Sen

  The rain hadn't stopped since dawn, and the thick, damp air clung to Sen's skin as he followed Rydan through the flooded fields. The path, once a dirt track worn by years of footfall, was now a slick mess of mud and pooling water. Rydan moved ahead, his form hunched against the downpour, cloak billowing like a shadow in the mist. The low thud of their boots was nearly drowned out by the steady rhythm of rain on the leaves and the occasional crackle of thunder in the distance.

  Sen kept his distance, his eyes scanning the fog-choked path ahead, where the twisted silhouette of the woods loomed. They had walked the familiar path in silence, and though the chill of the weather seemed to seep into his bones, it was the tension between them that weighed heaviest on Sen's mind. Rydan hadn’t said much after their brief conversation by the garden, but there was a tightness to his shoulders that spoke volumes. He was unsettled, that much was clear. Rydan didn’t get unsettled.

  Finally, they reached the edge of the woods, where the farmland ended and the dense thicket began, its gnarled trees rising like sentinels in the mist. Rydan slowed, his eyes darting nervously down the shadowy, fog obscured path that stretched into the cover of twisted branches. “It’s not far now,” he muttered, voice low, as if afraid something might hear. Sen nodded, but his thoughts had already turned inward. The brock was the least of their worries now, as much as its brutal death hurt. Whatever had killed it, and whatever had torn through the trees, was something he wasn’t sure they should face. Heading into the dark forest suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. Sen glanced at Grady and was relieved to see the hound’s posture was alert but relaxed. At least he’d signal if something was off.

  Rydan hesitated, his gaze lingering on Sen as if weighing the words he had yet to say. The silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken things. Finally, he nodded, his shoulders slumping under the weight of whatever he had yet to reveal. “I— I think you should see it for yourself. The way it was... the damage.” He turned, stepping away from Sen with deliberate slowness, his boots squelching against the wet earth. “It wasn’t just the brock. There were... marks. The trees around it were torn up.” He glanced back, his face pale. “It didn’t look like any animal I’ve ever seen. Not from around here.” Sen’s pulse quickened, a cold knot settling in his stomach. A brock was one thing, but whatever was out there, whatever had made those marks, was something else entirely. Something they wouldn’t be able to defend against.

  But a part of him had to see the scene for himself. As much as dread filled the pit of his stomach, there was a curiosity that he couldn’t shake. He nodded again, staring into Rydan’s dark eyes for a moment in contemplation. He wouldn’t make him go. But if he didn’t feel it were necessary, he wouldn’t have made Sen come out here in the first place. Sen turned toward the forest, leading the way onto the dark path this time. Rydan and Grady followed silently behind him as they made their way deeper into the forest.

  The sounds were muted under the thick canopy of summer green leaves. The rain was a distant sound but the air was still thick and cold, an occasional steady drip the only indication of the storm. The smells of the forest overwhelmed them, decaying earth and pine needles dominated their human senses. Grady trotted forward to lead next to Sen and he watched the hound carefully for any sign of distress. The hounds were unlike regular dogs, closer to the wild dire wolves from the Great Northern peninsula they were crossed with. A deliberate, dangerous crossbreeding that their ancestors from the peninsula had chanced. They were unique. Powerful. Sen swore that Grady could understand them completely. Even now as he watched him, the cheery dog from earlier was replaced nearly entirely by predator. His huge paws barely made a sound on the soft earth and his eyes and ears were alert. He raised his snout in every direction to sniff. So far, he sensed nothing. But he was ready. He knew what they came to investigate and the potential danger, Sen was sure of it.

  They trudged through the forest until the path waned and then ended, indicating this was how far they normally traveled into the forest. What in the hells was a brock doing this far in? Sen couldn’t help but wonder as he peered around the gray, shadowy forest. Sure, the brocks wander if the fence breaks from time to time. For the most part, though, they stay close to the fields. They have managed to break the tree line of the forest before but to come this far in? It was odd to say the least. Brocks were predictable creatures.

  Rydan stepped up in front of Sen and gestured forward, taking the lead and walking behind the trunk of a huge pine trunk. Sen followed without question, brow furrowed as he contemplated their dilemma. However, when he stepped around the other side, the scene stopped him in his tracks.

