Page 8 of Guardian of Talon Mountain

BRYN

Wind slices across my face as I plant my snowshoes at the ridgeline’s edge, the gusts sharper this high up, the cold biting deeper with each gust. The sun hasn’t breached the eastern peaks, but the sky’s bruised with promise.

Steel gray light bleeds across the horizon, enough to catch my breath in the frigid air and trace the faint outlines of the forbidden trail ahead. The one Caleb told me not to take.

He told me not to take it so, of course, I’m taking it. I know I should probably listen to him, but I really dislike people telling me what not to do and then trying to spook me so I'll listen.'If you hear anything you can’t explain, turn around. Don’t keep going. Don’t assume you’re imagining it.'I mean, whosaysthat to someone? Apparently, former special ops guys do—the ones with that unmistakable look—especially after they’ve gone full mountain hermit.

I tug the old survey map I found at Chris’s place from the inner pocket of my jacket and flatten it across a large rock. The corner is torn, and a few markings have faded, but I can still make out the red circle near the glacier pass. Caleb said mybrother was headed that way the last time he saw him… toward old markers and places no one wants to admit exist.

That sounds like exactly where I need to be—off the grid, where questions outnumber answers and are knee deep in the kind of secrets that people bury with shovels and silence. If Chris was chasing phantoms and things that go bump in the night, then I’ll chase down every damn one of them until I find the place where he disappeared into the smoke. I don’t care how cold the trail or the weather gets or how much Caleb scowls. If this is the trail that’s going to give me answers—then I'm going to damn well follow it.

The first part of the hike is simple enough. I keep my pace steady, conserving energy, not letting my heartbeat spike with the climb. The trees thin as I ascend, the silence closing in the way it always does this high up. It’s not the peace-and-quiet kind of silence either.

It’s the kind that listens.

An hour into the climb, I pause near a sharp bend along a narrow ridge, taking a long pull from my water bottle. That's when I see it—just a glint, a shard of fractured glass catching the sun as it crests the tree line. I squint, stepping off the trail toward a gnarled spruce hugging the slope. Half-concealed in the thicket, the remains of a wildlife camera dangle from a metal mount embedded in the bark, its casing cracked and the lens shattered. I wouldn’t have seen it if the light hadn’t hit just right. It’s almost like it didn’t want to be found. If I hadn’t stopped to sip water and check the map, I would’ve missed it entirely.

The mount is half torn from the tree, twisted and splintered at the edges, like someone wrenched it loose with deliberate force—no storm damage, no animal tampering. This was intentional. Someone wanted it gone from the tree like something deliberately tried to destroy it. Not weather. Not time. Someone targeted this. I step closer, brushing snow off thebase. The wires are severed. Cleanly. Not animal teeth—a blade. Whoever did this didn’t want to be seen.

A chill slithers up my spine like a wire pulled straight from a glacier, snaking cold through my vertebrae and locking beneath my skin, coiling between my shoulder blades with icy intent. My breath fogs the air, sharp and shallow, but I keep moving. Turning back isn’t an option—not when I’ve come this far.

Chris marked this route for a reason—red ink slashed across a stretch of map that seemed to be all glacier runoff and stone. But he’d drawn a symbol beside it too, one I didn’t recognize. Not standard trail code, not a topography notation. Something personal. And if my brother left a breadcrumb like that in a place no one wants to talk about, then whatever he found was worth the risk.Chris, what the hell were you up to?

Thirty yards ahead, I find a second camera—same damage. The surrounding tracks are odd. Not snowshoes. Not boots. Wide, heavy prints spaced too far apart for a human stride, sunk deep in the snow beneath a low overhang of rock where the wind hasn’t touched them. I spot them only because the morning sun catches the edge of the impression, casting a long, uncanny shadow across the crusted snow. My breath catches. They're clearer than the others—more deliberate. Someone—or something—wanted them to be seen.

I crouch low, tracing one of the deeper impressions. The snow's not fresh enough to give me detail, but whatever it was, it passed through after the last flurry and before the sunrise.

The feeling of being watched ratchets tighter. A low, metallic sharpness hits the back of my throat—faint and cold, like the whisper of steel against ice. The wind shifts, stirring the underbrush and sending a brittle scent through the air—burned pine and something acrid, chemical, synthetic. Not an animal. Not human. Wrong.

I stand slowly, eyes sweeping the tree line, senses flaring like a struck match. Nothing moves. No chirp, no rustle, no flutter of wings. The silence feels unnatural—too complete, too calculated, like someone hollowed it out of the world on purpose, clearing a space for something else. Even the trees seem to lean in, listening. Just the wind and that low, insistent hum prickling along my nerves, threading beneath my skin with one chilling truth: I’m not alone out here. Not even close.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, sweetheart.”

The voice snaps through the stillness like a shot.

I whirl around, pulse spiking.

Caleb steps out from between two frost-rimmed pines, silent and sudden, his boots whispering over the snow like he’s been standing there, watching, for far too long. My stomach drops like a stone. Adrenaline slams through me, hot and sudden. Part fear, part something else—sharp-edged and confusing, like the jolt before a fall. My breath catches, and heat floods my skin despite the cold.

He’s all shadows and threat, eyes locked on mine with a kind of blistering fury that makes my pulse ricochet in my throat. I brace myself as his gaze sears into mine, already heavy with disapproval and something darker I can’t name. Rifle slung across his back, coat flaring around his thick frame like he owns every inch of the mountain. His jaw is tight, lips set in a grim line, and his stare—black and unyielding—pins me in place with a ferocity that sends my nerve endings scrambling.

I straighten. “Hello to you, too.”

“I warned you.”

“You did,” I acknowledge coolly. “But in case you missed the part where I’m not one of your subordinates, I don’t take orders. Especially not vague, barked threats from a man who thinks scowling passes for communication.”

He stalks closer. The snow doesn’t even slow him down. He moves like a predator, every stride confident, measured, like he’s already mapped out the terrain and claimed it as his own.

“This isn’t a joke, Bryn.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You should be terrified.”

“Oh, I am... just shaking in my snowshoes,” I deadpan.

Caleb grabs my arm.

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