The pale grey light of morning crept through the gaps in the hut's leather walls, carrying the thin, cold air of the mountain. I lay still for a moment, staring at the smoke-darkened beams above me, my body heavy with the sleep that hadn't come until the stars were already fading.

The door flap flew open.

"Almerus!"

Elaina's voice cut through the dim like a blade. She stood silhouetted against the brighter light outside, her blond braid swinging as she bounced on her heels.

"Tomorrow's our Rak-Tah celebration! Tonight we get to go out on our very first hunt!"

She was gone before I could answer, the flap slapping back into place, leaving me in the grey quiet. Her footsteps faded, quick and light, already carrying her toward whatever else needed her attention.

I sat up slowly. The furs pooled around my waist, and the cold bit at my bare shoulders. Across the hut, the small polished bronze hanging on the wall caught the thin light. I swung my legs over the edge of the sleeping platform and stood, crossing the packed earth floor.

The mirror showed me what I already knew. Red-rimmed eyes. Dark crescents beneath them. My hair stood in tangled tufts, and my face looked thinner than it had a season ago. I'd spent the night turning, counting breaths, listening to the wind scrape against the hide walls. Restless.

I reached for the water jug beside the wash basin. Heavy. I poured into the clay bowl, the splash loud in the quiet hut, and bent to cup the water in my hands. Cold. Sharp against my skin. I pressed my palms to my face and held them there, letting the cold sink in, letting it pull me the rest of the way awake.

I splashed again. Then again. The water dripped down my chin, onto my chest. I ran wet fingers through my hair, pushing it back, and took a breath that felt like the first proper one of the day.

The leathers hung from a wooden peg beside my sleeping platform.

I hadn't looked at them since the night Mother brought them in, folded and pressed, stitched with the care that only her hands could give. Stitched from the hunts of our parents. Father's kill, Mother's needle. The leather was darker than the wool and cloth I wore every day—a deep, oiled brown that caught the light differently depending on how you turned it. Stiffer, too. Less forgiving.

I reached out and touched the sleeve. The leather was cool and smooth, the stitching tight and even. Along the collar, a thin line of darker hide ran like a thread through the whole piece—a boar hide, I remembered, from a hunt Father had told us about when we were small. The one that had taken him three days to track.

I pulled them off the peg.

The leathers hung heavy in my hands. I stepped into the legs first, drawing them up, feeling the unfamiliar stiffness against my skin. The waist tied with a hide cord, and I pulled it tight, adjusting the fit. Then the tunic. The leather creaked as I shrugged it on, the shoulders broad enough, the sleeves snug around my arms. I fastened the side straps one by one, working them through the small bronze rings.

It fit. Of course it fit. Mother had measured me three times.

But it didn't feel like mine. Not yet. It felt like something I was wearing, not something I was. Like the leather remembered being part of something else and hadn't decided to become part of me.

I ran my hand down the front, feeling the grain. The leather was smooth in some places, rougher in others, marked by the life it had lived before. A faint scratch near the collar. A darker patch on the left shoulder. I wondered if Father had worn it. If the scratch was from a branch in the deep woods, or from a blade that had come too close.

I buckled the arm bracer next. Leather over leather, the old wood-and-hide guard strapped tight to my forearm. It was worn smooth from use—not ceremonial. A tool. Something that had been broken in long before me.

Behind me, the staff leaned against the wall where I'd left it the night before. Ash wood, dark with age and handling, as tall as my shoulder. The leather grip near the center was worn smooth by my palm. I picked it up, feeling the familiar weight settle into my hand. It was second nature now, the balance of it, the way it moved with me like an extension of my arm.

My bow hung from another peg, beside the quiver. I checked the string—taut, good—and slung both over my shoulder. The fletching on the arrows brushed my neck as they settled into place.

I turned back to the mirror.

The person staring back was different from the one who had woken up. The leathers changed the shape of him. Broader in the shoulders. Tougher. The red in his eyes was still there, but it looked less like exhaustion now and more like the stillness before a storm. He looked like someone who was about to go on his first hunt.

I didn't know if I felt like that person. But I was wearing his skin now.

The hut felt smaller with the leathers on. I could smell the hide, the oil, the faint trace of smoke that clung to everything in the village. I could hear the sounds of morning outside—the low murmur of voices, the clank of a pot, the distant bark of someone calling a name. Life moving forward. The village waking up to the day before Rak-Tah.

I ran my thumb along the edge of my bracer. The leather was warm now. Warming to my body.

Elaina would be outside already. Probably at the practice grounds, running through forms with her twin swords, not because she needed the practice but because she couldn't sit still before something important. She had always been like that. The hunt tonight wasn't just a hunt—it was the proof. The moment when the village would look at us and see adults.

She had woken me like it was a gift. Like the hunt was something to run toward.

I touched the leather over my chest. The stitching held firm. The boar hide was a dark line against the lighter brown, a reminder that the people who made this had done more than sew. They had hunted. They had killed. They had brought back meat and hide and bone, and they had turned it into this.

I picked up the water jug again and took a long drink. Cold water ran down my throat, settling something in my chest that had been restless all night. Then I set the jug down, adjusted the bow on my shoulder, and gripped my staff.

The door flap was still where Elaina had left it, hanging slightly open. I could see a sliver of the village beyond—the worn paths, the other huts, the cooking fires sending thin columns of smoke into the pale sky. The air smelled of woodsmoke and pine and the damp earth of early morning.

I stepped through.

The light hit me full in the face, and I blinked against it. The village was already stirring. Old Man Renn was outside his hut, feeding kindling into a fire pit. A group of children were chasing each other near the center post. Farther down, near the practice grounds, I could see a flash of blond hair moving in quick, controlled arcs.

Elaina.

She was already in her leathers. The same deep brown as mine, cut to her frame, the stitching following the same patterns. Her twin swords were out, catching the morning light as she moved through a sequence—turn, strike, pivot, block—her body flowing from one position to the next without pause. She looked like she belonged in those leathers. Like they had always been hers.

I started walking toward her. The leathers creaked with each step, the stiffness gradually giving way to the rhythm of my movement. The staff tapped against the packed earth. Somewhere behind me, a door flap opened and a voice called out a greeting.

Elaina saw me before I reached her. She stopped mid-sequence, her swords dropping to her sides, and she grinned.

"You look like yourself," she said.

I stopped a few paces away. "I look like I haven't slept."

"No." She shook her head, stepping closer. The grin softened into something quieter. "You look like you're ready."

I didn't answer. I looked down at the leathers, at the way the light played across the grain. Then I looked up at my sister, already sharp and certain in her own skin.

"Tonight," I said. Not a question.

"Tonight." She sheathed one sword, then the other, the blades sliding home with a sound I knew as well as my own breathing. "First hunt. First kill. Then tomorrow, Rak-Tah."

"And then?"

Elaina tilted her head, her braid swinging. "Then we're not children anymore."

I felt the weight of the leathers, the bow, the staff. All of it pressed against me, not heavy, not light. Just present. Just real.

"Come on," she said, and she was already turning, already moving toward the edge of the village where the trees began. "Father wants to see us before the sun climbs any higher."

I followed.

The leathers creaked with each step. The bow shifted against my shoulder. The staff found the earth and lifted, found and lifted, a rhythm that steadied me as I walked into the morning light beside my sister, toward whatever the hunt would bring.