  No amount of warning or description could have described the carnage and brutality that lay before Sen. He suddenly understood why Rydan had insisted he come here himself. This was destruction beyond what he could’ve imagined. Grady whined low in his throat and his ears went flat against his head as his nostrils flared repeatedly, taking in the scene before them. His head moved side to side as he looked around the clearing, not alerting to a threat but to the rain-dampened scents of the past. A battle he could likely smell better than they could see.

  Smaller saplings were torn from the ground and snapped in half. The branches of the bigger trees, some as thick as Sen’s torso, were broken off or hung haphazardly from where they were once connected. He squinted up into the dark canopy, noting there were some broken branches higher up the tree as well. Dread settled in his stomach. Whatever it was that had attacked was obviously impossibly strong.

  There was old, dark blood smattered around the clearing. It was dried and nearly black in the gloom of the deep wood making it look possibly even more gruesome. It was everywhere, scattered all across the clearing, showing how much the poor brock had struggled before succumbing in the center. Sen frowned as he stepped closer to the body, or what was left of it. It was nearly just bones with a few dried strands of straggly, dangling flesh. The organs were completely gone. Nearly picked clean. There were large scrapes and chunks missing from the bones. Teeth marks, Sen realized as his stomach churned over again. Strangely, the smell coming from the carcass, while present, wasn’t as overpowering as he thought it would be. Likely due to the sparse amount of flesh let behind.

  “Do you think that other animals finished off what was left behind?” Sen asked, finally tearing his eyes away and looking at Rydan. His cousin hung back, leaning against a tree not covered in blood splatters as Sen had taken everything in. His brow was creased with obvious worry.

  “Dunno,” He said with a shrug. “Though I doubt it. My father and brother found it while it was still relatively fresh, blood still dripping. He described it exactly as this.”

  “So whatever attacked… It ate the whole brock? In one night?” Sen asked in exasperation, running a hand back through his damp auburn hair.

  “Appears so,” Rydan said in a quiet voice, rubbing his chin.

  They stood there in silence, staring at the fallen brock in contemplation when Grady whined, low in his throat and stood, trotting toward the path back. He looked at Sen and Rydan in turn before taking another few steps and waiting, tail tucked between his legs.

  “He’s right,” Sen said, turning away to follow. “We should go. Something unnatural happened here.”

  “Wait,” Rydan said, pushing away from the tree. He ran a hand through his hair and looked up toward the canopy, obviously contemplating something. Sen and Grady watched him expectantly, the silence of the forest pressing in around them. That’s when Sen realized just how quiet it was. Normally Grady’s presence alone would send the creatures scurrying but there would still be some sign of life. Rustling or a bird cawing in the distance. Now there was nothing besides the quiet sounds of the storm overhead. The dread in Sen’s stomach deepened as he watched his cousin fight some kind of eternal battle. This wasn’t the time for stalling.

  “The brock isn’t the reason you brought me here,” Sen said, more of a statement than a question. He has assumed that there was more to this than Rydan had let on from the start but had let him lead. Rydan wasn’t usually one to beat around something. He was always straight to the point. Everything about this scene, this day, was off. The hairs on the back of Sen’s neck stood on end and he looked behind him, across the clearing into the dark of the woods. He felt like there were eyes on them but saw nothing. He glanced down at Grady but the hound wasn’t alerting but stood still as stone, still watching Rydan with his tail tucked.

  “I’m getting a wife,” Rydan said, low but clear, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and turning away, toward the path back.

  For a moment, the words slid past Sen without meaning, dulled by the unease already knotted in his chest. Then they settled and everything else simply fell away.

  A wife.

  The forest, the shadows between the trees, even the half-formed fear of something stalking them vanished beneath the crushing weight of it. Sen’s stomach dropped hard. Wives weren’t spoken of lightly. They weren’t hoped for. They were bought after years of saving, years of grim calculation, years of deciding which son the family could afford to bind to such a cost.

  And it was never supposed to be Rydan.

  Sen stared at his cousin’s turned back, thoughts scrambling, colliding. It had always been Tris. Everyone knew that. Tris, the eldest. Tris, even sickly and wasting these past months, still the one fate had marked. Rydan was meant to work the land, shoulder the weight quietly, not be the one sent to auction like this was some merciful opportunity.

  His jaw slackened. He opened his mouth, shut it again, breath catching painfully in his throat as something cold and furious coiled through him. Not just shock but betrayal. Of Rydan. Of everything they’d whispered about late at night, about how wrong it was, how cruel.

