The hunter cocked their head. “No one in the Order is called that,” they said. “Our call names are mostly animals.” Their skin was pale, Europan ancestry or perhaps East Asian. Not younger than twenty, but not above thirty-five either. They couldn’t be the Wolf, most feared and fearsome hunter of the Wild for hundreds of years, but perhaps the title was passed down through generations of hunters.

Perhaps they were new to the title. Perhaps Orfeus would survive this easily and go back inside, and Primrose would divorce Bellan and come travel on the road with her, and fame would come all at once and not in slow, painful inches by the skin of her teeth.

“It was a joke,” said Orfeus, “much as you are.”

They snarled. Actually snarled. She recognised the animal on their mask now, pricked ears and snout crinkled up from bared teeth.

“Your real name?” Orfeus said. She was pushing her luck. She always would.

Silence a moment. Then, “Faol.”

Orfeus grinned in disbelief, lips pulled back from her teeth. She knew at least a little old Éirish Gaelic. “That’s just wolf again—”

But the time for talking had run out. The hunter drew a tasegun from their hip and fired it in the same motion, far too fast for Orfeus to dodge it even if she’d been keeping up her sparring practice. The stunning beam fizzed over her body and she fell lumpen to the ground.

She lay still, eyes only able to look up at the deep blue evening sky. Faol strode into her line of vision.

Orfeus twitched her fingers, then her toes, movement only slowly returning. It felt as if she’d been inexpertly carved from wood. She tried to move her hands but they only jerked in random twitches, no proper command gestures.

The Wolf stopped over her and drew a knife that was a gleaming length of light. Orfeus croaked out a nothing-word, and then her words came back, her breath and her blessed words, and she said, clearly, “Energy.”

Her Blood activated, and at the command word adrenaline flooded through her, kickstarting her body. She lurched up.

Faol stopped and stared. “So you are Blooded.”

Orfeus grinned and slipped into something like a kickboxing stance. “Only if you play your cards right, Wolfy—”

Faol punched her hard in the throat and Orfeus staggered back, choking on nothing. At least that hadn’t been the clawed hand, but there was still a gauntlet.

The Wolf’s stance shifted slightly, like they would throw another punch. Maybe another haymaker, which was an odd fighting choice for someone shorter than Orfeus, but – her throat ached – undeniably effective. Rising Tide, they were muscle and nothing else.

Orfeus couldn’t take another hit like that. She flared out her hands in quick and complex gestures.