CHAPTER ONE
THIRTEEN NIGHTS UNTIL THE SCAVENGE MOON
When the deer lifts her head, one large brown eye lands squarely in my rifle’s sight.
I settle my elbows deeper into the damp moss cloaking the fallen tree. A gnarled root digs into my stomach, a stone into my thigh as my knee shifts. My gloves, folded inside my coat pocket, barely cushion my hip bone. Slow and careful, I unlock the gun’s bolt and trigger, a shell ready in the chamber. The dull scrape and click is a shout in the thick quiet of Wielinde Forest.
The doe stiffens. Her ears twitch in every direction as her wide gaze flickers. Thirty paces separate us. Thirty paces between her, alone in the middle of the grassy clearing, and me, hidden in the sagging shadows of a fir—and I’m aware of every inch in my evenly beating heart.
Dried needles crunch to my left. A soft huff spills into the silence.
“Rudi, stay,” I murmur. The alpine pointer lying by my side lowers her head. She may appear unassuming, but pressed against me, the dog’s body is a taut string, her tension coiling within. Beneath that dark-brown-and-white-speckled coat, a vital need to run, to hunt, is ready to snap.
My bare hand slides over chilled metal. I breathe in through my nose and let it out gently from my mouth. A haze partially obscures my sight in the early morning, but I trust my aim. My finger wraps around the trigger.
Crack.
Golden leaves spray as the doe darts into the trees, unharmed and leaving behind only a frantic path in the underbrush.
“Stefan,” I groan. The rifle lowers in my now-limp hands, my forehead falling to my outstretched arm. I glance over my shoulder with a pout.
My uncle merely drops the halves of the stick he broke with a teasing smile. The foxhounds at his feet, Petra and Milo, snatch one together and race into the clearing. “Katrin, you know I didn’t bring the cart today. How exactly were you planning on getting that home?”
“By yelling for you to help me,” I grumble. I adjust to sit atop the log, rifle cradled in the crook of my arm. My knees and elbows are wet from the moss, and I quickly brush needles from my trousers. One click of my tongue sets Rudi loose. With a delighted bark, she bounds after the foxhounds, tail wagging. “Obviously.”
Stefan steps near and cleans more needles off my heavy tweed coat. Reluctantly, I tip my head back to meet his warm brown and too-tired eyes. He left Prauen Castle before I did, and his nose and cheeks are ruddy with the dawn’s bite.
“We take only what we need from this Forest, and there was no reason to take her life.”
“I’m sorry,” I say in a tone that shows just how unapologetic I am; the sting of losing a perfect shot still burns in my throat. “Were we not out here for the last three days hunting deer? Because we need to feed all those snobs arriving?”
Descending upon Prauen Castle, more like. Vultures, the lot of them, draped in slippery silks and fine lace. All week long, the pair of carriages bearing the Wagner family crest have navigated the treacherous mountain pass to the nearest train station four hours away, only to return full of the baron’s loathsome friends—soon to be a dozen in all. A duchess, counts, the reigning royals of textiles and shipbuilding and lumber, even a prince. Each left the comforts of the crowded cities and country estates they call home to pile into Prauen’s courtyard and whine about the unforgiving autumn temperatures.
Of course, not even a blizzard would keep them away. Not when they received a highly coveted invitation to the Breimar Hunt. Doesn’t matter that they scoff at the ancient lore behind it and the Forest. None of them will pass up the opportunity to boast about experiencing the event firsthand.
“Someone is in a mood today,” Stefan remarks, correctly reading my dark glare.
I respond by throwing a pine cone at him.
He laughs gruffly. “Yes, you’re right. We were indeed hunting deer just yesterday. However, your aunt has kindly informed me that she’s up to her ears in venison, and I will be sleeping outside with the shadow gaunts if I bring so much as one more hoof back.”
I snort. Maybe I should have taken a shot at that doe.
Instead, a deft flick of my finger locks my rifle anew, preventing it from firing by mistake—a precautionary measure never forgotten after I almost lost a toe at age twelve. I shoulder the weapon’s comforting weight and lean to the side to better adjust its position, propping myself up with a hand.
“Come on,” Stefan says, hefting his own rifle and turning to head north. He whistles for Petra and Milo. “Lots of ground to cover today. I want to check the traps out by the lake.”
“Carolina won’t let you bring home a hoof, but a rabbit is fine?”
“I learned long ago not to argue with your aunt,” he calls back.
