CHAPTER 336: 336: WARNING OF PREDATOR INSTINCT

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"Find where birds land and scratch," he said. "They do not waste time where there is nothing to eat. Learn the shape of rabbit runs. They choose the same path until they do not. Look for sap bleed on the south side of a tree. It means sweetness nearby. Do not pick berries you cannot name. If a plant looks like it wants to be eaten, it is either safe or very rude."

This made her laugh again. He liked that she laughed, not loudly, but with a relief that did not ask permission.

They found a stunted tree that held small fruit. He cut one and showed her the seeds. "This is safe," he said. "It will not make your stomach curse me. Eat the flesh. Boil the skin with a handful of needles for tea. It will keep your throat from climbing up and strangling you during a cold night."

They found a stream no wider than a stride. He had her follow its bends, not cut across. He dug into the bank where the green was brightest and brought out a pale tuber. "Cut thin and roast in ash," he said. "Do not eat raw unless you like your belly to punish you for being impatient."

By the time the sun bent downward and the lines of light inside the bowl turned long and golden, Ikea had a shelter that would not shame a careful traveler, a hearth that would not smoke her blind, a small pile of food, and the kind of tired hands that make sleep come easier. She sat on the mat she had woven and looked at the work with a satisfaction that softened her mouth.

"I taught you what I can in an afternoon," Kai said. "It is enough to keep you unlost. I have to leave. I have a great deal to do before night."

She looked up at him in a way that would have made a weaker man promise anything. "Could you spend the night with me," she asked. "It is my first time living in a forest alone. It would be great if you could accompany me. The trees talk in a language I do not yet understand."

He considered, honestly. Responsibility moved through him like a law he could not ignore. Luna and Miryam and other girls. The cradles. Shadeclaw and Silvershadow running the lanes. The forge is still singing with new heat. He met Ikea’s eyes, and because she deserved the courtesy of truth, he gave it to her without dressing it up.

"Aren’t you afraid I might do something to you," he asked. "A man and a woman spending a night together. Anything can happen."

She laughed in a clean, surprised way that made him think she had missed laughter more than she knew. "I am not afraid," she said. "You are a good person. Also," she added with a perfectly straight face, "I am not into young people. You are too young for me."

He could not help it. He barked a short laugh. "I am glad you think that way," he said. "I am sorry. I cannot spend the night with you. I have people waiting for me."

"Then do not apologize," she said, and stood. "Thank you for today. I will not waste what you taught me."

They said goodbye in the simple manner of people who hope to meet again. He walked out of the bowl and into the lane of trees where the bars of light had turned the color of honey. He did not look back because looking back is for people who do not trust their feet.

He had made it halfway to the shoulder path when the world changed shape.

Predator’s Instinct flared like a blade pulled from a sheath in the dark. It bit him along the spine and sent the taste of iron to the back of his mouth. He stopped. He set a palm on the nearest trunk and let the tremor climb his arm. It was not the wind. It was not water. It was motion that did not belong to a leaf or bird or deer. Heavy. It carried a sibilant drag. It carried an old hunger.

A signature rose from that motion and hit the part of him that measured danger without needing names. Five stars. Fast. Venomous. Moving at speed toward the bowl where Ikea sat by a careful fire she had just learned to love.

"No," he said into the bark, and then he was moving.

He sprinted along the shallow rise where the needles did not betray his steps. His feet found stone and root as if they had been laid for this purpose. He pushed strength into speed, let the banked heat of his other form warm the muscles without bursting the plates free. Branches raked his shoulders. He did not feel them. The trees blurred and then jumped into focus, blurred and jumped, speed and precision working together like partners who had practiced until practice made a kind of prayer.

He heard the first scream before he saw either of them. It was not loud. It was the sound a person makes when pain surprises them and dignity tries to pretend the surprise is not important. He reached the lip of the bowl and saw the coil. It was thick as a man’s waist, scaled in a dull green that pretended to be moss when it lay still. It was not still. It looped and dove, striking with the piston certainty of something that had hit and hit and always been fed for it. Ikea stood with a branch in both hands, using it not like a spear but like a bar to hold the head away from her legs.

He did not waste time naming it. He did not say words to the air about what it was like. He dropped into the space between breaths, where decisions live. His body answered a plan he did not voice.