It had been several days since Ilya's last hard training session, days filled with long hunts, quiet repairs around the cabin, and lessons that came more through silence than instruction.
Inside the cabin, the fire crackled slow and steady in the hearth.
Arvid leaned back in the old wooden chair by the window, boots crossed, carving knife in hand. He was whittling a crooked piece of cedar into something vaguely resembling a bird, or maybe a wolf. Ilya couldn't tell. The floor near his feet was covered in curls of wood shavings.
Ilya sat at the table, arms folded. A small loaf of hard bread and a pot of soup sat between them, steam curling upward like smoke from a quiet battlefield.
"This your idea of a celebration?" Ilya asked.
Arvid didn't look up. "It's better than mine last year."
"What was it?"
"Didn't have one."
Ilya gave a quiet breath that might've been a laugh. He wasn't sure.
The quiet returned for a while. Outside, the wind shifted slightly. A few branches knocked together with a hollow clack.
Arvid's voice came again, low but not uncertain. "You don't have to stay out here."
Ilya looked up.
"The orphanage," Arvid said, glancing toward the window. "They'll be lighting candles. Probably have something warm. Safer than here."
"I don't belong there," Ilya whispered. "I feel… more like myself here."
Arvid gave a slow nod, like he'd expected that.
The fire popped in the silence.
Arvid stood, stretched his back, and stirred the soup with the end of a wooden spoon. "It's fine. You're not a guest anymore. You live here. That means tonight counts. Doesn't have to be much, but we mark it."
He reached up to a small shelf and pulled down a glass bottle, dark brown, dusty with age. "You're not drinking this, but I'll have one for both of us."
Ilya smirked slightly. "That's not how it works."
Arvid poured anyway.
They ate slowly, letting the quiet do most of the talking. Arvid poured a small glass from the bottle and raised it halfway toward Ilya before drinking. Ilya just sipped the broth from his bowl and leaned back, eyes half-lidded.
The air outside had gone still, too still.
Ilya heard it first.
A low hum, not from wind. Something layered. Mechanical. Pressing.
He stood slowly, boots crunching faintly against the cabin floor. Arvid didn't react, just exhaled once through his nose and muttered, "Not again."
The next moment, a boom of displaced air cracked above the cabin as something tore across the sky like a comet with no patience for subtlety. The windows rattled.
Then a laughter.
Ilya blinked once, leaned out the cabin doorway, and looked up.
A flash of silver carved through the sky, a streak of burning propulsion and curling mist twisted above the trees.
Then he heard her voice.
"Ilyaaaaa! You better not be hiding!"
Ilya stepped outside just as the Astra dropped into the clearing like a hawk diving for prey. The snow exploded around it in a spiraling wave of steam and frost. A pair of boots hit the ground with a sharp crunch. One elegant, the other wildly unbalanced.
Anna tumbled forward off the Astra, caught herself, and then threw her arms in the air.
"Finally!"
Ilya blinked. "What—"
"Don't 'what' me!" Anna stormed over, snow clinging to her sleeves. "You were supposed to come back for New Year's! Everyone waited! The matron was mad! I was mad! Even the soup got cold!"
Ilya opened his mouth to reply, but she jabbed a gloved finger against his chest. "You said you'd come back."
"I didn't," he said.
"You did!"
Arvid leaned against the doorframe. "She's right."
Ilya glanced at him. "Whose side are you on?"
Arvid shrugged. "Whoever has the louder argument."
Lilya dismounted with a flick of her coat, boots crunching softly as she approached. She looked between them all and smirked. "Now this feels like a proper holiday reunion."
Anna spun around. "We're staying! Big sister Lilya said we could!"
Ilya stared at her.
"We brought sweets," Lilya added.
He sighed. Guess he had no other options.
***
The four of them sat around the fire. It was small, Arvid never liked wasting wood, but it burned bright enough to warm the clearing. Anna had pulled her scarf over her mouth and now sat tucked in a blanket beside Ilya, her head resting against his arm despite her earlier fury.