Eyes rolling, I move to follow … and freeze. A sudden prickling sensation overwhelms my hand on the log—something is touching me, crawling on me. Warily, I glance down, hardly moving my head.
A swath of wiry moss, densely curled and as vivid green as fresh clovers, trails over the nail of my smallest finger. Tendrils resembling the legs of a spider wave about before pulling its bulk forward. As I watch, it engulfs my entire pinkie, pinning it in place on the bark with deceptive strength and surprising speed.
The tightness flees my body on an exhale. “Easy there, little monster,” I say, fondness softening my voice. My free hand slips into my pocket and pulls out a tooth. A pointed incisor, likely from a fox and yellowed with age. Balanced between two fingertips, I offer it to the moss mite.
It falters in its effort to drink my skin dry, now clinging to three of my fingers. Those tentative green tendrils reach out. They seem to taste the tooth before relinquishing me, snatching the gift within itself like a spoiled child takes a sweet. I shake out my hand as the moss mite skitters beneath the log, quicker than I’ve ever seen one move.
Moss mites are stalwart creatures. If I had peeled it off, it would have tailed me for hours for another chance to wither my fingers. Instead, that tooth will sate the mite for a few days before it seeks to reclaim what we removed from the Forest again. I always carry a pouch of teeth for such incidents, but those offerings work best on the smaller Forest Folk. When faced with a larger being like a stream barrow, a molar is no better than a crumb. Only bones will do.
A sharp whistle brings Rudi to my side. I give her a quick scratch behind her silky ears and set off after my uncle, stuffing my hands in my pockets.
It was still fully dark when I left the room I share with my cousin Alma, but sunrise is fast approaching. After living in these mountains for seventeen years, I know them well enough to declare this my favorite time to roam Wielinde Forest. A moment teetering on that thin edge before the sun clambers over the peaks and pierces the deep valley woods, where my uncle and I serve as gamekeepers.
Although Stefan and I trudge through fallen leaves stained crimson, gold, and umber, snapping beneath our feet as finches sing in the trees, there’s an unsettling quiet that hangs overhead. It smothers everything to the point of suffocation. A cold, damp mist haunts the air, drenching the moss-and-lichen-dressed trunks, the ferns and shrubs, with a permanent slickness. And in every direction the trees tower like dark sentinels, scratching at one another in their closeness. So close, it’s easy for your gaze to slip past a bough spirit as she stands there watching you.
It’s a wild and fickle place that will swallow you whole without a second thought, and I love it without remorse.
Stefan stops to check the first snare we encounter along the trapline and gestures for me to continue on. I nod, sending Rudi ahead. Soon, the sounds of Stefan shifting the brush are devoured by distance, and the world shrinks to nothing but me, my dog, and my steady breathing.
The next stretch of the well-trod game trail is undisturbed except for the sudden eruption of several grouse near a stream. I still, spotting fresh tracks in the soft mud of the bank. I hurry forward. My heart falls, though, before I even crouch to examine them. They’re deer tracks, but far too small and nothing extraordinary.
They don’t belong to the Breimar Stag.
Every few years, in the weeks before the full moon that falls on the last days of the tenth month—the Scavenge Moon—an uncanny magic awakens across Wielinde Forest. A thinning in the veil that separates this realm from another entirely unknown, allowing a beast called the Breimar Stag to step through the trees. I’ve seen only glimpses of him, passing through the wood or spotted on the far side of the lake. A massive creature, with antlers larger than the width of my arm span, legs as tall as my shoulder, his coat a restless snow white. And eyes glowing the burnt ochre of a dying coal.
So he appeared three years ago, and four before that—and every few since for the last four hundred years. It is a Prauen Castle tradition, this Hunt for the mythical Stag. The beast continues to live despite the few lucky bullets and crossbow bolts that have found their targets—but nothing can stop him returning to offer his prize.
A single wish, granted to the person who slays him. To kill the Breimar Stag is to earn the death of another person of their choosing. And if they do not catch him, the Stag will take one of the hunters back through the veil instead.
No matter what, the Hunt always ends with a life snuffed out.
As gamekeepers, it’s my and Stefan’s job to discover the first traces of his return. Even though the Breimar Stag arrived in Wielinde with the setting of the last full moon, and the invitations were sent to guests months prior, the Hunt cannot begin until the Stag is seen. Only then does he release the magic the hunters will bind themselves to. Like a candle waiting in the dark to be lit. Less than two weeks remain until the Scavenge Moon rises, but the Stag always reveals himself before then. There’s still time.
Copyright © 2026 by Elle Tesch
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