He let himself close his eyes for moment.
Then-
Snap.
His eyes flew open. A twig. Nearby.
He reached for a stone without thinking, rising slowly to his feet. Breahh shallow. Muscles tight.
At first the trees were silent - but then a shape emerged between the trunks, low to ground and moving in a way that didn't belong to any animal. Another shape followed, both creeping through the forest with a grace that was too smooth, too quiet.
Their pale, glowing eyes fixed on him.
Ash-hounds.
He had heard about them from hushed stories shared around dying fire - tales of shadowy beasts born not from nature, but from ancient battlefields, soaked in blood and forgotten prayers. People said they weren't truly alive, but not quite dead either - creatures made from soot, bones and the breath of fallen gods.
They looked like monstrous dogs twisted by fire and darkness, their coal-black fur stretched thin over lean, powerful frames. Across their bodies ran faint glowing lines, like cracks in burning stone, pulsing with dull red light as though something inside them still burned. Their white, lidless eyes glowing faintly, and though they made no sound, thheir presence filled the air with a bone-chilling dread.
Ares didn't move.
One of the creature tulted uts head as if sniffing the air, its breath invisible and cold. The smell of smoke and scorched earth filled the clearing, and a heavy, unnatural silence settled over everything.
Then, without thinking, he turned and ran.
The firsst blurred around him as he sprinted downhill, branches whipping at his face and thorns clawing at his arms. His sandals slipped on roots and rocks, but he didn't stop. Behind him, he heard nothing - but he could feel them, feel the pressure of being hunted, like something cold and ancient breathing down hus neck.
He spotted a fallen tree just ahead, its wide trunk hollowed by rot, and without hesitation he dove beneath it, pressung his body into the wet earth and covering his mouth with a trembling hand.
A few seconds passed. Then he saw them.
One of the hounds stepped into the view, walking with that erie, sondless grace. Its glowing cracks lit the forest floor with a soft red hue as it sniffed the air, standing almost directly above him. Ares stayed still, his heart hammering so hard he feared it would give him away.
His black and golden eyes pulsed once, deep within his skull.
The hound paused.
For a moment, it seemed to sense something - but then, slowly, its cracked paws gliding over the leaves, as it vanished into the shadows along with the others.
Ares lay still for what felt like a full minute, too afraid to move or even breathe.
When he finally crawled ot from under the tree, soaked in mud and trembling, he looked around the firest with wide eyes. The hounds were gone. No sound remained but the wind in the braches above.
He didn't know why they hadn't attacked him. May be it was luck. May be something else was at work - something he didn't understand.
But it didn't matter.
He was still alive.
And so, even though his legs ached and his clothes were torn and damp, he pushed himself forward again, step by stepinto the wild unknown.
The fore thickened as the sun broke over the horizon, washing the hills in waek gold and revealing just how far the temple stood behind him. In the daylight, the trees seemed less monstrous, bur there was a stillness to them which Ares didn't trust. Birds didn't sing here. No wind stirred the leaves. It was as though the forest was holding its breath.
His stolen map, pulled from the satchel, was mostly useless. Burnt along one edge and smudged with age, the only markings he could still make out were a winding river to the west, and what looked like a trade road leading sout to Korvan. But there was no payh under his feet - only dry brush and thorns, qnd strange stones outcrops like broken teeth.
By midday, Ares had found a steam trickling weakly through the roots of a dead tree. He drank, washed the blood from his hands, and let himself rest briefly in the shades. He hadn't eaten since yesterday - barely anything at all before that. Hunger gnawed at him. But food would have to wait. He had to keep moving. Temple of Oracles did not let go easily.
His eye pulsed again, just faintly.
He didn't understant it, not yet, but he he'd learned to trust the warning.
Something was coming.
He crouched low, ears tuned to the stillness. The bushes to east rustled - not like wind, but with weight. Footsteps.
He ducked behind the twisted trunk of a fallen tree and waited.
Two men passed though the undergrowth, dressed in rough cloaks, not priests - but not farmers either. They carried curved blades, worn and chipped. One of them wore a pendant around his neck - red stone on a rusted chain.
Ares knew that mark, God-chasers.
Relic hunters. Fanatics. They wandered the edges of the Empire searching for old divine remains - fragmentsof power, bones of saints, cursed things. The kind of people who would kill a child just to feed a relic a drip of blood.
Their voices carried low and rough.
"Heard the bells last night," one muttered.
"Means one got loose."
"From the temple?"
"Where else? They'll pay gold if we find him before the wardens do."
Ares's stomach titghtened. His name hadn't been spoken, but he felt the weight of hunt press against his back like a shadow.
They moved on unaware.
He waited until their steps faded before he stood. If the God-chasers were already this far out, then he had no time to waste. He had to reach korvan before the others caught his scent.
But the road to Korvan was long - and worse, it wasn't just men who hunted beyond the valley.