The forest lay silent beneath a fresh blanket of snow.
A cold wind drifted lazily between the towering pines, carrying with it the scent of frost, pine resin, and distant game, and every sound seemed to vanish into the endless white, swallowed by the wilderness until only the soft crunch of boots pressing into untouched snow remained.
Several paces ahead, Vesper suddenly raised a gloved hand, and Cael stopped at once.
Without saying a word, the ranger lowered himself onto one knee beside a cluster of hoofprints pressed into the snow, resting one hand against the frozen ground and leaning closer, studying the tracks with the concentration of a man reading a familiar book.
Unlike yesterday, a worn bow rested across his back, a rough leather quiver of hand-made arrows hanging at his hip; his sword still sat at his waist, but today it looked almost like an afterthought.
Cael couldn’t hide his curiosity.
“I thought you preferred swords and daggers.”
“I do.” Vesper didn’t even bother looking up.
“Then why the bow?”
Only then did he glance back over his shoulder.
“You planning to chase a deer through the forest with a sword?”
Cael opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“…No.”
“Exactly.” Vesper stood, brushing the snow from one knee before adjusting the bow across his shoulder.
“When you’re living in the wild, you don’t get to choose the perfect weapon.” He gestured around them with one hand.
“You use whatever keeps you alive.” With the back of his glove he brushed a thin layer of snow away from one of the hoofprints.
“I mainly use a sword,” he added, “but I can handle most weapons well enough.”
Cael raised an eyebrow.
“Most?”
“Axe.
Spear.
Mace.
Knife.
Bow.
Crossbow.” He counted them off without looking up.
“Learned them years ago.”
Cael looked at him with genuine surprise.
“When?”
The change in Vesper’s expression was immediate—the easy, almost conversational look vanished behind the familiar wall he’d carried since the day they’d met.
“I don’t like talking about myself,” he said, his voice losing what little warmth it had held.
“You hired me to guard you beyond the Wall.
Not to tell you stories.”
For a few moments neither man spoke, the only sound between them the wind sighing through the pines.
Then an idea crossed Cael’s mind.
“In that case…”
Vesper let out a long, weary sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What now?”
“Let’s change the terms of our agreement.”
That earned Cael his full attention.
Vesper folded his arms across his chest.
“I’m listening.”
“When I hired you, I promised you a hundred gold dragons for every month you guarded me beyond the Wall.
I’ll double it.” Cael let the offer sit a moment before finishing it.
“If you agree to teach me.
Hunting.
Tracking.
How to survive beyond the Wall.
Every weapon you know.
Two hundred gold dragons a month instead.”
Vesper rubbed his beard thoughtfully, staring somewhere beyond the trees, and for several long seconds he said nothing.
Finally: “No.”
Cael blinked.
“…No?”
“Three hundred.
Teaching someone is far more troublesome than guarding him.” He scratched the side of his beard as though the answer were perfectly reasonable.
“So.
Three hundred.”
Cael almost laughed.
“That’s robbery.”
“No.” Vesper met his eyes without the slightest hint of shame.
“That’s business.”
Cael studied the ranger’s face.
Three hundred gold dragons wasn’t a small amount—back on Earth the number would have sounded absurd, but here it hardly mattered.
If he managed to reach the south safely, he already had several ideas for making far more money than that.
A single use of Compulsion could end this negotiation immediately.
Three simple words.
Agree to my offer.
Vesper would obey without hesitation.
The temptation appeared almost naturally—far too naturally—and Cael quietly pushed the thought aside.
No.
If he started using Compulsion every time life became inconvenient, every disagreement, every negotiation, every argument, then little by little he would stop solving problems like a man.
He would solve them like a vampire, and he will be surrounded by mindless slaves.
He had already altered Vesper’s memories once because he’d had no other choice; he refused to let that become a habit.
This was his second life, and he intended to live it with whatever humanity he still possessed.
Besides, accepting immediately would look strange—what kind of merchant’s son didn’t bargain?
So he folded his arms instead.
“Two hundred twenty.”
Vesper answered without missing a beat.
“Two eighty.”
“Two forty.”
“Two seventy.”
Cael clicked his tongue.
“You really enjoy this, don’t you?”