  “You…” His voice came out thin, almost broken. He swallowed and tried again. “You what?”

  The words felt useless. Too small. Nothing about this was supposed to be happening at all.

  Rydan stopped walking.

  He didn’t turn around, but Sen saw the tension ripple through him anyway. His shoulders locking, hands curling tighter in his pockets. When he spoke, his voice was steadier than it had any right to be, and that somehow made it worse.

  “It isn’t what I want,” Rydan said. “You know that.”

  Sen took a sharp step forward. “Then don’t say it like it’s just another chore,” he snapped. “Like fixing a fence or hauling nets. This—” He broke off, breath shaking. “This is buying a person, Rydan.”

  Rydan flinched at that. He finally turned, face drawn and tired, eyes dark with something like resignation. “I know what it is.”

  “Do you?” Sen demanded. “Because it sounds like you’ve already swallowed your father’s reasoning whole.”

  A muscle jumped in Rydan’s jaw. “Tris can barely stand some days.”

  That landed, heavy and unavoidable.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Sen’s anger faltered, twisting into something rawer. “That doesn’t make this right.”

  “No,” Rydan agreed quietly. “But it makes it necessary.”

  The word scraped like grit against stone.

  Rydan dragged a hand through his hair, gaze dropping to the ground between them. “Lyal and Willam are still boys. Father’s strong, but he’s not young anymore. You’ve seen him. How long he stares at his hands when he thinks no one’s looking.” He let out a slow breath. “Someone has to make sure the farm doesn’t die with him.”

  “And that someone is you,” Sen said flatly.

  Rydan gave a small, humorless huff. “I’m twenty-eight. More than old enough to have already taken a wife, had Tris not been born first.. Old enough that father could justify it once Tris… couldn’t. The twins are ten years younger than me. They aren’t ready. It has to be me. If we don’t have the farm and hands to work it, we can’t pay the dues. We end up on the streets or worse.”

  His voice cracked slightly on the last word and they stared at each other, the unspoken truth hung between them. Children. He had to have children.

  Sen’s hands curled into fists at his sides. He hated that he understood the logic. Hated even more that logic was all anyone ever needed. “So that’s it,” he said. “They decided. And now you’re going to Briarton like this is some grand errand.”

  Rydan’s eyes lifted, sharp. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t pretend I don’t know what those auctions are,” Rydan said, voice low. “Don’t pretend I haven’t said the same things you’re thinking. I’ve watched them line girls up like livestock. I’ve heard the bidding.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I hate it.”

  “Then how can you stand to be part of it?”

  Rydan looked at him then. Really looked - and for a moment the mask cracked. “Because if I don’t, someone else will. Someone worse. At least this way…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “At least this way I can try not to be cruel.”

  Sen let out a harsh laugh, the sound bordering on a sob. “That’s a lie. A pretty one but still a lie.. That kindness makes ownership acceptable.”

  Silence stretched. The forest pressed in again, the distant cry of a seabird drifting through the trees.

  “This is why we came out here,” Sen said suddenly, the realization burning. “Not just the brock. Not just the thing that killed it.”

  Rydan didn’t deny it.

  “You’re going to be gone,” Sen whispered. “Months. Maybe longer.”

  “Two months there,” Rydan said. “Then back before winter sets in. Father and I will sell the harvest while we’re north. We’ll get a better price than we ever do here.”

  And buy a wife with the coin, the words echoed silently.

  Rydan stepped closer, lowering his voice. “That’s why I needed you to see the forest. To know what’s out there. If something happens while I’m gone—”

  “Don’t,” Sen said sharply. Fear spiked hot and immediate. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “I have to,” Rydan replied. “You’ll be here. With Tris. With the twins. Someone needs to be watching.”

  Sen’s chest felt too tight, like the truth inside him was pressing to get out, dangerous and desperate. He forced it down, nails biting into his palms. “I don’t want you to go,” he said instead, the words small but devastatingly honest.

  Rydan’s expression softened then, just a fraction. He reached out, hesitated, and finally rested a hand on Sen’s shoulder. “I know.”

  For a heartbeat, they stood like that, two people bound by shared anger and shared powerlessness, staring down a future neither of them had chosen.

  “I hate this world,” Sen whispered.

  Rydan closed his eyes. “So do I.”

  The silence that followed felt fragile, like thin ice.

