*Sage*
The first skull we hung in the tree was an elk’s.
It felt wrong.
And right.
And deeply, viscerally weird.
“Lift,” Edda grunted, shoving the curved bone up toward me.
I clung to the rough trunk, boots braced on a branch, fingers numb through my gloves. The tree—an enormous, lightning-scarred Douglas fir—towered on the ridge above my old observation tower, its limbs reaching into the pale winter sky like fingers.
“This is so OSHA-noncompliant,” I muttered, reaching down. “Remind me why I’m the one up here?”
“Because your hands are smaller,” Edda said. “And because if Rafe or Kellan goes up, they’ll snap the branch and we’ll have a sexy werewolf pancake.”
“That’s…fair,” I said grudgingly.
I took the elk skull, heavier than it looked, and propped it on the branch, straddling it so it wouldn’t fall. The bone was bleached from sun and snow, empty eye sockets staring.
“Okay,” I said. “Hand me the wire.”
Rafe passed up a loop of dark steel, already twisted into a rough circle.
“Feels a little on the nose,” he said, glancing at the skull. “Or…off the nose.”
“Your jokes are getting worse,” I said. “Hold still.”
I fed the wire through the cleaned-out sinus cavity, then around the branch, twisting it until the skull hung in a way that looked…deliberate. Ritualistic.
Creepy as hell.
“Thoughts?” I called down.
On the ground, our little work crew—Rafe, Edda, Kellan, Mara, and Kieran—craned their necks.
“Very metal,” Edda said approvingly.
“Tourists are going to eat this up,” Rafe added. “In a metaphorical way.”
Kellan grunted. “It looks like a warning.”
“Good,” Kieran said.
His voice sharpened something under my ribs.
“It needs to be obvious,” he went on. “This is not a playground.”
“You’re sure about putting it here?” I asked, shifting my weight carefully. From up here, I could see everything—the valley spilling out below, my tower’s thin silhouette on the neighboring hill, the faint line of the gravel access road. “It’s visible from the old logging road. Hikers are going to see it.”
“That’s the point,” Mara called. “A story no one sees is just a whisper between ghosts.”
“We should leave some offerings,” Edda said. “Feathers. Bits of cloth. Make it look like a place people already come.”
“Not people,” Rafe corrected. “Us.”
“Us pretending to be people pretending to worship us,” she said. “It’s very postmodern.”
“Post…what,” Kellan muttered.
“Never mind,” I said. “Okay, next piece.”
For the next two hours, we turned an old tree into something out of a horror movie.
Elk ribs wired together into a wind chime that would clack and rattle in the mountain gusts.
Deer antlers lashed to branches so they jutted like extra limbs.
Feathers tied with red-dyed twine—magpie, raven, hawk—fluttering like silent prayers.
We were careful.
No human bones.
Everything scavenged from old kills, what was left after wolves and ravens and time had had their share.
I knew, intellectually, that this was…natural. A rearrangement of what the forest had already given up.
Emotionally, it felt like we were building a shrine and a warning sign and a trap all at once.
“You okay?” Kieran asked quietly the third time I paused, hand resting on the bark, forehead against my arm, breathing harder than the climb warranted.
“Fine,” I lied. “Just…processing the fact that I’m hanging bones in a tree as a PR strategy.”
“That’s not all this is,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “It’s also a giant middle finger to Cassian.”
“That, yes,” he said. “But also…you’re marking. With us.”
Heat crept up my neck.
“I’m not…pack,” I said automatically.
He tilted his head, eyes amber and unreadable. “You’re ours,” he said. “That’s enough.”
My hands went slick on the bark.
“Stop saying things like that when I’m thirty feet in the air,” I muttered. “I’d like to not fall to my death while having a feelings crisis.”
His mouth twitched.
“As you wish, little wolf,” he said.
He stepped back, giving me space.
I exhaled slowly.
“Last one,” Mara called up. “You sure about the…cloth?”
“Yes,” I said. “Humans leave things. Ribbons. Bandanas. It’ll make it look…established. Like this has been here longer than we have.”
“It has,” she murmured.
She handed Edda a strip of white cloth.
Edda tied a simple knot in the middle and passed it up.
I took it.
And froze.
Because it wasn’t standard cotton.
It was…familiar.
Rough but soft.
Green.
I rubbed it between my fingers.
Recognition slid in, late but sharp.
“This is my scarf,” I said. “From the tower.”
“The one you left when we took you,” Rafe said. “We found it in the snow.”
My throat tightened.
“I thought I lost it,” I said.
“You did,” Edda said. “Now you’re finding it again.”
“Cheesy,” I muttered, but my eyes stung.
“What better symbol?” Mara said. “Human cloth. Wolf tree. Border walker’s mark.”
I swallowed hard.
Then, carefully, I tied the scarf around a branch just below the main skull.
A simple knot.
Not fancy.
But as it fluttered in the cold wind, bright against the bleached bone, it felt like…a promise.
Or a claim.
When I climbed down—slowly, carefully, because my knees were not okay with all of this—everyone stepped back to take it in.
From the ground, the bone tree looked…incredible.
And terrifying.
And exactly what we needed it to be.
“Damn,” Rafe said softly. “We did good.”
“It looks like something from a horror game,” Edda said happily.
“It feels like something older,” Mara murmured. “The kind of thing we used to do before we forgot how.”
Kellan grunted. “It’ll get attention.”
“That’s the idea,” I said. “Now we…direct it.”
“Photos,” Rafe said. “We need photos. Mysterious. Grainy. No faces. Just…vibes.”
“Vibes,” Kellan repeated in disgust.
“Young humans respond to vibes,” Edda said. “And thirst traps.”
