There was a line of wagons in the woods where the hunters had dragged them. Sibras, Merekis and Kaspuru were closed in separate cages, each carried by its own vehicle and surrounded by hunters. The beastplants that pulled them didn’t react to their protests.

Dan and Tagu, instead, were pushed onto the second to last wagon of the line. It was bigger and covered by a wooden structure that held up a thick gray cloth. While the hunters disentangled him and Tagu from the nets, always keeping them under the aim of several weapons, he caught a whiff of the smell inside. There were a lot of people sweating together in that space.

They were pushed inside. Dan was met with a barrage of insults as he stumbled over someone's distended legs. He grabbed Tagu's arm to make sure they wouldn't be separated while he looked for a place to sit. He caught glimpses of faces and animal features in the dark. The cart's occupants huddled with each other every time he tried to settle into a spot. One of them even pushed him away with his antlers.

It was impossible to fall down without hitting someone. The wagon started moving, projecting him against the parapet at the end of the wagon. The impact made the bruises on his side flare, but at least people had finally moved out of the way. Tagu hissed when the boy next to him settled back into position. He retracted, leaving enough space for her on the floor. Dan thought he needed to learn to do the same, once he had fangs too.

He felt weirdly calm now that he had settled. He wasn't the one in danger, after all.

The wagon crossed the woods, the wheels bumping constantly on the irregular terrain. Sitting on the wooden floor became uncomfortable and soon veered on painful, until they finally reached a road. They traveled into the deep night, leaving and re-entering the road for hours on end until Dan couldn’t orient himself anymore. It didn’t help that the only visible portion of the outside world was half-obscured by a deer’s antlers. Most of the hunters were following them on the last wagon of the queue. Every once in a while, laughs and pieces of jokes reached the prisoners.

“Where are we?” someone with maculated fur asked.

“Still at Aressea,” someone else whispered back. “They wouldn’t let a wagon full of kidnapped people through the border.”

“Shut up!” the deer man yelled. “Guards can be corrupted. You won’t escape your punishment.”

“You won’t either,” someone commented.

Dan turned his head like everyone else. The people inside the wagon collectively held their breath.

“I’m a herbivore,” the deer man said. “They only captured me because I was traveling with this idiot. As soon as they’ll see who I am, they’ll let me go.”

The idiot in question was a weasel person sitting beside him and looking just as menacing.

Dan realized he didn’t know for how long all of those people had been huddled inside the wagon. He looked at them more intently for the first time. Only a few of them had enough human traits that it was possible to tell their age. They all seemed young like him and Tagu, or slightly older. It was difficult to tell, but even the deer man’s antlers weren’t long enough for an adult, based on what Autur had taught him.

The one next to him was a boy with hollow cheeks and a worried frown. His eyes were fixed in front of him, wide as if everything he saw terrified him. Dan could see small dark feathers framing his face, but it wasn’t enough to gauge which animal they came from.

“Hi,” Dan said.

The boy was startled. He looked down at Dan with extreme suspicion. He didn’t answer the greeting.

“We just arrived,” Dan said. He glanced at the deer man and his friends every few seconds, to make sure they weren’t paying attention to the conversation. “How long have you been here?”

“Since yesterday,” he said.

He didn’t elaborate, so Dan decided he had to reveal something about himself first.

“How did they capture you? We were just camping in the woods. They came out of nowhere and attacked our family.”

Tagu hissed.

“Don’t tell him about us.”

The boy retreated a bit, even if it was impossible to go too far without bumping into the girl next to him.

“I… met them. And they took me. Like everyone else here, I guess.”

Dan nodded distractedly. He rummaged in his pockets until he reached one of the jars of snake meat. He opened it and dropped a few pieces into his hand.

“I have food,” he whispered, handing them to the boy.

He held them as if they were burning, wide eyes darting from Dan to the deer man. He pushed them all into his mouth in one go. He kept it covered with one arm until he’d finished chewing.

“Thank you,” he told Dan in the end. “I actually left to look for the hunters myself because I thought they could help me. There were rumors about my grandpa, that he was an actual crow that ate so many corpses he became human. I wanted to know if it was possible, and if I was like him in some way. What it could mean for me.”

He was talking so quickly, in a voice so low, it was difficult to make out his words over the rumbling of the wheels.

