Kiya was slow to follow Hadyn's lead, taking her time getting comfortable in one of the magistrate's overstuffed chairs. "I have many stories. The whole library of the Monster Corps is locked right up here." she smiled and tapped her temple. "Which would like to hear?"

"Your story. Tell me about you, Kiya."

"My story is short and not worth telling."

"I don't believe that. Not for a single second." Hadyn leaned back and gave her a patient smile. "The magistrate asked me to speak to a young, wide-eyed recruit. Instead, I get to speak to her lieutenant. I do agree with Elliot that I, too, would have expected the higher-ranking officer to manage the business side of this gathering. Though, my assumptions are for entirely different reasons."

"I understand but, trust me, you want Elise's hands on the magistrate's accounts. Nobody knows capital business and logistics like her."

"Be that as it may, you are still a lieutenant who is far younger than I would have expected from the king's army. How were you promoted so young? And how did you become the proclaimed master of history and stories by your team?"

So she wouldn't have to answer right away, Kiya took a long sip of her tea. It was one thing to talk about her military experience to other soldiers, but completely another when it involved a stranger as far away from normal society as possible.

Hadyn never looked away, his green eyes boring into her, and once again she was struck by the strange connection she felt to the man. "I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours," she finally said with a feigned smile. "How did you get appointed as the main contact between the town and the villages?"

"Avoiding the topic will not make it go away."

Kiya's heart thudded hard against her chest, and her body went hot. She didn't so much hear the words with her ears as they resonated inside her head. Just like when August ordered her to stay put in his bar.

But this wasn't an order. It was a powerful reminder that he would hear her answer. The stubbornness in her drove her to clench her teeth together and sip tea through her lips again.

"I have a brother who lives in town," Hadyn relented. "I come here often enough to check on him. Since I'm already traveling back and forth, I just started picking up the errands that needed doing. My wife's family is here as well, and my children love the equinox festivals every six months. It makes the most sense that it's me."

"But why do they need a point of contact? Business must be done. It seems inefficient to put everything in the hands of one man."

"The villagers like to keep to themselves. They come into town when and if they need to. But in the case that, for example, six capital soldiers decide to come and stay for four months..."

"We're not enforcers."

"There is little difference between local law enforcement, border patrols, and monster hunters to us. Either way, we are not the kind of people who are particularly welcoming of the military. You see this place as a town, maybe even a village, in comparison to the big city. For us, this is the big city. We value our privacy and our anonymity. Considering how the north came under control of the Westmoran crown, can you blame us for avoiding military types?"

"No, I... I'm sorry. I know that the reality is bloodier than the official version."

"It's cultural as well. The further north you go, the closer we stick to our traditions. We have celebrations honoring the goddess that have long been forgotten by the southern population. We honor nature differently and leave sacrifices to the beasts to appease their tempers."

"What kind of beasts need tempering in the middle of winter?" she chuckled.

"The usual. Cougars will attack if given the chance. Foxes can be a nuisance and over hunting the deer is as much a danger spiritually as it is for future survivability. Then, of course, there are the werewolves."

A shiver coursed through her. Hadyn's smile was persistent, and she got the feeling he was watching her reaction very carefully. Her heart started to flutter again, and she had to take a deep breath to settle her nerves.

"We are the ones invading your home with our muddy boots and demanding you to accommodate us. On behalf of my squad, I am sorry for that. But I hope I can give you a little comfort in that the Monster Corps has no interest in changing the town or how things are done. We offer to help the community in any way we can through physical labor and, in Elise's case, financial literacy. Other than that, we are only here for the stories you are willing to share."

"I thought you were here to hunt the monsters."

"The number of monsters I've seen is nothing compared to how many stories I've heard about them."

Hadyn's eyebrow quirked up and his smile turned into a smirk. "Am I talking to a skeptic?"

"Skepticism implies that I could eventually be convinced. I can't, but your stories about lycanthrope would be invaluable to the corps. The only records we have are little more than rumors. They all come from the north, trickling down from traders and travelers who have come and gone."

He started to laugh, and the sound filled Kiya with a strange sense of pride. She couldn't explain why, but she wanted to make this man happy. Not in the way that a lover would, but in the same way that she made Red happy. As a loyal friend and follower. He made her feel warm and accepted, and even the cold winter couldn't strip that away.

