing to shield him now no canopy overhead, no branches to break the wind. Just wide open land and silence. And that wind it didn't just blow; it screamed. It dragged itself across the rocks and through the grass like a wounded beast, and with every step, Elias felt it tearing at him, howling with a voice that sounded just a little too human.
He moved like a shadow beneath it quiet, pale, his cloak fluttering around his boots, and his eyes, half-glowing under his hood, fixed on the horizon.
He didn't know where he was going.
Only that he couldn't stay.
The others had said their goodbyes some with words, some without. But none of them could understand. Not really.
Not what it felt like to burn from the inside out. To feel your own heartbeat as something wrong, as something hungry.
He had tasted blood again not out of accident, not by desperation. But choice. And there was no turning back from that.
So he walked.
Away from them.
Away from who he used to be.
Into the cold. Into the quiet.
And then he saw it.
Snow, disturbed.
Branches cracked.
A low whimper, barely a whisper beneath the wind.
He followed the sound, guided by the whimpers of something in need of help.
There beneath a jutting outcrop of stone, half-buried beneath brambles and powdery snow lay the direwolf.
The same one.
The one he had spared back in the forest, weeks ago. The one that had stared at him with those intelligent, wild eyes and chosen not to fight.
Now, it couldn't even lift its head.
Its white fur was matted with dried blood, some of it fresh. One leg was twisted horribly beneath its body. Its breathing was shallow, thin, and rattled out of its chest like something already half-dead.
Trapped. Hurt. Dying.
Elias stood there for a long moment, unmoving.
Then, wordlessly, he knelt beside it.
---
He built a fire with dry moss and splintered branches. It didn't warm him not anymore, not really but it was for the wolf, For something to hold the cold at bay just a little longer.
He used snowmelt to clean the wound, his hands steady even as the wind kept trying to snuff the fire out. He tore cloth from his own cloak and wrapped the shattered leg as best he could, tying it tight with strands of hide.
The wolf didn't growl. Didn't bare its teeth.
It just... watched him.
Its yellow eyes, once so sharp, were dull now, clouded with pain and exhaustion.
"I should've left you," Elias murmured, voice low and rough not cruel, not even angry. Just... tired. "But here we are."
That night, he stayed.
He didn't sleep he didn't think he could anymore, not the way he used to. Not with this hunger crawling beneath his ribs. So he just sat there, staring up at the stars that flickered between breaks in the clouds, listening to the soft crackle of the fire and the occasional pained whimper from the wolf as it dreamed.
---
The next three days passed in slow, heavy silence.
Elias hunted small game rabbits, squirrels, once even a deer and he brought it back to the camp. He cooked the meat over the fire, set it down beside the wolf's muzzle, and waited as it ate, slow and trembling.
It got stronger.
Bit by bit.
But not enough to walk. Not yet.
And then on the fourth morning he returned to the camp after tracking fresh tracks near the ridge...
And everything was wrong.
Blood.
In the snow.
A wide stain of it.
Drag marks. Deep. Jagged. Struggling.
Boot prints. More than one pair.
Poachers.
---
Elias stood in the middle of the torn snow, his jaw tight and his breath slow.
His hands were shaking not with fear, and not even with anger.
It was something colder than that. Deeper. A pressure building inside his ribs, coiling like smoke that couldn't escape.
Then, without a word, he moved.
He followed the scent iron and ash and piss and the trail of broken snow and bent grass. It led him west, deeper into the wild, past the ruins of an old fence and into a collapsed outpost where smoke rose lazily from a crude firepit.
He heard them first.
Laughing. Bragging. The crunch of bones. The metallic ring of a knife being cleaned.
The wolf was tied to a post.
Bleeding. Barely moving.
Too still.
They never heard him coming.
One blinked and his throat was already gone.
Another turned, tried to scream only for claws to rip into his chest and tear his ribs apart.
The third one ran.
Elias didn't chase.
He just walked.
The poacher stumbled, tripped over a log, and tried to crawl. Tried to beg.
Elias said nothing.
He grabbed the man by the back of the skull, lifted him like he weighed nothing, and slammed his face into the snow again, and again, and again until there was nothing left but red slush and twitching limbs.
Silence returned.
And when Elias turned back toward the wolf
It was cold.
Its chest didn't rise.
Its eyes were half-open, clouded over and empty.
Gone.
He just stood there. Not moving. Not speaking.
And no, it wasn't grief not really. It was something messier. Something he didn't have the words for.
Like he'd lost a part of something he didn't even know he cared about until it was already slipping away.
And so he did the unthinkable.
He brought his wrist to his lips. Bit deep.
Blood welled up thick, hot, glowing faintly red in the firelight.
He let it drip into the wolf's mouth. One drop. Then another. Then more.
At first nothing.
Then
The body jerked. Twitched like it'd been hit with lightning.
A low growl rumbled in its throat.
The eyes snapped open no longer yellow. But glowing. Crimson red, burning like fresh coals.
The fur darkened. Slowly, it turned black black as night, black as ash rippling across its body in waves.
The frame grew larger. Heavier. Muscles thickening beneath the skin. Claws lengthened, curved into talons, digging into the frozen earth.
It stood.
And it looked at him.
Not like a pet.
Not like a beast.
But like a brother.
Like kin.
---
They walked in silence after that.
Man and beast.
Both dead in their own ways. Both reborn by blood.
Elias didn't smile. Didn't speak.
But he no longer walked alone.
And when the Western sun dipped behind the mountains, and the wind howled across the plains once more