“But of course they captured me. They took it as a confession or something. Now I’m going to die, right? I shouldn’t have eaten. Maybe it’s easier if you’re starving.”

Dan started to regret having talked to him. His nervousness was feeding his own, and judging by Tagu’s expression she was feeling the same. But there was nothing to do about that, so he offered his hand.

“I’m Dan.”

The other shook it. His grip was weak and sweaty.

“Durnis,” he said.

He held out his hand for Tagu too, but she didn’t take it. His eyes somewhat narrowed for the first time.

“She’s…”

“My sister,” Dan interrupted him.

He could tell Durnis was still suspicious, but he relaxed, as much as it was possible for him to relax, and even smiled a bit.

“Understood. Thank you for the food.”

“Don’t worry. Let’s stick together, alright?”

He nodded.

The wagons seemed to have entered another patch of the woods, because the wild rattling started again. Dan could tell something was different, but he didn’t realize what it was until Tagu pointed it out.

“The other wagons are gone,” she said in a whiny voice.

Dan saw the deer man turn his head a bit and shushed her.

“What do you mean?”

“They went in another direction. Or we went, I don’t know. I can’t hear them anymore.”

Dan patted her shoulder.

“We’ll find them again. Let’s focus on surviving this.”

She didn’t react. Dan looked at her, thinking that if even Durnis had caught onto the fact that she might not be human, the hunters would too. He tried to think of a solution. He remembered his first night with the strays.

“So you don’t sweat?”

Tagu shook her head. Dan turned to Durnis.

“Do we have water?”

He sighed and nodded toward the opposite side of the wagon. There was a barrel right behind the deer man. The weasel person was immersing a bowl into it right at that moment. They drank it, drops falling from their chin, ignoring the pleas of the people nearby.

“They’re keeping all the water and food for themselves,” Durnis commented.

Dan looked at them. If he only had fangs, everything would have been much easier.

He stood. To his credit, Durnis tried to stop him despite his fear. He crossed the wagon, being careful not to step on anyone’s limbs. He focused on the movements of his own shoes to ignore the eyes shining in his direction.

“What are you doing?” the deer man said.

Dan approached the barrel. The weasel person stepped in his way.

“I wanted to make an exchange. A bit of water for…”

He rummaged in his pockets. His hand brushed the paper with the pattern, but it was too important. He kept going until he found one of the jars.

“Meat,” he said, handing it to the weasel.

He took the container and turned it in his hand. He exchanged a glance with the deer man.

“Check what else he has,” he said.

Dan scrambled backward before the weasel could reach him. The bodies of the other prisoners bent all around him to pave the way or push back.

Mercifully, the wagon stopped. Through the oval of night of the cart’s opening, he could see the hunters advancing toward them.

“Come down!” one of them shouted.

Everyone was retreating toward the back of the wagon, so they had to drag the closest one out to convince the rest to follow. Dan took advantage of the chaos to retreat. He reached Tagu and grabbed her arm, while Durnis put a hand on his shoulder. They advanced together, letting go briefly when it was time to jump down from the wagon.

They were in an opening of the woods littered with tents. Not a single light illuminated the place, so Dan could only glimpse the other constructions, with shapes so unlikely he couldn’t guess what they were for. He heard the splash of water somewhere in the middle of that place. Tagu had been right: the cages were nowhere to be seen. Sibras, Kaspuru and Merekis had been brought somewhere else.

A shiver caused by the cold wind made him sneeze. As soon as he opened his mouth, he felt a metallic taste on the tip of his tongue. He breathed in at the same time, tongue sticking out a bit, until he was sure: that place smelled faintly of blood.

He glanced at Tagu, wondering whether she could smell it too. Her nose was wrinkled in a menacing way, exposing the tip of her fangs.

The hunters herded the prisoners away from the wagon. One of them stepped onto a box on the ground. Dan couldn’t distinguish anything of him besides a hat with a triangular brim.

“Your trial is about to begin,” he said. “If you prove you’re human, we’ll bring you back with our sincerest excuses. If you’re a beast, you’ll be killed. If you try to run away or attack us, we’ll slaughter you like the animal you are.”

As if on cue, a spark crossed the darkness and erupted into fire. Dan recoiled, like everyone in the crowd around him. The flames wrapped around the pyramidal structure in front of them and rose toward the sky.