  Rydan’s hand slipped from Sen’s shoulder, but he didn’t step away. His gaze drifted instead to the trees, to the filtered light between branches. “Mother would’ve cursed us all for this,” he said quietly.

  Sen’s breath caught.

  Rydan gave a faint, crooked smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Do you remember how she used to talk about the sea? Said it didn’t belong to anyone, no matter how many ships crossed it.” He shook his head. “Said people weren’t meant to be owned either.”

  “I remember,” Sen whispered. Too clearly. His own mother’s voice echoed alongside the memory, soft, firm, unwavering. Hands gentle where the world was not. Love given freely in a place that rationed it.

  “They’d both hate this,” Rydan went on. “Hate that we’re even standing here talking about auctions like they’re weather.” His jaw tightened. “Sometimes I think that’s the cruelest part. That they’re gone, and this is what’s left.”

  Sen looked down, blinking hard.

  “We won’t leave until most of the harvest is in,” Rydan said after a moment, steadier now. “Father insists. The grain, the root crops, once those are stored, the boys can manage the rest. Tris too, on his good days.” He exhaled slowly. “I won’t make it harder than it already is.”

  Sen nodded, though the knowledge didn’t soothe much. Easier didn’t mean easy. And it didn’t mean safe.

  Rydan hesitated, then said, “There’s something else.”

  That alone set Sen’s nerves on edge. “What?”

  “I want you to take Grady while I’m gone.”

  Sen’s head snapped up. “What? No Rydan, I can’t. He’s yours, and you’re his. Always.”

  “And it still shall be,” Rydan replied. “It’s only until I get back.”

  Sen shook his head immediately. “Your father barely tolerates me as it is. If I take Grady too-”

  “He barely tolerates anyone,” Rydan interrupted, more sharply than before. Then he softened. “Father was never fond of him. You know that. Hated him since birth, the weak runt. Useless he called him. But I always saw more. I saw the intelligence in his eyes even as a pup. He’s grown to be nearly the largest now and father still complains. Says he eats too much, sheds too much, thinks too much.” A brief pause. “And two of the other hounds are coming north with us. For the road, to protect us and our load from wolves and thieves alike.”

  Sen frowned. “What about the rest?”

  “They’ll stay,” Rydan said. “But Grady won’t travel well with the others. They’ve never quite accepted him as part of the pack and we’re taking Morve. He regards Grady as a threat to his Alpha position and the growling and bickering would never end. I won’t be there to keep the peace if he stays home with the rest, they’ll already be out of sorts with Morve gone, small struggles for power without the Alpha. Utter chaos. The boys will have their hands full. He’d end up in trouble. Or starting it.”

  Sen opened his mouth to argue again, then closed it. He knew that much was true.

  “And,” Rydan added, quieter, “he likes you better anyway.”

  “That’s not-”

  “It is,” Rydan said simply. “He listens to you. Follows you like you’re the sun. I think it’s plain to everyone. You’ve always had a way with animals that goes beyond my understanding.”

  Sen looked away, jaw tight. Grady’s steady presence, warm, watchful, wordless, had been a comfort more times than he could count. Especially on nights when the world felt too sharp and he’d sought Rydan’s quiet company. They were their own pack, the three of them.

  Rydan took a breath, then said softly, “Senna.”

  The sound of it hit like a blow.

  No one had said that name in years. Not aloud. Not even in jest. It belonged to a time before fear had taught them silence, before survival had demanded disguise. A name spoken once by a mother’s voice, warm and absolute, as if the world might still be kind enough to accept it.

  Sen froze.

  Rydan didn’t look at him, at her, when he said it, gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the trees. “I know you’ll try to say you don’t need him,” he continued, as though he hadn’t just split something open inside her. “That you’ll manage. That you always do.”

  Sen’s throat burned. “Rydan. Please don’t.”

  “But I won’t be here,” he said. “And I won’t sleep easy knowing you’re alone with all of this.” His voice dropped. “Let me do this much.”

  Sen swallowed hard, every instinct screaming to refuse, to keep herself small and unnoticed. To not take up space. To not be given anything that could draw attention.

  But beneath all of that was the truth she couldn’t deny. This wasn’t about Grady being inconvenient. It was about Rydan worrying. About love expressed sideways, the only way men seemed to ever pronounce it. She could almost hear the twinkle of her mother’s voice intermingled with that thought as she watched her cousin. Her best friend.

  Slowly, reluctantly, Sen nodded.

  Rydan let out a breath he’d clearly been holding.