Vesper’s lips twitched.
“A little.”
Cael shook his head with a reluctant smile.
“Two fifty.”
The ranger scratched his beard again, pretending to think the offer over.
“Hmm…” He let the silence drag on just long enough to become uncomfortable before finally nodding.
“Done.” He thrust out a hand.
“No taking it back.”
Cael clasped it firmly.
“I won’t.
I never go back on my word.”
Their hands separated.
For one heartbeat Vesper simply stared at him.
Then, without warning, he burst into laughter—a loud, genuine sound that echoed through the forest and startled a flock of birds from a nearby pine.
Cael frowned.
“…What?”
Vesper bent over slightly, one hand on his stomach as he struggled to catch his breath.
“Oh.” He wiped a tear from the corner of one eye.
“I was going to teach you anyway.
I already planned to teach you hunting, and enough fighting to stop you from getting yourself killed.
For free.” He laughed again, louder this time.
“But then you offered me money.” He spread his hands innocently.
“So I figured—why refuse?”
Cael stood there in complete silence.
After several long seconds, he sighed and rubbed a hand down his face.
“I’ve been robbed.”
“No.” Vesper grinned.
“You’ve been taught your first lesson.
Never negotiate with a hungry man.”
Cael let out another sigh.
“I thought you weren’t good with money.”
“I ain’t,” Vesper chuckled, “but when someone offers me free gold—” he tapped the side of his head with one finger, “—I’d be a fool to refuse.”
Cael couldn’t help smiling.
Watching the ranger laugh to himself, he felt as though he’d just been conned by an old swindler hiding beneath the face of a grumpy Night’s Watch deserter, and still the smile never left his face.
More importantly, this was exactly what he had wanted.
The fight with Vesper had shown him a painful truth: Klaus Mikaelson’s body had given him overwhelming physical strength, but it hadn’t given him Klaus Mikaelson’s thousand years of experience.
Against Vesper he had survived only because an Original Vampire was nearly impossible to kill.
Had he been an ordinary man, he would have died several times over.
Strength alone wasn’t enough.
One day he would face opponents far more dangerous than Vesper, and when that day came, experience—not strength—would decide whether he lived or died.
Vesper adjusted the bow on his shoulder and jerked his head toward the deeper forest.
“Come on.
The deer isn’t going to wait for us while you’re busy thinking.”
Cael smiled faintly and followed after him, their footprints disappearing beneath the steadily falling snow as the lesson truly began.
They pressed on deeper into the forest, leaving the faint trail behind them until even their own tracks vanished beneath fresh snowfall, and the lesson continued almost without pause.
Vesper rarely explained anything outright—he asked questions and waited.
“What do you smell?”
Cael closed his eyes as the cold air flowed steadily through the trees.
“Pine.
Snow.
Wet bark.” He inhaled again.
“…Deer.”
Vesper gave a small nod.
“There’s no way you can smell a deer from here.
What else?”
Cael concentrated harder, his enhanced senses searching the forest, but everything seemed to blend together.
“…Nothing.”
“Wrong.” Vesper pointed toward a patch of disturbed snow beside a fallen log.
“Fox.”
Cael frowned.
“I don’t smell one.”
“You will.” The ranger continued walking, speaking over his shoulder.
“Your nose isn’t trained.
Neither are your eyes, or your ears.” He ducked beneath a snow-covered branch.
“We’ll fix all three.”
For the next hour the forest became Cael’s classroom.
Vesper taught while walking, stopping only long enough to point something out before moving on again.
“See that branch?” He tapped a broken twig hanging from a bush.
“It broke from this side, so whatever passed through here went that way.” They walked another dozen paces before he crouched again.
“Look at these hoofprints.”
Cael knelt beside him.
“They’re old.”
“How can you tell?”
Cael studied them for several seconds before giving up.
“I can’t.”
“The edges.” Vesper traced one with a gloved finger without touching it.
“Fresh snow leaves sharp edges. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
The wind rounds them off.” He glanced at Cael.
“These are at least a day old.”
Cael committed every word to memory.
They continued on, and a few minutes later Vesper stopped beside another trail.
“Which way’s the wind?”
Cael looked around uncertainly.
“…North?”
