Chapter Three: Crows at the Chapel

Crows listened to the bells that rang late that night.

Not for a wedding. Not for mass.

For the dead.

Father Eamon stood on the chapel steps, face pale and rigid, knuckles white around a rosary worn smooth from decades of prayer. Behind him, a cluster of townsfolk murmured and crossed themselves, eyes fixed on the heavy cart being drawn up from the riverbank.

Covered in canvas.

Blood seeping through.

Crows keeping vigil.

Rían stood apart, tucked beneath the eaves of the blacksmith’s shop, his coat pulled tight. The smell hit him before the cart even stopped—blood, fear, something sour and burnt underneath. Whatever was under that canvas hadn’t just died.

It had been made an example.

Connor appeared at his side, unusually quiet. “Found him this morning. Gannon, the miller’s brother. Was out trapping. Didn’t come back.”

Rían glanced at the cart. “What happened to him?”

Connor swallowed. “Hard to say. Looks like animal attack… but Father Eamon says otherwise.”

A moment later, the priest’s voice echoed through the square.

“This was not the work of beasts,” he declared, rosary held aloft like a weapon. “This is what happens when we allow old evils to stir. When we forget our faith. When the unholy walk among us.”

His gaze swept the crowd—and for a heartbeat, landed squarely on Rían.

He knows, Rían thought.

Or he suspects.

Connor shifted uncomfortably beside him. “Some folks are saying the Wolves of Ossory are back. You know how stories go in this place.”

Rían said nothing.

He couldn’t trust his voice.

Because buried in the scent of blood… was something wrong.

A mark.

He’d smelled it before—in books, in ruins, in stories whispered by his mother when she thought he was asleep. It wasn’t human. Nor wolf.

It was iron and ash.

Witch-Hunters.

Not the church’s official enforcers anymore—those had been disbanded long ago. But the true ones? The secret ones?

They still walked the earth.

And they’d found Kilkenny.

As the crowd dispersed, Rían noticed them—three figures cloaked in grey, faces hidden, standing just beyond the chapel wall. They did not speak. Did not move.

But when he turned to look again, they were gone.

Blood and Rowan

The woods welcomed Rían like an old friend—with teeth.

The trees creaked low warnings as he ran, half-blind with fury, the memory of the bloodied cart still burning in his mind. He didn’t remember choosing this path. His body had simply moved, pulled along by something older than thought.

The clearing came faster this time.

The rowan charms still hung in the branches. The standing stone still leaned toward the sky. And she was there.

Aoife.

Sitting on the edge of the stone like she’d been waiting for centuries.

Rían didn’t slow.

“You were there,” he said, his voice low and rough.

Aoife didn’t flinch. “I was.”

“You watched me. Why?”

“To be sure it was you.”

He closed the distance between them in three long strides. “What am I?”

“You know.”

“Say it.”

She stood. Her eyes were cool, assessing—green and deep as forest moss, sharp as a knife that had seen too much use. “You’re wolf-blood. The last living link to the Ossorian line. And they’ll kill you for it.”

Rían stared at her. “Who?”

“The ones who rang the bells tonight. The ones who marked that man with iron and ash. Witch-Hunters, Rían. The old kind. Not priests. Not politicians. True believers.”

He stepped back, heart pounding. “Why me? I haven’t hurt anyone.”

Aoife looked away, as if ashamed. “Doesn’t matter. You exist. That’s enough.”

The wind shifted, and she froze.

“They’re close,” she whispered. “You led them here.”

Rían’s head snapped toward the trees. A low hum filled the air—just beneath hearing, like a breath on the back of the neck. The birds had gone silent. The rowan charms began to sway… though there was no breeze.

Aoife stepped toward him. “If you stay here, they’ll find you. If you run alone, they’ll corner you. But if you come with me…”

She held out her hand.

“I can teach you to survive. And maybe—maybe—how to make them afraid again.”

Rían didn’t take her hand.

But he didn’t run either.

Crows, Bells, and Bone

The man known only as Corrach knelt by the rowan path.

His fingers, wrapped in iron-threaded leather, brushed the disturbed earth where Rían’s footprints had passed. He did not need a hound. The blood remembered.

Around him, the other two Hunters stood motionless. Grey cloaks blending into the woods. Faces masked with carved bone—blank, expressionless, yet heavier than stone with intent.

 

Corrach spoke without turning.

“Still warm. The curse is strong in this one.”

He drew a small object from the folds of his cloak.

A bell.

Small. Simple. Its surface blackened with age, etched with sigils that seemed to shift when looked at too long. He held it between thumb and forefinger, letting it dangle.

And then he rang it.

The sound was not loud. Not sharp. It was soft, almost tender—a chime beneath hearing, like the tolling of a bell underwater.

But the forest shuddered.

In the distance, a murder of crows screamed and fell dead from their perch, feathers smoking.

The earth around the standing stone rippled.

Insects fled. Worms writhed up from the soil, twisting blindly in the wrong direction. The air thickened, tasted of iron and salt.

“He’ll feel it now,” Corrach said, rising to his feet. “The marrow-call. Every bone in his body will ache for us.”

The other two Hunters spoke at last—two voices as one.

“And the girl?”

Corrach’s lips curled beneath his mask.

“The girl belongs to the old ways. Let her walk beside him. She’ll lead him right to us.”

He turned toward the deeper woods.

“No one outruns their blood.”

The bell rang again.

This time, the trees seemed to listen.