Chapter 18: Instinct of the Rabbit
**Mirae's POV**
The maze was quieter than it should have been.
No Echo whispers curled through the stone. No purple smoke drifted from the cracks. Only the steady green glow of dwarven runes and the soft scrape of boots. Mirae walked at the rear, satchel heavy against her hip, eyes on Saferu's back.
Something was wrong.
She had noticed it first—days ago, when they reunited after the breach. His smile had been too tight, too slow to reach his eyes. His scent had changed—still the same mix of sweat, regret, and faint mana, but layered with something darker. Not fear. Not exhaustion. Something colder, sharper, like metal left too long in the dark.
Mirae was a healer. She had spent her life reading bodies: the quickening pulse of pain, the shallow breath of grief, the fevered heat of infection. But this was different. Saferu's aura felt… split. As though part of him was still walking beside them while another part lingered somewhere else—somewhere cold and whispering.
She glanced at Kaelin, who walked beside Saferu. The scarred scout's ears were alert, posture coiled, but she hadn't said anything. Not yet.
Mirae quickened her step, drawing level with Kaelin. She kept her voice low, barely above the echo of their footsteps.
"Kaelin."
The older rabbit-kin didn't turn, but her ear flicked toward Mirae.
"You feel it too, don't you?" Mirae asked.
Kaelin's jaw tightened. "His shadow."
Mirae blinked. "You saw it?"
"Not clearly. But when the runes dimmed last night… it moved wrong. Too long. Too deliberate."
Mirae exhaled slowly. "His scent is wrong too. It's him—but it's not. Like something else is wearing his skin. Not possession. Not yet. But… close."
Kaelin's hand drifted to her dagger hilt. "We're rabbit-kin. We're born warriors."
Mirae nodded. It was an old truth, one every kit learned before they could walk.
Their tribe had been the weakest once. The most peaceful. They couldn't even hunt an ant—too gentle, too kind, too afraid of blood. In their original world, they had been prey, not predators. Until the otherworldly being came.
He had found them broken and scattered. He had forced them to change.
He taught them the ancestral creed: *What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.*
He spoke it in the voice of their gods—harsh, unyielding, but true.
And they had changed.
From the weakest beast race, they became one of the strongest. Fearless. Unflinching. The Echoes' natural enemies—because Echoes fed on fear, and the rabbit-kin had burned fear from their souls. They guarded the outer borders not because they were mighty, but because they were unbreakable. While humans built towering iron walls to keep the Veilshadow Woods at bay, the beast tribes trusted the bunny warriors. Even the Lion King—ruler of the beastmen, crowned in gold and roar—would never challenge a rabbit in earnest.
Because the rabbits had a second form.
Saferu had never seen it. No one outside the tribe ever did—unless they were about to die.
Berserk mode.
When the red haze fell, their fur turned crimson, strength doubled, senses sharpened to razors. But the price was high: bloodlust rose, reason thinned, and they became something else—gang-like, yakuza-cold, merciless. A storm of red fury that left nothing standing.
Durin had not been joking when he said never anger a bunny. He knew. All dwarves knew. Even lions knew.
Mirae looked at Saferu again. He walked ahead, shoulders slightly hunched, hand clenched around the cyan shard. His shadow stretched behind him—too long, too dark, curling at the edges like smoke.
Her instincts screamed.
Dangerous.
Wrong.
But he was the weakest in their group—physically, emotionally. How could he be a threat? Yet the feeling persisted—rabbit instinct, older than words, older than their change. Something inside him was waking up. Something that smelled like the Queen.
Kaelin's voice was barely a breath. "We can't tell him. Not yet."
Mirae nodded. "He's already carrying too much. If we're wrong… we break him more."
"If we're right," Kaelin murmured, "we may have to kill him."
The words hung between them, heavy as stone.
Mirae's hand tightened on her satchel. "We watch. We wait. Until we reach the dwarven stronghold. There… we decide."
Kaelin gave a single, sharp nod.
They walked on.
Saferu did not turn. He did not hear.
But his shadow did.
It twisted once—slow, amused—and laughed without sound.