It roared and charged again. Cassian’s eyes narrowed. This time he wanted to end it fast the sound alone might already have drawn something worse out of the deeper woods.
It swung its antlers; he ducked beneath them, turned, and drove a kick into its leg. It barely reacted at all. The impact jarred straight up through his own bones instead.
"Seriously?"
It swung its head into him before he could reset. He crossed both arms and wrapped them in flame just in time.
BAM!
The impact sent him sliding backward, his feet carving twin furrows through the dirt. He looked down at his shaking arms. "It’s strong." He looked back up at the beast. "Really strong."
It charged again. His flames flared brighter around both fists. He wasn’t going to run. Not from this. Not anymore.
He’d survived three months alone out here. If he wanted to survive one more day, he had to keep getting stronger, one fight at a time, whether the forest gave him a choice in the matter or not.
The deer was already on him again before he’d finished the thought, antlers swinging wide. He threw himself sideways. The horns missed him by inches, close enough that he felt the wind of them brush past his cheek.
He rolled across the dirt and came up fast, breathing hard through his teeth. The beast wheeled back around, staring him down with eyes that had gone past fury into something closer to hatred. He tightened both fists. Flame flickered weak around his knuckles, thinner than he liked.
It charged a third time. He jumped back instead of meeting it head-on didn’t attack, just watched. He studied its legs, its rhythm, the way its weight kept shifting from one side to the other with every stride. There had to be a pattern in it somewhere. There was always a pattern, if he looked hard enough.
Then he saw it. For one brief moment its left leg moved differently a slight hitch, a fraction slower than the right.
His eyes went sharp. "There."
He waited for it to come again. Five meters closed to three. Three to one.
He jumped clear at the last possible instant. The beast tore straight past him and slammed into a tree with a dull, heavy impact. He turned his head in time to catch its left leg faltering, just for a second the same leg he’d already burned once.
His eyes narrowed further. "It’s the left leg."
He’d found something real. But before he could think it through any further, the creature wrenched itself free of the tree and spun back around, bark and splinters flying off in every direction.
His eyes widened. "Already?"
It came at him again, angrier now, faster than before. He tried to dodge too slow this time. Its antlers caught him square in the chest and threw him clean through the air.
"Gg!" He bit back the scream before it could fully form, afraid of what it might draw through the trees. He hit the ground hard, rolled several meters, and finally stopped against an exposed root.
For a few seconds he couldn’t move at all. Too tired. Too hurt. His arms, his legs, and now his chest all felt like they’d been dragged through something far worse than a fight. Every breath sent a sharp, bright pain lancing through his ribs.
But he stood back up anyway. "I can’t keep going like this."
He looked at the beast. Then at its left leg. It charged again, horns already stained dark with his blood. He knew he couldn’t overpower it outright too big, too fast, its horns strong enough to send him flying with a single clean hit.
He had to be smarter than strong. He’d learned that lesson the hard way, more than once, over the last three months.
It lowered its head. He dropped into a stance. "Come on, then."
It charged. He waited. He didn’t move yet not yet. The gap closed fast. Its muscles tensed for the strike. He kept his eyes locked on the left leg.
There. Just before it struck, its weight shifted, ever so slightly, exactly the way he’d expected.
He smiled through the pain. "I see it."
He threw himself aside. The beast rushed past but this time he didn’t just dodge clear of it. He turned and ran alongside it, matching its stride as best his aching legs would allow, closing in on its wounded left flank before it could correct its momentum.
He raised his hand. "Flame" Fire gathered around his fist, hotter than it had burned all fight. "Burst!"
He drove the punch straight into its left leg with everything he had left in him.
BOOM!
It screamed a sound that didn’t belong to any deer he’d ever heard and staggered hard. He jumped back at once. "It worked!"
For the first time all fight it looked genuinely unsteady, its weight shifting awkwardly onto the one good leg. But it wasn’t finished yet. It turned on him with eyes blazing, and his smile faded fast. "...That wasn’t enough."
It slammed one front leg into the ground hard enough that the earth shook under his own feet. He stepped back instinctively. It lowered its head one more time.
He stared it down, breath ragged, flames flickering weak around both hands. He knew exactly what was coming next.
It charged. But this time it was slower. Heavier on its feet. The wounded leg dragged visibly with every stride. He stepped back, ready, and for the first time all fight he actually believed he had a real chance.
It came at him again. He waited until the absolute last second, then moved ducking under its horns and grabbing hold of one with both hands. The raw force of the charge nearly tore him clean off his feet. He gritted his teeth and pulled himself in close to its head, arms burning with the strain of it.
It shook violently, trying to throw him loose. He held on, arms screaming in protest.
