Page 67 of Untethering Dark

With time, the village grew and prospered, and its people forged themselves into a force to be reckoned with, apart from their antlered protector. But oral tradition was strong, so they never forgot their humble beginnings, or what it felt like to be at the mercy of others.

The raided became the raiders, bringing their enemies to heel. An ebb and flow of power that seemed to be the way of their species. The weak became the strong. And vice versa.

“Around that time, I began noticing that their offerings were fewer and far between. They no longer needed me, so I distanced myself. I don’t recall being bitter about it, but no doubt it stung after the centuries I’d spent watching over them. You’d think I’d remember that better, but time dulls memories and old hurts.”

Astrid crossed her arms over her propped knees, brow furrowed. “But you saved them, protected generations of their families. Without you, they would’ve been wiped out. How could they so easily forget that?”

“I wanted to give them a fighting chance, nothing more. They wrought their strength and prosperity with their own hands.”

It wasn’t a cold break. He worried and paced about the forest like an anxious mother hen, trying to give them space. Yet every few weeks, he’d return to observe them from the shadows of the night, just to make sure they were okay. Even thoughthe humans had grown to become plenty capable, it eased his conscience.

The more he stayed away, the less they spoke of him, the less they wondered where he had gone. He visited less and less. It could be months before he crossed their paths again.

“But one night I heard screaming. It was such a horrendous, agonized sound my blood iced over. I ran to the village, certain it was under attack, tearing myself apart for being absent when my people needed me...” He fell silent. He’d put so much effort into forgetting all this for his sanity’s sake.

“They weren’t the victims, were they?”

He shook his head.

“What was done to the wolves, that is what they did to the families of their enemies. Young, old, and everything in between. No one was spared. People I knew—people I loved since they were children, had held as babies, whispered blessings of good health to—danced to screams, showered themselves in blood, and howled into the night sky. Extolling their dominance, their conquest, invokingmyname as if I’d ever condone such cruelty. That was the first time I’d ever seen such unfettered evil, and I wish I could say it had been the last.My peoplehad not only done that, they also celebrated the butchery.”

Living sacrifices. Torture. The fortunate died quickly from shock and rapid blood loss, but those with stronger constitutions suffered unspeakably.

“I should’ve put an end to it at that very moment. But I froze, unable to believe what I saw.” He never made that mistake again, the lesson learned in the hardest way possible. Evil needed to be snuffed out swiftly and without mercy. “If I hadn’t guarded these people for centuries—hadn’t known their foreparents, hadn’t watched them grow up, fall in love, start families of their own, and fight for survival—I don’t think Iwould’ve struggled. But since I loved them, I waited until the next morning to see if they’d sober, realize what they’d done, and attempt atonement. I hoped they’d been put under some sort of spell, a temporary madness, but they laughed and joked and reminisced as if it had been the greatest revelry of their lives and not an unspeakable, unforgivable evil.”

He knew then there was no saving them, that no amount of love would allow him to ignore what happened. What would continue to happen. Rabid creatures, no matter how beloved, had to be put down.

In protecting them from others, he failed to foresee that he might need to protect them from themselves.

“What did you do?”

He stared at his hands, the memory of blood dripping from them, glinting firelight as the village burned to the ground around him. A fire he set to erase all trace.

“Wisdom says children shouldn’t be allowed to grow up to avenge their parents, but I couldn’t do it. I found a troupe of traveling fae willing to adopt them. It didn’t take much convincing. Fae are always looking to adopt human children. They altered their memories and took them far away from der Schwarzwald.”

“And the rest?”

The question was asked gently, with a cool palm pressed to his arm. She knew the answer. How could she not, knowing who and what he was? But she had a reason for asking, for prompting him to say it out loud. Maybe she believed in the catharsis of confession like some humans did. They seemed to find value in such things.

Eradicating evil shouldn’t have felt like an act of betrayal, a stain on the soul, but guilt and grief knifed through his chest, giving his heart no quarter.

“I devoured them, every last one.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

To kill those you swore to protect, the ones you loved, to keep others safe, was not a choice Astrid would wish on anyone. The decision haunted the forest god—she could see it in the way he hunched over, shrunk in on himself.

No wonder he lived so long alone. Dedicated his life to hunting and protecting the forest. It would never hurt him. Never disappoint him. The only love that wouldn’t cause him pain.

In the wake of Astrid’s greatest hurts, she had Perchta. But who took care of Gudariks? The answer tore her heart apart. No one. No one had taken care of him.

I won’t hurt you,she wanted to say—she would rather claw out her own heart than cause him pain—but the words clogged in her throat.

“My parents weren’t good people,” Astrid said after a time, picking fuzz off her mittens. “I watched Perchta slit open their bellies, pull out their entrails, and still I went with her into the forest. I can’t speak for those children, but the way I see it, you gave them a chance for a better life. To grow up away from evil and have a real shot at happiness.”

“I cannot tell you how much I wish that could be true. Give humans enough time and they sour, poisoning everything they touch,” Gudariks said, and the watery wavering of his voice surprised her. It was a jaded, callous sentiment, said as grief and heartbreak flared. For all Astrid’s frustrations and grumblings, she couldn’t help but think of Johanna and Suri in this moment, and how the very best of humanity gave them to her, and that the world was better to have them in it.

“I’ve seen it more times than I’d like to say,” he continued. “And each time I feel myself growing colder to them. I don’t hate them, but my patience for thoughtlessness is thin, even thinner for cruelties, and humans have been abundantly guilty of both. When someone missteps, they need to be held accountable or nothing changes.”

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