Vesper bent down, scooped a handful of loose snow, and tossed it into the air.
The powder drifted gently past them.
“There.” He pointed.
“Never guess.
Know.
If you’re hunting deer, always come from downwind.
If they smell you—” he shrugged, “—they’re already gone.”
As they walked, Vesper kept teaching—how frozen branches snapped louder than green wood, how moss could hint at direction, why animals avoided open ground after fresh snowfall, why wolves hunted differently when starving, how rabbits almost always doubled back over their own tracks.
Some lessons Cael understood immediately.
Others felt impossible.
By the time another half hour had passed, his head already felt full.
Finally Vesper raised one hand and slowly lowered himself behind a fallen pine, motioning for Cael to do the same.
“There.”
Cael followed the direction of his finger.
At first he saw nothing—only trees, snow, brush.
Then movement: a magnificent stag stood between two pines roughly sixty yards away, calmly pulling dried grass from beneath the snow, its antlers spread wide above its head like the branches of a tree.
Cael leaned forward without meaning to.
Vesper slowly drew an arrow from his quiver, the movement so smooth it barely disturbed the air.
“Watch,” he breathed, his voice little more than a whisper.
“When hunting deer, don’t aim for the head—you’ll miss, the neck moves too much.” He raised the bow in one fluid motion.
“The shoulder.
The lungs.
The heart.
The bigger the target, the easier the kill.” Without lowering the bow, he glanced sideways at Cael.
“More importantly—keep your killing intent under control.”
Cael frowned.
“My…
killing intent?”
“Animals feel it.
They don’t understand what it is, but they know when something wants them dead.
They get nervous.
They run.”
Understanding dawned on Cael.
His first hunt—the deer hadn’t sensed him because he’d made a sound.
It had sensed him long before he’d even moved.
His bloodlust, his hunger, had practically announced him.
He took a slow breath, then another, trying to suppress the hunger twisting inside him, imagining it locked away behind a door.
For one brief moment it worked.
His heartbeat slowed, his body relaxed, and the stag continued grazing peacefully.
Then the scent of warm blood drifted into his nose.
His instincts stirred, the hunger awakened—just for an instant, but an instant was enough.
The stag’s head shot upward, its ears twitching, every muscle in its body tightening.
It stamped one hoof, then turned to flee.
The bowstring snapped with a sharp twang, and the arrow sliced through the cold air.
A heartbeat later it struck with a dull thud, burying itself deep behind the stag’s shoulder.
The animal stumbled, ran another dozen strides, and collapsed into the snow.
Silence returned.
Vesper lowered the bow and calmly placed another arrow back into the quiver.
“You hesitated.”
Cael looked down.
“I…”
“You lost control.”
“I know.”
For several moments neither spoke.
Then Vesper rested one hand on Cael’s shoulder.
“It isn’t something you’ll master in a day,” he said, his voice lacking its usual sharpness.
“But—” he gave the younger man a small nod, “—you did better than I expected.”
Coming from Vesper, that was practically high praise.
Cael allowed himself a faint smile.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should.” Vesper smirked.
“It’s the closest thing you’re getting today.”
Cael chuckled.
“I was hoping for something a little more encouraging.”
“You survived yesterday.
You survived today.” Vesper started walking toward the fallen stag.
“That’s encouragement enough.”
Shaking his head with an amused smile, Cael followed after him.
For the first time since arriving in this world, learning no longer felt like a burden.
It felt like progress.
Together they dragged the stag back toward the camp.
Even in death the animal was heavy, its body carving a shallow groove through the fresh snow as Vesper led from the front and Cael lifted from behind, the forest quiet except for the scrape of the carcass over frozen ground and the steady crunch of their boots.
Before long, crimson blood had begun staining the snow behind them.
Cael tried not to look at it.
He failed.
The metallic scent drifted through the cold air—rich, warm, alive—and his throat burned, his mouth watering.
It had been well over two days since he’d last fed.
He clenched his jaw and told himself to ignore it, forcing himself to keep walking, but another breath only made the scent grow stronger.
His hearing sharpened, and the steady heartbeat of Vesper walking beside him became clearer than ever, a slow thump-thump-thump beneath the sound of birds shifting somewhere high among the branches, snow slipping from pine needles, the distant creak of old trees swaying in the wind.