"Just a little more"
It slammed its whole body into a tree. He barely managed to leap clear in time, landing hard and turning immediately to face it. It was limping badly now, the left leg barely taking any weight at all. Blood and dirt matted thick across its hide.
He caught his breath in short, ragged pulls. "Now."
Flame wrapped around both his legs, growing brighter, stronger by the second. He bent his knees low. The beast raised its head one final time. For a moment, neither of them moved at all. The whole forest seemed to be waiting right alongside them.
Then
He charged. It charged.
"Flaming Kick!"
He launched into the air, body spinning, flame swelling around his leg until the heat itself distorted the air around him. The beast tried to dodge too slow, too spent.
His kick slammed into its skull with a sound like thunder cracking open.
BOOOOOOM!
It was thrown backward, its massive body crashing down in a cloud of dirt and torn leaves. The forest went completely silent around the impact.
Cassian landed on one knee, his flames guttering out at once, and stayed there a few seconds, just catching his breath. Then he looked over at the beast. It wasn’t moving. Chest still. Eyes empty.
He stood slowly, hands shaking. "...I did it."
He looked down at them. His whole body ached ribs, arms, legs, chest, all of it at once. But he’d won. For the first time in three months, something close to real pride settled into his chest, small and unfamiliar.
Crack.
He froze instantly. In the heat of the fight he’d completely forgotten how much noise his own flames made. His head snapped toward the trees.
That hadn’t been the beast. Someone else was out here.
"Who’s there?"
No answer. He raised both fists, exhausted but forcing himself back into a stance anyway. "Come out. I know you’re there."
Silence.
A man’s voice finally answered from beyond the trees. "Still standing, after all that?"
Cassian’s eyes went wide. A tall man stepped into view somewhere in his forties, heavyset, a thick beard covering half his face, dressed in plain, dark clothes. His gaze moved slowly from the unconscious beast to Cassian, calm and unhurried, measuring him the whole time.
"You fought well."
Cassian didn’t lower his guard even slightly. "Who are you?"
The man didn’t answer right away, studying him instead. "You’ve been out here alone for quite a while now, haven’t you."
Cassian’s eyes narrowed. "How would you know that?"
Silence stretched a moment longer. Then another figure stepped out from behind the man a boy, a little older than Cassian, his expression cold and unreadable, strange dark tattoos winding up both arms and across his neck in intricate patterns Cassian had never seen before.
The boy looked past him, at the fallen deer. "You took that down by yourself?"
Cassian said nothing.
"You’re hurt," the boy said, flat, like he was stating a fact and nothing more.
"I can still fight."
"I didn’t ask if you could."
Cassian’s fists tightened at his sides. The man glanced sideways at his son. "Enough."
The boy looked at his father, then away. Cassian’s knee buckled beneath him before either of them could turn to leave, and he dropped hard, his vision blurring at the edges. He caught himself on one shaking hand.
"Damn it"
The boy paused, glancing back. "He’s barely conscious."
The man nodded once. "Then leave him."
Cassian forced himself upright anyway, jaw set. "I don’t need anyone’s help."
"You can barely stand."
He took a step toward them, legs nearly giving out again beneath him. The boy watched him in silence for a moment, then finally walked over.
Cassian raised his fists at once, more out of instinct than any real strength left in him. "Stay back."
The boy stopped. "You really don’t know when to quit."
Weak flame flickered around Cassian’s knuckles, barely more than a spark now. "I’m warning you."
The boy glanced at the flame, unimpressed, then back at him. "You can’t even control it anymore."
Cassian’s eyes widened. He tried to attack anyway too slow, far too slow. The boy sidestepped his fist without effort and struck him cleanly in the stomach.
"Ghk" His flame died instantly. He staggered. The boy caught him by the shoulder before he could hit the ground.
Cassian tried to pull free. "Let go"
The boy hit him once more, precise and completely controlled, and this time Cassian couldn’t hold on to consciousness at all. His vision went dark, his body went slack in the boy’s grip. He was caught before he could hit the dirt.
The man looked over at his son. "You didn’t have to hit him that hard."
"He would’ve kept fighting until he passed out on his own anyway."
The man sighed, looking down at Cassian’s still form. The boy slung him over one shoulder with an easy strength that didn’t match his age at all.
"What are we going to do with him?"
The man looked deeper into the trees, considering it. "I don’t know yet." His gaze drifted, finally, to Cassian’s closed eyes to the strange rings he’d glimpsed around the boy’s pupils moments before, the purple nearly swallowing the orange whole. "But a child doesn’t survive three months alone in this forest for no reason at all."
The two of them turned and disappeared together between the trees, Cassian carried between them. Behind them, the beast they’d left him fighting lay still on the forest floor, ants already beginning to find it in the quiet.
And for the first time in three months, Cassian Veyr was no longer alone.