In deep winter near Prythian’s border, the unnamed mortal narrator hunts far from home, driven by her family’s starvation. Perched in a tree with poor visibility and warnings of giant wolves in mind, she relocates to brambles by a brook, hoping prey will come despite the storm.

As the snowfall calms, a young doe appears to strip bark. The narrator calculates how the meat and hide could sustain her family. Before she can shoot, an enormous, eerily silent wolf emerges, moving with unnatural stealth that suggests it might be fae.

Balancing fear against necessity, she chooses her rare mountain ash arrow with an iron head, reputed to disrupt fae magic. She fires into the wolf’s side to save the doe’s carcass, then, seeing awareness in the wolf’s gaze, looses a second, ordinary arrow through its eye.

The wolf collapses, whining before going still. Examining the body, the narrator decides it is indeed just a wolf despite its size, and takes grim solace that the ash arrow proved lethal. She confirms she can carry only one carcass and chooses the doe.

Risking time and predators, she skins the wolf, cleans her arrows, and wraps the bloody side of the pelt around the doe’s wound to mask the scent. Hefting the deer for the long trek, she leaves the wolf’s carcass behind without remorse, focused solely on survival.