Then, underneath it all, a lighter sound.
Soft.
Quick.
Almost bouncing.
His attention snapped toward it—a tiny heartbeat, rapid and familiar.
Rabbit.
West, not far away.
Cael stopped walking.
“Vesper.”
The ranger glanced back over his shoulder.
“What?”
Cael forced an awkward smile.
“I…
need a moment.”
Vesper raised an eyebrow.
“A moment?”
“…To relieve myself.”
The ranger snorted.
“Couldn’t you have done that before we started dragging half a deer through the forest?”
“I didn’t need to.”
“Hmph.” Vesper shifted the stag’s weight higher onto his shoulder and jerked his head toward the trail.
“Fine.” He pointed ahead.
“Don’t wander off.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t get lost.”
“I said I won’t.”
Vesper gave him one last suspicious look before continuing down the trail alone, and only after the ranger disappeared behind a wall of snow-covered pines did Cael turn toward the forest.
The rabbit’s heartbeat pounded in his ears like a tiny drum, the hunger surging once more.
He took a slow breath.
Control yourself.
His body begged him to sprint, but instead he forced himself to move exactly as Vesper had taught him—slowly, carefully, every step deliberate, spreading his weight before placing each foot and avoiding the frozen branches hidden beneath the snow.
Good.
Don’t rush.
Branches brushed softly against his cloak as he moved deeper between the trees, the heartbeat growing louder, closer.
Soon he saw it: a rabbit much larger than any he’d ever seen back on Earth, its thick white-and-brown fur blending almost perfectly with the snow, sitting beside a bush and nibbling at something buried beneath the frost.
For a moment it hadn’t noticed him.
Then its ears twitched, its nose lifted, and it froze—and a heartbeat later it bolted.
“Damn it.” Cael bent down, snatched up a pebble, and threw it.
The stone whistled harmlessly past the rabbit’s head.
He grabbed another.
Missed again.
The rabbit zigzagged between bushes, changing direction so quickly it nearly vanished against the snow.
Cael clicked his tongue and picked up a third pebble, but this time he didn’t throw immediately.
He remembered Vesper’s words—don’t rush—and steadied his breathing, tracking the rabbit’s movement, waiting, and then he threw.
The pebble cut cleanly through the air.
It struck with a dull thud, and the rabbit rolled across the snow before coming to a stop, still.
For one heartbeat Cael simply stood there.
Then the scent reached him—fresh blood, warm blood—and every ounce of control he’d fought to maintain disappeared.
He crossed the distance in an instant, dropped onto one knee beside the rabbit, and picked it up with trembling hands, the hunger drowning every other thought.
He bit into the wound the pebble had left, and warm blood flowed into his mouth.
Unlike the deer, there was no instinct urging him to stop—the rabbit was already dead, nothing left to save—so he drank until not a single drop remained.
Only then did he pull away.
The rabbit’s body felt strangely light in his hands.
He closed his eyes as the burning in his throat faded and the beast within him quieted—not satisfied, just calmer.
He exhaled slowly.
“Too small.” The rabbit had taken the edge off, nothing more.
Tonight he would need something larger.
He wiped the last trace of blood from his lips with the back of his glove, rubbing the stain into the snow, then looked down at the rabbit—a perfectly round hole pierced one side of its body.
“…Well.” He smiled faintly.
“At least I’ve got a hunting trophy.” Holding it by the hind legs, he started back toward the trail.
Vesper was waiting exactly where Cael had left him, leaning casually against the stag with his arms folded, looking more impatient than worried.
His eyes dropped immediately to the rabbit swinging from Cael’s hand, and one eyebrow slowly rose.
“So.
Couldn’t wait to try everything I taught you?”
Cael shrugged.
“I suppose not.”
Vesper stepped closer and took the rabbit from his hand, turning it over and inspecting it carefully.
“Hm.
You actually managed to catch one.” He handed it back.
“You think I should be impressed?”
Cael smiled.
“…Maybe?”
“Children younger than you hunt deer on their first outing.
Some even manage to bring down a boar.” He scratched his beard thoughtfully.
“Where I come from, bringing back a rabbit wouldn’t even earn you a pat on the back.”