Lilya leaned back on a log, arms folded behind her head, staring at the stars. Arvid knelt beside the fire, feeding it one piece of cedar at a time, slow and thoughtful.
The night was quiet, strangely quiet.
Ilya watched the flames flicker, his eyes half-focused on the sparks dancing into the sky. He didn't feel relaxed exactly, but the tension in his shoulders had loosened just enough to make him notice it had been there all along.
Anna stirred beside him. "Ten more minutes," she said softly, glancing down at the small brass pocket watch given by the matron. It looked old, worn at the edges, with faint engravings curling around its rim. She had to tilt it toward the firelight to read the hands clearly.
Ilya glanced at her, then at the watch ticking quietly between her fingers.
"Excited?" he asked.
She nodded. "We survived another one. That counts for something."
Arvid looked at the sky, then at the cheap pocket watch hanging from a nail on the cabin wall. "Five minutes," he said.
The wind had stopped. No branches moved. Even the trees seemed to be holding their breath.
Anna began humming something, an old tune, maybe from the orphanage. Lilya tapped her fingers against her boots in rhythm. Ilya didn't recognize it, but something in his chest tightened.
"Thirty seconds," Arvid murmured.
The fire popped once.
Anna counted under her breath.
"Ten, nine, eight..."
Lilya grinned. "Try not to blink, might miss something."
"Three, two..."
Then the last second.
"One."
Everyone froze.
A sound pierced the night.
It wasn't a scream.
It was a howl, long, guttural, too deep and heavy to come from any natural wolf. It echoed across the trees like it didn't belong to this world, dragging something ancient and monstrous behind it.
Arvid stood up without a word.
Lilya's head snapped toward the trees. "There's no way," she said, disbelief in what she had just heard.
"It's starting already?!" Arvid shocked. The calm that usually marked his face had faded.
"What was that?" Anna asked.
Arvid didn't answer. He was already moving.
Lilya was right behind him, taking her Astra. "I'll check from above."
Ilya grabbed his cloak, pulling it on with a sharp movement. His chest felt tight, not from fear yet, but from something colder. Like his body already knew what his mind hadn't caught up to.
Anna called after them. "Where are you going?!"
Ilya turned to her. "Stay here."
"I'm not staying alone—"
"It's not safe!"
She glared. "Exactly."
"...Fine then."
They ran through the forest.
The woods weren't the same. The stillness had cracked. The trees no longer whispered, they watched.
Ilya followed Arvid's trail through half-frozen brush and broken snowbanks. He didn't have to speak. His feet knew where to land. His eyes scanned ahead, already narrowing. Beside him, Anna ran without complaint, her breath sharp and fast.
They reached the final trees.
And stopped.
The forest broke open, like the trees had been torn aside by something too big to fit between them.
Ilya stumbled forward onto a snow-covered rise, boots crunching into frozen dirt.
Then he saw it.
The orphanage.
It was burning.
The entire valley below was drenched in flickering orange light. The tall black roof had collapsed inward, flames chewing through timber like it was paper. Smoke towered into the sky, choking out the stars. Ash spiraled through the air like dark snow.
The fire wasn't wild, it was focused. Like it knew where to spread.
Ilya's breath caught in his throat. His legs moved, but his chest locked.
He saw the old play structure Anna used to climb, swallowed by fire. The chapel bell tower half-melted, slumped sideways like a broken limb. A line of red spread across the snow, leading from the kitchen to the garden. He didn't know if it was blood or just the light.
Then the screaming started again, real voices, human, scattered. Far off. Some crying. Some yelling names.
And above it all,
A sound like a drumbeat and a roar tied into one.
Then it stepped through the smoke.
A creature.
Its shape was wolf, but its proportions were wrong. Too tall. Too long. Its back curved like a mountain bending under snow. Its legs cracked the earth with each step. Its eyes glowed white.
Ilya staggered back one step.
The wolf turned its head, slow and deliberate, and looked straight at them.
Its gaze passed over Arvid and Anna,
Then stopped on him.