Dawn came gray and unforgiving.
Cold light spilled through the cracked windows of Aldebaran's mansion and made every flaw clearer. Torn curtains. Dust on the floorboards. Empty walls. The ruined crest on the corridor wall. A house that had survived long enough to be humiliated properly.
Vincent stood in the front hall with a travel bundle at his feet.
One bag.
Julia had packed it before sunrise.
Bandages. Oil. Flint. The diary. A few changes of clothing. The last bread. Needles. Cloth. Two knives. Nothing that looked like inheritance.
Nothing that looked like a great house.
The gauntlet sat dark on Vincent's left hand, hidden now beneath a glove cut open badly enough to fit over the scales. It did not truly conceal the shape.
It only made the lie less loud.
Julia finished tying the final wrap around the bundle and stepped back.
"That is everything," she said.
Vincent looked around the hall.
No.
Not everything.
But everything that could be carried without dying for it.
He let the silence sit for one breath longer than necessary.
This house had given him a ruined name, a servant who stayed, a dungeon below its corpse, and a weapon that fed on taint.
That was enough to matter.
Not enough to save the walls.
Outside, wheels creaked over wet ground.
The carriage.
Julia's shoulders tightened.
Vincent did not move at once.
He lifted his gaze to the broken staircase, the stripped gallery beyond it, the pale rectangles on the walls where portraits had once hung. For a brief moment, the house looked like it was waiting for him to say something.
A farewell.
A promise.
A noble line fit for memory.
He gave it none.
Instead he turned to Julia and said, "Take the bundle."
She nodded once.
No tears.
Good.
Tears were for houses that had died cleanly.
They opened the front door themselves.
Mist clung low over the grounds. The freight carriage waited just beyond the broken front steps, dull wood and rough iron darkened by morning damp. One wheel still leaned slightly wrong. A driver sat at the front with all the emotional investment of a man delivering spoiled produce.
Several sacks had been dropped near the steps.
Provisions.
Or what passed for them.
Two Merchant Association workers stood beside the cart, already looking bored with the scene. Neither met Vincent's eyes for long.
One of them said, "Received in accordance with transfer courtesy."
The other shoved a folded paper at Julia. "Acknowledgment."
Julia didn't take it.
Vincent did.
He skimmed.
Travel allowance. Voluntary departure notation. Property pending final claim. One servant permitted. Personal effects only.
Voluntary, he thought. Of course.
He folded the paper once and tucked it into his coat.
The worker frowned slightly. "No signature?"
Vincent looked at him.
"No."
The man hesitated, glanced at the other worker, then decided his wages did not cover arguing with displaced nobility in the cold.
"Fine," he muttered.
Julia had already moved to the sacks.
The smell hit first.
Rot.
She recoiled half a step before catching herself.
Vincent crouched and untied the nearest one.
Meat.
Or something that had once qualified.
Blackened patches. Greasy strings. Dark wetness seeped through the cloth. Bones mixed in carelessly, some too small, some too thin, and some definitely not from livestock worth trusting.
This was not negligence.
It was message.
Julia's face hardened instantly. "They sent us refuse."
"Yes."
The worker shrugged. "Provisions."
Julia looked like she wanted to bury a knife in the word.
Vincent retied the sack and stood.
"Load it."
Julia stared at him. "My Lord—"
"Load it."
The workers exchanged a glance, amused now.
One of them said, "You really intend to take it?"
Vincent met his eyes.
"Yes."
The man smirked. "Suit yourself."
He did not understand.
Good.
The sacks were dragged onto the cart. Julia loaded the bag after them. Vincent climbed up more slowly, refusing Julia's hand until the last step and then hating that he needed it anyway.
The driver snapped the reins.
The cart rolled forward.
The mansion receded behind them.
Vincent looked back once.
Only once.
Gray light over ruined stone.
The roofline broken in two places.
The side wing sagging slightly where damp had eaten the beams.
The crest no longer visible from here.
A dead house, outwardly.
A feeding ground underneath.
One month, Dolbi had said.
It would not last that long in the shape it stood now. Men like Dolbi never meant to wait if collapse volunteered itself earlier.