Cael knew that was a lie, and judging by the smug look on Vesper’s face, Vesper knew Cael knew it was a lie.
Neither of them said anything, and Cael wasn’t about to lose the exchange so easily.
“I wasn’t even trying to hunt it.”
“Oh?”
“I was relieving myself, and I happened to see the rabbit.”
Vesper folded his arms.
“And?”
“So I picked up a pebble—” Cael pointed toward the neat hole in the rabbit’s side, “—and threw it.
It died.”
For several seconds Vesper simply stared at him.
Then he burst into laughter.
“Liar.”
“I’m serious.”
“You expect me to believe you killed a rabbit with a pebble?”
“I did.”
Vesper laughed even harder, shaking his head.
“If a man could throw stones with that kind of strength and accuracy, we’d throw away our bows and carry sacks full of pebbles instead.” He handed the rabbit back.
“You found somebody else’s kill, picked it up, and now you’re trying to impress me.”
Cael smiled to himself; that explanation was far better than anything he could have come up with on his own.
“If that’s what you want to believe.”
“It is.” Vesper turned and started dragging the stag once more.
“Come on.
Cael the Pebble Thrower.”
Cael groaned.
“I am never getting rid of that nickname, am I?”
Vesper didn’t even look back.
“Not a chance.”
Shaking his head with a helpless smile, Cael followed after him, the rabbit swinging lightly from his hand as they made their way back toward camp beneath the fading afternoon sky.
By the time they reached the camp, the sun had already begun sinking behind the endless forest, the pale winter sky glowing orange beneath a blanket of gray clouds before slowly fading into deep blue.
Long shadows stretched across the snow, and the evening cold settled over the camp once again.
Vesper let the stag fall beside the shelter with a heavy thud before rolling his shoulders.
“Right.” He dusted the snow from his gloves and looked at Cael.
“Lesson isn’t over.”
Cael glanced from the deer to the rabbit still hanging from his hand.
“…It isn’t?”
Vesper snorted.
“Hunting’s the easy part.
Eating’s the difficult one.” He held out his hand.
“The rabbit.”
Cael handed it over.
Vesper drew his old knife from his belt and offered it back, handle first.
“Butcher it.”
Cael stared at both the knife and the rabbit.
“I’ve never done this before.”
“I know.
That’s exactly why you’re doing it.”
Cael sighed and accepted the knife.
The rabbit still felt warm despite the freezing air.
He knelt beside a flat stone near the fire pit while Vesper crouched beside him.
“First.” Vesper tapped the rabbit’s hind legs.
“Hang it if you can.
Since we don’t have anything to hang it from—” he shrugged, “—this will do.” He pointed the tip of his own knife toward the rabbit’s belly.
“Don’t stab.
Slice.
Nice and shallow.
You want the skin, not the meat.”
Cael nodded and carefully made the first cut, but the blade sank deeper than he intended.
Vesper immediately reached over and caught his wrist.
“Too much pressure.” He gently adjusted the angle of Cael’s hand.
“Let the knife do the work.
Don’t force it.”
Cael tried again, and this time the blade glided beneath the skin.
“Better.”
Over the next several minutes Vesper corrected almost every movement—slow down, watch where your thumb is, don’t pull so hard or you’ll tear the hide, follow the muscle, not across it—his voice remaining calm throughout, patient, almost surprisingly so.
Once the hide came free, he pointed to the organs.
“The liver.” He lifted it carefully.
“Keep it.
The heart—keep that too.
The kidneys, they’re worth eating.”
Cael wrinkled his nose.
“…People actually eat these?”
Vesper looked up as though the answer were obvious.
“Out here?
We eat everything.” He wiped his knife clean on a strip of old cloth hanging from his belt.
“The fur, save it.
Sinew’s useful for binding.
Bones, boil them.
Even the fat has its uses.”
Cael frowned.
“It matters that much?”
Vesper chuckled quietly.
“My first winter on the Wall, I threw away a rabbit’s liver.
Thought meat was meat.” He shook his head, smiling at the memory.
“Three days later I was chewing bark off a birch tree.” He scratched his beard.
“Spent half an hour convincing myself it tasted better than rabbit.”
Cael laughed.