"I'm sorry," he chuckled and shook his head. "You're a lieutenant in your corps, your duty is to find the creatures of legend... and you don't believe in them?"

"It's not as uncommon as you think. Elise and our captain are the only ones who are true believers in our squad. The others might be closer to skeptical than non-believers, but," Kiya shrugged and sighed. "I believe in what I can see with my eyes and cut with my blade."

"Yet you are the master of stories in your team. How did that happen?"

Again, his voice resonated inside her head, urging her to answer. Urging her to trust him with her story. Her life. She took a deep breath to get a hold of herself. She couldn't—wouldn't—give him everything. But this wasn't too personal. If she gave him this much, maybe they could get back to the point.

"The Monster Hunter Corps has the largest library in all of Westmora. Maybe even the whole world. The men and women who founded our division made it their life's work to uncover the secrets of magical creatures; what we now call monsters. Books upon books, page after page... every version of every story that has ever been told has been recorded, re-written, and carefully preserved. Every eye-witness account, every local legend, every insignificant scrap of imagination has a place on the shelves.

"Most people think it would take an entire lifetime to read everything. I disagree. I've read them all, and the ones not written in the common tongue were dictated to me. I can recite every single one by memory. I can tell where someone was raised and if their town is a colony or not by their version of how the moon goddess rose in the night sky.

"All those stories, all that knowledge, paired with the skills to fight against things that are two, three, sometimes four times my size, and I was as prepared as anyone else to venture out to hunt the creatures that are said to terrorize humanity.

"I was deployed for the first time when I was seventeen. As wide-eyed and excited as Elise. Just like Elise, I couldn't wait to be the first soldier in five hundred years to confirm that monsters existed. We followed the rumors of satyrs living in the eastern woods. Not typically violent, but that wasn't for me or my squad at the time to determine.

"One week of travel, two weeks sleeping on rocks since the village didn't have an inn or outpost, and do you know what we found? Three sheep. The shepherd was a senile old man. His hands shook so badly that he could only sheer half of them before he needed to stop. Then, he forgot which sheep he was working on, and started on the next.

"I thought that was an outlier. Certainly, the next one will be a true monster. Sirens on the southern coast? A pod of whales singing while returning to their mating grounds. Unicorn in the plains? A moose with a broken antler.

"One deployment after another for nine-and-a-quarter years. Everything had an explanation. Everything had a reason. After a while, I just stopped expecting to actually see a monster. I've barely drawn my steel outside of training, and my silver hasn't seen the outside of its sheath since the day it was presented to me. At this point, I only carry it for ceremony."

Hadyn leaned forward to put his teacup back on the table and braced his elbows on his knees, those deep green irises hardening into jades. The fire flickered, and the light caused the whites of his eyes to reflect bright red. "Then why do you remain loyal to the military? If there is nothing for you, then why bother?"

The urge to answer was stronger this time. Her throat felt thick, and her hands started to shake, her teacup rattling in its saucer. The wound in her shoulder started to radiate the sharp, agonizing pain down her arm. She forced her eyes down and focused on very carefully putting her drink back on the table without spilling. "I swore an oath. I am a woman of my word, Hadyn. I will serve so long as I am needed and able."

It felt wrong, not telling him the truth. A half-lie was still a lie, after all. Imagining his disappointment when he found out—not if, because he would find out eventually—brought a terrible guilt to her heart.

Why, though? Her rational mind interrupted her scattered thoughts. She didn't even know this man. Why should she care if he found out she was lying? "If it's alright with you, I would like to tell you our version of the legend of the moon goddess," Hadyn said, his gentle smile returning. "How many claim that the moon goddess is their ancestor?"

"I'm not typically one to cry blasphemy, but this seems a little close to a line."

"Blasphemy is a spoken offense against our deity. Our story, I think, appropriately honors her. Not so much for the king you serve, however. I will understand if you are not comfortable hearing a story against his family's favor."

The commanders of the Monster Corps wouldn't care that a regional variant of the goddess myth spoke in ill favor of the king, and neither did she. Kiya wasn't entirely sure if she believed in the goddess anyway. But she still hesitated. There was a nagging feeling tugging at the edge of her mind that she shoved back into the shadows.

