34. Sorin: The Hunt

Sorin rides with Arcady, Willem, and Edin on a hunt after Hayden’s harsh but effective tonic clears their heads. Under a quiet, wintry canopy near the Red River, game is scarce and the forest’s silence unsettles Sorin. Snow begins to fall as they find a birch marked by a star-shaped black handprint and human boot tracks.

They discover a mutilated Eye from Nalore Monastery, eviscerated yet still breathing. The Eye rasps that the wraith is “still here” and has “jumped.” Sorin masks the Eye’s lingering life from the others, offers a whispered promise to find the monster, and delivers a swift, hidden mercy-killing by twisting her healing magic—both to end suffering and protect the party.

Debating risks, Sorin urges a pyre before any taint spreads; Edin quickly agrees, while Willem wavers. Edin dries the sodden wood with water-magic, and Arcady summons fierce flame to light the pyre, revealing a distinctive, unsettling power that Sorin quietly notes. As the storm worsens, Sorin salts blighted traces and spots black hoofprints, vowing to return and track the wraith.

The party reaches a stocked but unwarded shelter and tends the horses amid the gale. Over meager rations, Sorin slips a mild sleeping draft into their drinks to keep them from following when she hunts. The conversation turns to death and luck: Willem recalls near-death in Trial Two; Arcady and Edin name losses from the Strikes.

On the Night of Locked Tombs, they perform a simple remembrance rite, each dedicating a flame to the dead. Sorin silently tallies seven past kills and the Eye they burned, promising remembrance. After the others sleep, Sorin contemplates killing Arcady with the recovered dragonbone blade but stays her hand, needing Arcady to uncover what binds Sorin’s mind. She sheathes the knife, wakes Jaculus, and slips into the storm to hunt the wraith alone.