The Wild Hunt of the Black Forest
The Wild Hunt of the Black Forest
The Black Forest whispered with voices not meant for mortal ears. Shadows slithered between ancient oaks as the wind howled like a wolf in mourning. Petunia Evans—cloaked against the eerie cold—stepped carefully over tangled roots and decayed leaves, her Sight flickering between realities. She was close now.
Somewhere in the heart of this eldritch maze, hidden beyond time and mortal reach, lay the lost Chronicle—an artifact inscribed with the ever-shifting fates of Europe. Without it, the continent teetered on the edge of unknowable catastrophe. If it fell into the wrong hands, wars could be waged before they even began, alliances shattered before they were forged. Petunia knew that the Chronicle did not just record history; it shaped it.
But something else stalked the woods tonight.
A horn sounded—a deep, bone-rattling call that cut through the mist-drenched air. The trees shuddered, their boughs bending in deference. A howl, then another. Hoofbeats, faster than any living steed could manage, thundered from all directions.
The Wild Hunt had arrived.
Through the swirling mist, spectral riders emerged, their horses breathing plumes of shadow. Cloaked figures, their eyes burning like embers, surrounded her. And at their head—Wotan, the one-eyed god, his gaze a storm of unknowable power.
“Who dares tread upon our path?” His voice was the grinding of millstones, the whisper of dying stars.
Petunia forced herself to stand tall. “I seek the lost Chronicle,” she declared, her voice steady despite the ice threading through her veins. “I need to retrieve it before it falls into hands that would twist its knowledge.”
A chuckle rippled through the riders, rustling the leaves without a breeze.
“The Chronicle is not freely given,” Wotan intoned. “What will you offer in return?”
The ground trembled. From the shifting glade ahead, visions flickered before her Sight—histories unmade, futures unwritten. The Chronicle held them all. But in this moment, she saw something more: the fates she could bargain away.
The choice struck her like a blade.
She could offer the Hunt a name—a soul marked for their eternal chase. A tyrant unborn, whose coming reign would bring war and ruin. If she sacrificed him now, Europe would be spared his bloodshed.
But the Chronicle also whispered another truth: no tyrant rises alone. Without him, another would take his place, and perhaps this one would be even worse.
Or she could offer herself—run as prey, wager her own fate in the Hunt’s eternal game. If she won, the Chronicle was hers. If she lost… she would never leave this forest again.
Petunia’s mind spun, racing through futures, through lives, through the very fabric of time. She had come seeking knowledge, but now she realized the true price of wielding it.
She inhaled deeply and made her choice.
When Petunia stumbled from the forest at dawn, the Chronicle was clutched tightly in her grasp. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her pulse still pounding with the echo of galloping hooves. But she was whole—alive.
The Hunt had accepted her bargain, but she had outwitted them in a way even they had not foreseen. She had offered not a life, not herself, but a secret—a truth hidden within the Chronicle that even Wotan had not known. The god had laughed, his stormy eye flashing with amusement, and allowed her passage.
As the sun crested the horizon, the weight of what she had learned settled over her. The Chronicle was more than ink and parchment—it was a living force. And now, for the first time, she understood how to wield it.
The world had changed in the night.
And so had she.