“Again with the thirst,” Mara sighed.
“We’ll do staged shots,” I said. “From a distance. No clear sign of…you. We can send them to Tyler at the gas station, a couple to the tourism board anonymously. Let the story…leak.”
“The story is already leaking,” Kieran said.
We all went still.
He wasn’t looking at the tree.
He was looking at the northern ridge.
Clouds piled over it, dark and heavy.
Wind shifted.
Brought a scent.
Familiar.
Wrong.
Northridge.
“They’re watching,” he said.
“From where?” I asked, heart rate spiking.
He pointed with his chin.
I squinted.
At first, I saw nothing but trees.
Then—
Movement.
A shadow against the snow.
A flash of fur between trunks.
Too big to be a coyote.
Too purposeful to be a deer.
A wolf.
Black.
Watching.
Even from this distance, I could feel the weight of its gaze.
Not Cassian.
Ronan, maybe.
Or one of his cousins.
“Let them watch,” Edda said, tossing her curls. “We look hot.”
“Edda,” Mara warned.
“What?” she said. “We do. Look at this tree. It’s art.”
Kieran’s shoulders rolled.
“Back to the village,” he said. “We’ve been up here long enough.”
We turned to go.
I lingered for one last look.
The bone tree loomed against the winter sky, my scarf a bright slash among the white and gray.
A shiver climbed my spine.
*You’re doing this,* a voice in my head whispered. *You’re changing things. For better or worse.*
Kieran’s hand brushed my back.
I jumped.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s fine,” I lied.
“You’re shaking,” he said softly.
“It’s cold,” I said.
“It’s not,” he said.
I exhaled.
“I’m…scared,” I admitted. “This feels…big. Like we’re poking a sleeping dragon.”
“We’ve been poking him,” he said. “He’s just finally opening his eyes.”
“Comforting,” I muttered.
He smiled faintly.
“We’re ready,” he said.
“Are we?” I asked.
“No,” he said honestly. “But we will be.”
He took my hand as we headed back down the ridge.
Behind us, the bone tree watched.
And beyond it, in the shadow of the northern peaks, something else watched too.
Waiting.
***
The first human reaction came faster than we expected.
Two days after we built the tree, Tyler texted me a photo.
He’d never actually texted me before. Our communication had always been strictly “pay-for-gas, banter-at-counter.”
But apparently, my “leave your stories” initiative came with side effects.
TYLER, the screen read. Attached: one image.
I tapped.
The photo showed the bone tree from the road—cropped in tight, framed by dark branches.
You could see the elk skull, white and stark. The hanging ribs. The feathers.
And my scarf.
The caption read:
> dude. what the *fuck* did you summon in our woods.
I snorted.
Kieran, leaning over my shoulder, made a curious noise.
“What?” he asked.
I showed him.
His lip twitched. “He has a way with words.”
“He has a way with swearing,” I said.
I typed back.
> local legend. forest art. no demons, I promise. > > tell people to keep their distance.
The dots blinked.
> lol. too late. my sister already wants to go leave a crystal or some shit. > > people are saying it’s a cult. > > glad u found a hobby.
Laughing hurt my chest.
“So it begins,” Rafe said, lounging on the bench by the hearth, cleaning mud off his boots. “Internet fame.”
“It’s not *that* internet-y yet,” I said. “He’s just texting. It’s local.”
“For now,” Edda said, sprawled on the floor with a couple of pups, braiding their hair and explaining the concept of ‘aesthetic.’ “Give it a week.”
“You really think people will…visit?” I asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” she said. “Humans are like crows. Shiny weird thing? They flock.”
“Are you sure this is good?” Kellan rumbled. “Strangers. So close.”
“It’s controlled,” I said. “We know where they’re going. We can watch. Better that than them wandering into the dens by accident.”
“Nothing about this is *controlled,*” Kellan said. “You’re handing them a leash and hoping they tie themselves to the right tree.”
“Trust,” Mara said softly, from her corner by the fire. “Not in them. In us.”
In me, the unspoken addendum.
My stomach flipped.
“Speaking of trust,” Rafe said, tossing a boot into the corner. “I’ve got news from our favorite overcooked Alpha.”
“Cassian?” Kieran asked.
“His pups,” Rafe said. “Ronan and Co. They’ve been sniffing around the old quarry.”
My brain supplied the mental map.
Old quarry: abandoned rock pit near the eastern edge of the valley, where teenagers went to drink, and hunters went to pretend they weren’t trespassing. Good sightlines. Bad cell service.
“What for?” I asked.
“Practice ground,” Rafe said. “Fighting. Running. Testing the line.”
“How close?” Kieran’s voice had gone…flat.
“Too close,” Rafe said. “They’re stepping on our skirts and daring us to react.”
“And the stone?” Mara asked. “Have they touched it?”
“No,” Rafe said. “Not yet. They’re circling. Like hyenas.”
“Hyenas are actually quite—” I began.
Rafe shot me a look.
“Not the time, Doc,” he said.
“Fine,” I muttered.
“We knew this was coming,” Kieran said. “They wouldn’t kill on Kurt’s land and then slink back with their tails tucked. They want…escalation.”
“We’re giving it to them,” Edda said, nodding toward the phone still in my hand. “With our fancy bone art.”
“We’re giving it to humans,” I corrected. “Cassian just…gets the side effects.”
“Side effects are how people die,” Kellan said.
“Side effects are how new things happen,” Edda countered.
“Enough,” Kieran snapped.
Silence fell.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled.
“We stick to the plan,” he said. “We watch. We gather information. We don’t lunge. Not until we have to.”
“And when we have to?” Sage asked quietly.
He met my eyes.
“Then we bite first,” he said.
***