“This is your first trial. If you jump through the fire, you’ll be safe. You might get burned, but don’t worry, there are buckets of water on the other side to extinguish you. If you run…”

A menacing twang came from the hunters. A dart flew into the ground between the prisoners and the fire. The ones at the front staggered back.

“Now, form a line. I suggest you don’t think too much about it and just jump. Unless your instincts are strong enough to stop you.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Dan whispered. “Everyone’s scared of fire.”

Durnis looked at the hunters in alarm. He stepped in line as soon as one started to form.

“Let’s just do what they say.”

Dan slipped in behind him, followed by Tagu. Her ears were as low as ever, eyes reflecting the fire.

“Don’t be scared,” Dan said, even if he was sure she could see and smell his own fear.

“I’m not,” she said. “Autur has taught me how to start one.”

Dan thought it didn’t mean much, but didn’t point it out.

The first person in the line jumped across the fire. They didn’t go high enough, so they emitted a screech when the flames enveloped them. There were calls for water and shouts on the other side, then everything settled again.

“Send the next one,” someone yelled from beyond the pyre.

Dan shifted forward with the rest of the crowd. He didn’t have to stand on his toes to see the next prisoner in line: his antlers made him taller than anyone else.

“This is absurd,” he said. “I’m a herbivore.”

He was trying to be intimidating, but his voice trembled.

“Pigs eat people,” the man with the triangular hat said. “I’ve seen a deer eat a bird. There are many kinds of monsters in the world.”

The deer man lowered his head and stepped back, as if he was preparing to charge. He ran toward the fire, but before reaching it, he changed direction. He hit a hunter with his antlers and raised his head to toss it behind himself as he sprinted toward the woods.

For a moment, Dan thought he could make it out of there. He was fast, he turned around quickly enough to avoid the hunters barring his path, and everyone moved out of the way when he lowered his antlers.

Then a dart hit his leg. He stumbled and fell, and the hunters were on him.

They dragged him away, but Dan still caught a whiff of blood. He pressed a hand against his mouth, disgusted both by the smell itself and the fact that part of him enjoyed it. He was grateful his eyes weren’t developed enough to see the rest.

The queue shifted forward. The weasel managed to cross too, no second thoughts given to their fallen companion. Durnis took a deep breath and screamed all the way through, but managed to cross.

It was Dan’s turn.

“Don’t be scared,” he said again. “Imagine there’s your family on the other side.”

“I can do it,” Tagu hissed. “I don’t need help.”

Dan wished he could say the same. Worrying for her had kept him sane up to that point, and now he could feel his body panicking. The hunters were arming their weapons again after using them against the deer man. He felt the tension of the queue behind him, kept silent only by fear. He was making things more difficult for everyone by standing there.

He took a deep breath and started running. The fire became hotter, too intense for his eyes. His legs hurt from his training with Autur. He’d gotten through so many things, just to find Morìc. He needed to protect Tagu and save the strays.

The thoughts carried him into the flames. The warmth was unbearable, then became a slap of coldness all over his body. He gasped as the water drenched him. The hunters laughed and retreated to fill their buckets again. He was pushed, shivering, toward the prisoners who had jumped before him. He looked over his shoulder at the fire, waiting for Tagu to cross through.

She emerged with her fur on fire. She lashed out with her arms, not to hurt but in pain, until the water they were splashing on her was enough to extinguish the flames. The smell when she stepped closer made Dan hold his breath and close his mouth. Still, she was mostly safe.

They all huddled together, trying to touch each other as little as possible while still craving the warmth that the contact provided. More people emerged from the flames, others were left screaming on the other side. At least the smell of blood didn’t reach through the fire.

In the end, the two groups of hunters reunited and guided the surviving prisoners toward a long structure of wood, perfectly rectangular, with two entrances without doors. They were ushered inside, where numerous torches planted on the ground illuminated a row of desks. Some had food on them, some paper.

“Second trial,” the hunter announced. “We’ll test how good you are at human things. Writing, eating properly, reading.”

Dan looked at the books with wide eyes. Tagu grabbed his arm.

“Don’t worry, we’re going to succeed.”

He knew she meant it sincerely, but he saw the irony. The hunters had a very narrow idea of what set apart humans from animals, and his Arissian wasn’t good enough. He’d been wrong all along: he was in danger as much as Tagu was.