“Did it?”
“No.
It tasted like bark.”
The two shared a brief laugh before Vesper nodded toward the stag.
“Your turn.”
Cael’s smile disappeared.
“…The whole thing?”
“The whole thing.”
“But it’s huge.”
“So?
You planning to carry it around forever?”
Cael muttered something under his breath that made Vesper grin.
The stag proved far more difficult—its hide thick, its muscles dense, its size alone making every cut awkward.
More than once Cael found himself sawing instead of slicing, and each time Vesper stopped him.
“No.
Like this.” He demonstrated a single smooth motion before handing the knife back.
“Again.”
By the time the deer had finally been butchered, darkness had begun creeping between the trees.
The fire crackled steadily as Vesper skewered several cuts of venison over the flames, the smell of roasting meat filling the camp.
Cael helped slice the remaining meat into long strips.
“What are these for?”
Vesper threaded the strips onto thin wooden rods before suspending them above the fire, where thick smoke drifted upward.
“Dried meat.” He adjusted one strip that had slipped lower.
“Jerky.
It’ll last weeks if you keep it dry.”
Cael watched the smoke curl around the meat.
“So that’s how you survive winter.”
“Partly.” Vesper wiped his hands on his fur cloak before glancing toward the stacked firewood.
“You prepare while food’s easy to find.
When winter gets worse, you’ll be glad you did.”
Cael nodded silently.
Every lesson today reminded him how little he truly knew about surviving beyond the Wall.
Night settled fully over the camp, the last traces of daylight vanishing behind the pines and leaving only the warm glow of the campfire pushing back the darkness.
Snow continued drifting lazily from the sky, hissing softly whenever a flake landed on the flames.
Vesper stood beside the stretched deer hide, pulling it tight across a crude wooden frame made from freshly cut branches.
“There.” He tied off the final strip of sinew.
“Leave it like this.
It’ll dry properly.”
Cael sat beside the fire, slowly chewing another piece of roasted venison.
It wasn’t seasoned, it wasn’t particularly tender, but after days of stale bread and cold rabbit it tasted incredible.
Vesper walked over to the nearly empty barrel of ale sitting beneath the shelter, tipped it slightly, and listened.
“There isn’t much left.”
“There doesn’t need to be.”
He filled two wooden mugs anyway and handed one to Cael, and the two men drank quietly beside the fire.
Unlike the previous night, neither tried to outdrink the other; the conversation drifted from hunting to the weather before fading into comfortable silence, and eventually the barrel ran dry.
Vesper set his mug down, stretched until several joints cracked, and let out a long yawn.
“Long day,” he muttered.
He lowered himself onto his bedroll, pulled his fur cloak over his shoulders, and gave Cael a lazy glance.
“Wake me if something tries to eat you.”
Cael chuckled.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Hmph.”
Within minutes, Vesper’s breathing slowed, his heartbeat settling into the calm, steady rhythm of deep sleep.
Cael remained where he was.
The fire had burned down to glowing embers, sending lazy sparks drifting upward into the cold night, and he stared into the flames without really seeing them.
The rabbit’s blood had dulled his hunger.
It hadn’t satisfied it.
The emptiness inside him had already begun returning, slowly, patiently, waiting.
He looked toward the sleeping ranger.
Vesper trusted him enough to sleep first, and Cael wasn’t about to betray that trust—he wasn’t going to feed on him, not now, not ever, if he could help it.
Slowly he rose to his feet, tightened his fur cloak around his shoulders, and brushed a layer of snow from one sleeve.
For a moment he simply listened.
Hundreds of heartbeats echoed through the wilderness—birds sleeping in the trees, rabbits hidden beneath the snow, foxes prowling through the darkness.
For a moment he simply listened.
Hundreds of heartbeats echoed through the wilderness—birds sleeping in the trees, rabbits hidden beneath the snow, foxes prowling through the darkness.
Somewhere among them waited tonight’s meal.
Taking one last glance toward the camp to confirm Vesper was still asleep, Cael stepped beyond the shelter without a sound.
The cold night welcomed him once again, snow drifting beneath a sky overflowing with stars.
He slipped between the trees, and within moments the darkness swallowed him whole.
The hunt had begun.