Good.
Let the walls fall after he had taken their last teeth.
The path away from Aldebaran was narrow and half-swallowed by weeds. The estate lands beyond had once been managed. Now the road broke under roots and rainwater, and the forest pressed close from both sides as if ready to take the property back now that paperwork had done its work.
Julia sat beside the bundle, axe laid across her knees beneath a cloth. Vincent sat at the front, one hand braced on the cart, watching the tree line.
He could still feel the gauntlet beneath the cut glove.
Quiet now.
Julia looked at the sacks once, then at him.
"You knew."
"Yes."
"That they'd send us rot."
"Yes."
Her eyes narrowed. "And you still took it."
Vincent looked ahead. "Rot attracts hungry things."
Understanding arrived quickly. Displeasure arrived faster.
"You want bait."
"Yes."
Julia stared.
The cart creaked through a patch of mud. Branches scraped its sides.
"You truly looked at spoiled meat and thought: useful."
"Yes."
She leaned back slowly, as if trying to accept that this was now her life.
"That is a terrible sentence."
"It's an efficient one."
Julia rubbed the bridge of her nose. "We left a haunted mansion and somehow became less normal."
Vincent said nothing.
She was correct, which made answering unnecessary.
The road worsened.
By the time the cart left the last visible boundary stones of the Aldebaran estate, the forest had thickened enough that the morning light only fell in broken strips through the canopy. Damp earth replaced road. Wet leaves replaced gravel. The cart wheels began catching in roots and ruts.
The driver swore under his breath.
Then the cart stopped.
He clicked his tongue, annoyed, and looked back over one shoulder.
"This is as far as it goes."
Julia frowned. "This wasn't the agreed route."
The driver shrugged. "Road's bad."
Vincent looked ahead.
There was still enough passage for a smaller cart with a more motivated driver.
This was not about the road.
This was about where the Merchant Association had chosen to stop being useful.
The driver climbed down, tugged the horse loose, and made no move to help unload.
"You'll need to walk from here."
Julia's hand settled on the covered axe.
Vincent lifted one finger slightly.
Not yet.
The driver noticed the motion and smirked, mistaking restraint for helplessness.
"Take your things," he said. "Or leave them. Doesn't matter."
Then he mounted the horse and rode off with the harness, leaving the freight cart where it stood like a stripped carcass.
Silence settled behind him.
Forest silence.
The wrong kind.
Julia waited until the hoofbeats faded.
Then she said, very calmly, "I dislike him."
"Yes."
She uncovered the axe.
Vincent climbed down from the cart more carefully than he wanted, then looked around.
Dense trees.
Low brush.
Wet ground.
No road worth trusting.
No witness worth calling.
The sacks sat in the cart like an insult that had finally become a decision.
Julia watched him with immediate suspicion now.
"No," she said.
Vincent looked at her. "No what?"
"No, we are not carrying rotten bait through the forest."
"We're not."
Her shoulders loosened.
Then he added, "We're placing it."
They tightened again.
Vincent approached the cart and lifted one sack.
The smell worsened in his hands.
Good.
He walked twenty paces off the broken track and dumped half its contents near a patch of exposed roots beneath two close trees. Flies rose immediately, thick and ecstatic.
Julia followed with the lamp oil and one remaining strip of clean cloth.
"You planned this before we left."
"Yes."
She looked at the bait, then at the forest, then back to him.
"You are trying to draw something out."
"Yes."
"That means there is already something here."
"There usually is."
She closed her eyes for one brief second.
When she opened them, she was in work mode again.
Good.
That was where she was strongest.
"Fine," she said. "Then tell me the part where we do not die."
Vincent nodded once toward the narrow break between trees ahead.
"We choose terrain first."
That made her breathe easier, if only slightly.
They moved fast.
Vincent selected three points along the brush line and had Julia help place the rotten meat in staggered positions—one shallow bait point, one off to the side near denser undergrowth, and one deeper between a pair of thick trunks where the ground narrowed naturally into a funnel.
Controlled kill space.
Or as close as two half-armed exiles could make one.
The sacks were emptied in portions. The bones were spread where scent would carry. The greasiest chunks were placed furthest in.