  “Good,” he said, voice rough. “Mother would’ve liked that too. Always said no one should face the dark alone.”

  The forest shifted softly around them, leaves whispering like old voices remembering.

  The wind blew through the trees and wrapped around Sen, tousling her hair and she swore it whispered Senna once more as the leaves rustled in its presence. The cadence was softer, higher than Rydan’s voice speaking it. Her mother. The hair on the back of her neck rose and she whipped around, eyes tearing across the dark shadows in every corner of the clearing but seeing nothing.

  “Sen?” Rydan asked, voice tense as he stepped up behind her. “What is it? Did you see something?”

  Sen was quiet a moment as she continued searching the forest, unsettled once more, heart thundering behind her ribs. She breathed in deeply and it was shaky as she turned back toward Rydan. Grady whined deep in his throat again and she looked at him. The hound shifted uneasily, still facing the path back. Sen’s own discontent mirrored in him.

  “No,” she finally responded. “But we should go anyway. Something completely unnatural happened here. Something terrible. I think we’re testing fate by sticking around.”

  “Agreed,” Rydan said and they both struck out for the path Grady marked. Upon seeing them move, Grady started trotting at a quick pace, back the way they’d come, eager to be away.

  They didn’t speak much on the way back but Sen noticed the tension from earlier had left Rydan’s shoulders. This impending conversation had been weighing on him heavily, Sen noted and felt bad for reacting just as he must have expected her to. But this was not something she had expected at all, as much as his strange posture had warned her.

  She tried and failed to find something to say as they hurried along. Rydan stayed silent as well. So much hung between them but at the same time, they chose the comfort of the silence and each other’s presence over conversation. Enough was said for now. More than enough to be contemplated.

  Though Sen noticed the silence was still strange and unnatural, the sounds of the forest creatures never returned as they made their way back out. A bad omen, for sure. That alone would have had her avoiding the deep forest any other day. She picked up her pace a little, the feeling of something watching never quite leaving until they slipped out of the tree line at last. She felt like a weight of worry was immediately lifted, allowing her to finally breathe easier every step they took away from the trees. Even if the rain now pelted them in earnest once more.

  The relief was short-lived.

  Ahead on the path, shrouded in mist and rain, stood the tall, unmistakable form of her brother Geo, holding a flickering lantern out in front of him. The light cast his features into strange shadows beneath the hood of his cloak as his gaze pierced straight through her. He was less than pleased.

  “Father sent me to find you,” Geo said. “It’s getting late.”

  He cast a sharp glare at Rydan, rainwater streaming from the edge of his hood, then turned without waiting for a response and stomped off up the path, boots sinking into the mud. He was obviously frustrated with being made to find her in the middle of a storm.

  Rydan let out a quiet sigh and rested a hand on Sen’s shoulder. “We were gone longer than I planned,” he said. “Sorry if it causes you trouble. I’ll come by again as soon as the work allows.”

  Sen nodded and started after Geo, but she had barely taken a few steps when Rydan called out again.

  “Sen, wait. One more thing.”

  She stopped and turned back.

  Rydan had already dropped to one knee in front of Grady, both hands buried in the hound’s thick fur. He murmured to him softly, words lost beneath the steady drumming of rain. Grady’s tail thumped eagerly against the ground. A moment later, Rydan rose, brushing mud from his trousers.

  At once, Grady bounded toward Sen, tail wagging furiously, no longer the watchful predator from the forest, but the same goofy, affectionate mutt she knew.

  “Get some practice watching him,” Rydan called over the rain. “I told him to stay with you for now. I’ll come back in a day or two to take him hunting. Let him out when he asks. He’ll feed himself and take care of the rest. He always comes back.”

  Sen blinked at him.

  “And if you need me,” Rydan added, more quietly, “just say the word. He’ll find me.”

  Sen looked from Rydan down to Grady, who sat at her side, rain-darkened fur plastered to his broad frame, eyes bright and expectant. She hesitated only a moment before nodding.

  Rydan lifted a hand in farewell, then turned and headed back toward his home, quickly disappearing into the mist and rain.

  Sen lingered a heartbeat longer, fingers brushing Grady’s head, before turning to follow the path Geo had taken.

  “Come on, Grady,” she muttered. “Let’s get out of this rain.”

  The hound trotted beside her at once, content and close, as they disappeared up the muddy track together.

  –????????–