"Please," she forced the word from her mouth. "Continue."

"Our story begins the same as all the others," Hadyn launched into it immediately. "Right here in this very town lived the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen. Her hair was black as the night, and her eyes sparkled with the majesty of the stars. Her parents called her Io; a simple name so as not to mar her loveliness.

"Men from all walks of life came from all over the world to win her hand. They offered her father gold, land, riches beyond her wildest dreams. They promised she would want for nothing if only she agreed to marry them.

"This was a time where, in the eyes of society, the worth of a woman was in the beauty of her smile and how many children she carries. A barbaric time, though, I imagine it would be easier to find a wife when you only need to throw gold at her father."

"Sounds like a man who had a hard time convincing his wife to marry him," Kiya joked, and Hadyn laughed.

"There were two suitors that held her heart. A prince that heralded from the richest of all the kingdoms to the south. He had everything to give, and truly loved her. He would make her queen and offered to claim every inch of land in her name. In the tradition of the time, he had a sword forged to offer her father in exchange for her hand. Only this one was made of the purest silver to prove his worth.

"The other was a hunter, a man native to the north, and as wild and loyal as the wolves. He preferred the company of the empty forest, and he had no land, no gold, and no treasure. When he arrived to make his offering he presented to her, not her father, the pelt of a great white wolf.

"This was the hunter's only treasure, for it was the pelt of the wolf that raised him. The pelt represented everything Io ever wanted; a love so deep that it was carried beyond the grave. She chose the hunter.

"Her father was outraged that the gift was offered to Io directly, ignoring him, and chose the prince. Additionally, the pelt was not from a wolf he hunted, but one that died naturally. It was too ugly to put on a wall as a trophy and too thin to make into a cloak or rug. He gave the hunter one more chance to prove his worth.

"The hunter's response was not in grand gestures nor in fancy gifts. He simply told Io it was her choice to make. Not her father's. Not her mother's. He could not defend her against the retaliation of the prince, and her life with him would not be one of ease and luxury. All he had was an honest heart.

"Again, her father was outraged. Again, Io chose the hunter. They were married in secret and disappeared into the woods with the wolves."

"The prince was humiliated and summoned an army to the north to take what he wanted by force. As the hunter said, he could not stand against the army. All he had was an axe and the pack of wolves at his back.

"When the hunter was slain, the wolves sang a broken song, and Io's cry was heard across the land. When the army turned to bring Io to the prince, the stars answered her cry of pain and responded with rage. The wolves grew into half men, blind with the grief and rage of losing their alpha.

"It was the prince who killed Io. As her life drained from her body, he used the silver blade to rip open her belly and retrieve the child she carried. Only there were two. The prince took the daughter, as beautiful and lovely as Io. The son was left to die with his mother.

"Having lost her love and her children, Io called to the stars once more. Once more, the stars answered. The wolves turned fully to men so they may save the boy. Io ascended the stars as a queen of the skies. From her throne, she could watch over her children, their children, and beyond for eternity.

"The daughter was raised to be queen of the kingdom that you now serve. The son was raised among the wolves, just like his father. Two families. Two kingdoms. Bonded by blood and separated by greed and pride. One that turned its back and chose to forget, while the other held onto the pain of its origin.

"With every full moon, the men and their descendants return to the half wolf warriors to defend their home from invaders. Any who survive their bite are infected with the moonlit curse and are destined to carry the rage of the moon goddess for the rest of their lives."

Kiya's stomach turned to rock and dropped into her feet. Again, the ache in her shoulder flared, reminding her of the blackened bite mark and the infection working its way through her body. No. Infections could be cured, cut out, and otherwise treated. Curses were permanent. Nothing could be done about them.

She could cut off her limbs, rip apart her muscles, and disfigure herself until she could do nothing on her own. But it wouldn't matter. She would still...

Her shins bumped the table as she stood up in a rush, spilling tea across the surface until it dripped into the rug. It's just a story, she told herself over and over. One of thousands of stories she'd read and heard. This was no different.

"Kiya," Hadyn's voice floated through the fog in her mind. "Are you alright?"

He was standing as well and reaching out for her. Somehow, in the chaos of her rapid thoughts, there was one thing Kiya was sure of.

Don't let him touch you.