The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis
Chapter 75: Blood In The Air

Chapter 75: Blood In The Air

The fire had burned to white ash by the time I stirred. The sky above us stretched in pale bands of dawn—soft blue bleeding into gold, thin clouds like gauze. It should have felt calm. It didn’t.

Shadow stood at the edge of the ridge, his body still and ears high. Not tense. Not relaxed. Just... watching.

I sat up slowly, unrolling the stiffness from my spine as I pushed the blanket from my lap. The ground was cold, but dry. The kind of cold that didn’t bite unless you let it, and I didn’t.

Yaozu was already awake, crouched near the horses, checking the cinch on the saddles with slow, practiced fingers. He moved like he always moved—efficient, quiet, dangerous. A man built for shadow, for silence, for finishing what others couldn’t.

He didn’t greet me, and I didn’t expect him to.

I stood and walked toward the remains of our camp, brushing dust from my sleeves. The traps hadn’t been disturbed. The perimeter wire still hummed faintly when I passed it. The night had been still.

But I hated stillness.

We ate without speaking. Just the remains of rice and dried plum, water sipped from the same canteen. Yaozu glanced at me once as I packed the wire back into its pouch. I caught the look but didn’t return it.

Shadow fell into step without a sound when we mounted. No command. No call. Just a presence, large and dark and fluid at my side as we headed south.

For the first hour, we moved without pause. The grassland rose and fell like waves around us, soft and sun-warmed. The air smelled faintly of wildflowers and old stone. It was the kind of landscape that lulled people into forgetting where they were.

But I didn’t forget.

It started with the wind. A shift in scent—earth, then blood.

I reined in without a word. Yaozu mirrored me instantly, his hand resting near his belt, not drawing, not threatening. Just ready.

Shadow lifted his head, nostrils flaring.

We crested the next ridge and saw the first carrion bird.

It stood atop a broken spear haft, black feathers slick in the sun, beak stained red. More crows circled above, wheeling low in tight spirals.

Then came the stench.

Burnt meat. Blood. Human waste. A battlefield left to rot.

I dismounted, boots striking dry ground, and moved forward on foot. Yaozu said nothing, but I heard him follow. Shadow fanned out ahead, silent as always.

They hadn’t even tried to hide it.

Bodies lay scattered through the grass like discarded tools—some still in their Daiyu scout uniforms, others half-naked, stripped of gear. One man was bent backward over a rock, his spine snapped clean. Another had his throat cut so deep, his head hung by threads of muscle.

Yaozu crouched beside one of them. "Clean strikes. Fast. No panic."

"Military."

He nodded. "Chixia?"

I moved to the center of the field. There were no blood trails. No wounded who tried to crawl away. Just a precise, surgical slaughter. A strike meant to eliminate, not send a message.

Except they had sent one. Just not with words.

They’d left the corpses in the open.

Not hidden. Not burned. Just there. Meat for the crows.

I crouched beside the smallest body.

A boy. Sixteen, maybe. Still had some baby fat in his cheeks.

His fingers were curled toward his chest, like he’d been reaching for something as he died.

I gently pulled them open.

A coin. Not imperial. Too clean. Chixia minting. I slid it into my sleeve.

Behind me, Shadow let out a low rumble.

There was a broken blade nearby, half-buried in the dirt. The edge was clean, no rust, no wear. Not something I’d leave behind.

I picked it up.

"Standard Chixia short sword," announced Yaozu, walking over to where I stood staring at the weapon. "Their scouts used these—flat blades, slightly curved, light enough to throw and sharp enough to destroy everything in its path."

I turned it once in my hand, then called the metal to me, letting it melt into my very skin.

"Waste not, want not," I said with a smile. You couldn’t even see where the metal was.

Yaozu nodded but said nothing.

We moved through the field slowly, gathering what could be salvaged—strips of cloth, twisted rings, belt buckles, blades too dull to use but still worth smelting.

Shadow stayed back, circling the site like a warding flame.

When we’d finished, I stood at the center again and pulled my hand out of my cloak.

My palm opened.

A small flame bloomed in the center of my fingers, flickering like a candle wick before it grew.

I didn’t throw it.

I set it down—on the grass, on the flesh, on the broken remnants of what had been men.

And then I stepped back.

Fire swept outward like breath.

It didn’t roar. It didn’t scream. It consumed.

It took the bodies, the blood, the torn uniforms. It took the memories. It left no bone behind.

Just black ash curling into the sky.

Yaozu stood beside me as it burned, arms crossed over his chest, saying nothing.

I didn’t speak either.

There was no prayer in me.

Only purpose.

We mounted again when the field was black and quiet.

The smoke followed us for a time, trailing through the sky like a ribbon of ink.

"They were too clean," I said after a while. "Too fast. This wasn’t a raid."

Yaozu’s voice was calm. "Scouts ahead of a larger force."

I nodded once. "They’re not testing the borders anymore."

"They’re here."

We rode in silence for a while.

Then I muttered, almost to myself, "Next time, they’ll leave nothing behind."

And neither would I.

The smoke faded behind us as the sun climbed higher, burning the dew off the grass and stretching shadows to nothing. The road ahead curved gently to the southeast, framed by distant brush and low, brittle hills. It should have looked peaceful.

It didn’t.

A set of wheel ruts appeared about half a mile later, veering from the main path and disappearing into the tall grass. Not deep enough for supply carts. Not fresh enough to follow without effort. But they were there, pressed just enough to be seen by someone trained to look.

Yaozu spotted them at the same moment I did. He slowed slightly, brow furrowing.

"Two carts," he murmured. "No escort."

"No horses, either," I said. "Or if there were, they didn’t last long."

I scanned the horizon. There was no movement. No birds. No sound.

The grass looked undisturbed—but that meant nothing. The plains here were like skin—too easy to bruise, too hard to read.

We didn’t follow the tracks.

Not yet.

Instead, we kept riding forward. Eyes sharp. Hands ready.

Shadow took the lead now, drifting just ahead of us like a spearhead. His ears were flat, head low. Not alert. Focused.

I watched the way the light moved across the ground, the way the color of the land changed from gold to gray to something almost sickly green. It was subtle. Easy to miss. The kind of thing only the mountains had taught me to notice.

"I’ll sleep tonight," I said.

Yaozu raised a brow, almost amused. "Generous of you."

"Not generosity. Strategy. I want to see what my mind makes of this place when I’m not awake."

He nodded once.

We didn’t speak again for miles.

But the road ahead had changed.

And whether we saw it or not, something had already seen us.