Julia wiped her hands on dead leaves and looked around uneasily.
The forest had changed.
No bird calls.
No insect hum.
Only damp air and waiting.
Vincent noticed the same thing.
He looked down at the ground near the deepest bait point.
Tracks.
Fresh.
Several smaller claw marks.
And over them, pressed deeper into the mud—
one long, narrow print with too much weight behind it.
Julia saw his gaze and crouched beside him.
Her voice dropped. "That wasn't here before."
"No."
The gauntlet pulsed.
Once.
Cold.
Vincent straightened.
"Good."
Julia stood too and gave him a deeply offended look.
"You have said that several times now, and every time it gets worse."
"Yes."
A rustle came from the left brush.
Then another from the right.
Light, quick, testing.
The smaller things had arrived first.
Carrion drawn by carrion.
Vincent stepped into the funnel between the two trees, right hand closing around one kitchen knife while the gauntlet rose on instinct. Julia moved to his flank with the axe, lamp set low behind them to keep shadow movement visible.
Two pairs of yellow eyes appeared.
Then a third.
Lean bodies slipped through brush. Not the blackened tunnel things from below the mansion. These were forest scavengers twisted by the same broad family of corruption—mangy, long-jawed, drool black enough to curl the grass where it fell.
Carrion Gnawers.
One edged left toward the side bait.
Another lowered itself and crept toward the narrow funnel.
Vincent's eyes narrowed.
This he understood.
Bait.
Angle.
Kill.
The first Gnawer lunged.
He met it with the gauntlet. Teeth shrieked across scaled metal. The second tried to slip past his right leg. Julia buried the axe into its shoulder and dragged it down before it reached him.
The first snapped again.
Vincent drove the knife up beneath its jaw.
Blood and black spit spilled hot across his hand.
The beast dropped.
Mist did not rise.
The third backed away from the sudden violence and circled toward the side bait.
Smart enough to wait.
Not smart enough to leave.
Julia finished the wounded second with a brutal short chop.
Then the first corpse finally gave up a thin black exhale.
The gauntlet drank it.
Pulse.
Cold.
Less than the dungeon things.
Still something.
Vincent felt the difference at once.
This was tainted essence, yes—but thinner. Dirtier. Weaker.
The forest produced food.
The dungeon produced fuel.
Important distinction.
The third Gnawer growled and stepped over the side bait—
then went rigid.
Both Vincent and Julia heard it a heartbeat later.
Heavy enough to press silence outward.
The smaller scavenger bolted.
Gone in an instant.
That told Vincent enough.
Prey did not flee from prey.
The brush beyond the deepest bait point parted.
Something red moved behind the trees.
Low.
Long.
Then it stepped into view.
The body was built like a hunting cat dragged through a nightmare and sharpened afterward. Dark red hide stretched over coiled muscle. Its front claws curved too long. Its mouth opened just enough to show black-stained fangs built not for tearing meat, but for opening it cleanly.
Its eyes were the problem.
Focused.
Measured.
Nothing mindless in them.
It had let the smaller scavengers test the bait first.
It had watched.
Now it had come for the winner.
Julia's voice went thin. "That is not a Gnawer."
"No."
The creature's front paw touched the ground.
The mud dented deeply.
Vincent's grip tightened.
The gauntlet pulsed harder now.
As if warning and appetite had become difficult to separate.
The red creature lowered its head and inhaled once through its teeth.
Then those eyes fixed on Vincent's left hand.
It had smelled the dungeon on him.
A slow click came from its jaws.
Julia shifted her feet.
Vincent said quietly, "Don't move first."
She did not argue.
The forest held its breath.
The red predator took one silent step forward.
Then another.
And Vincent understood with clean, immediate certainty that they had just been pushed out of the mansion, out of the controlled grind below it, and straight into a much harsher lesson.
The dungeon had monsters.
The forest had hunters.
And this one had already decided they were worth chasing.
The beast's shoulders dropped.
Coiled.
Ready.
Julia whispered, "My Lord…"
Vincent did not look away from it.
"Run on my mark."
The red creature lunged.