Ressa’s feet hurt.

  Not the sharp kind—the dull ache that meant the blisters had already broken and were forming again. She shifted the pack on her shoulders and kept walking.

  Ahead, Maurik moved through the trees with the quiet confidence of someone who understood paths that weren’t meant to be seen. Behind her, the elder’s staff tapped—stone, then soil, then root. The rhythm changed with the ground.

  Pip walked at her side, small hand wrapped around two of Ressa’s fingers.

  “Tired,” Pip said.

  “I know.”

  “When do we stop?”

  “Soon.”

  Pip had asked that question four times already. Ressa had not lied yet.

  The forest pressed close here, thick enough that Ressa couldn’t see Big Mama. She knew the watcher was out there—circling, listening—but knowing wasn’t the same as seeing. Not with the trees this tight.

  Her pack strap bit into her shoulder. She adjusted it without slowing.

  Pip’s hand slipped free.

  Ressa turned. “Stay close.”

  Pip nodded, already distracted by something near the roots of a fallen tree. A cluster of pale mushrooms. A beetle. Ressa didn’t know. Children found small wonders in places adults no longer looked.

  Pip crouched.

  Ressa opened her mouth—

  The scream tore through the forest.

  High. Short. Wrong.

  Ethan was moving before he understood what he’d heard.

  His hand found his sword as his mind caught up, the grimoire forgotten where it had fallen. “Maurik!” The name tore out of his throat.

  The hunter was already sprinting, bow in hand. Krill came from the left, blade drawn.

  Ethan crashed through undergrowth, branches clawing at his cloak. Wet leaves sent his boots sliding as he broke into a small clearing.

  Ressa stood frozen, arms outstretched toward empty air.

  Blood darkened the soil. Fresh. Too bright.

  A torn pack lay where it had fallen.

  Drag marks cut into the earth, leading toward the trees.

  At the treeline—

  Gray fur.

  Yellow eyes.

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  Something small and limp hanging from massive jaws.

  The wolf backed away without urgency, step by step, never breaking eye contact.

  Ethan’s sword was already in his hand. He didn’t remember drawing it.

  “No,” Azrael said sharply. “Don’t.”

  He took one step forward.

  “Ethan—”

  The wolf vanished into the undergrowth. The forest closed around it like water.

  Maurik lowered his bow, breath tight. “Too late.”

  The words didn’t echo. They didn’t need to.

  Ethan stared at the treeline. Then at Ressa, who hadn’t moved. Hadn’t made a sound since that first scream.

  Krill spoke quietly. “Big Mama?”

  “Wrong side,” Maurik said. “Too far.”

  Azrael appeared at Ethan’s shoulder, her voice low. “You need to move them. Now. Before the rest of the pack circles back.”

  Ethan swallowed. “Regroup.”

  Maurik barked orders in Goblin. The scattered line pulled together, tighter, fear threading through every movement. Big Mama arrived at a run, the ground trembling beneath her weight, head snapping toward the scent trail.

  Too late.

  They walked another hour. No one spoke.

  They stopped only when the elder stumbled and didn’t rise quickly enough. Maurik called the halt without looking at Ethan.

  The camp was poorly chosen—too open, too exposed—but they needed to stop before something else broke.

  Fire was lit. Ethan didn’t see who did it.

  He stood at the edge of the clearing, sword still in hand, watching the dark.

  Ressa sat near the fire, staring at nothing.

  Ethan approached slowly.

  “Ressa—”

  She stood so fast he barely had time to brace.

  For a heartbeat, she only looked at him. Her eyes were dry.

  Then she struck him.

  Her fist hit his chest—no force behind it. The next blow came harder. Then another. She hit wherever she could reach, wild and uneven.

  Ethan didn’t move.

  Behind him, someone started forward.

  “No,” ethan said sharply in Common. Then, in Goblin, something firm enough to stop them.

  Ressa kept hitting him. The strikes lost strength, turned desperate.

  “You see everything,” she gasped. Another weak blow. “You brought the watcher. You were supposed to—”

  Her voice broke.

  “She was right there.” Her hands dropped. “I turned for one breath. One.”

  She collapsed forward. Ethan caught her, holding her upright as her body shook.

  “I hate you,” she whispered into his chest.

  “I know.”

  “This is your fault.”

  “Yes.”

  The sound she made next wasn’t words. It was grief with no shape left to give it.

  “She was five,” Ressa choked. “She liked when I hummed. She—she—”

  The sentence never finished.

  Ethan held her while she cried. No one spoke. The fire cracked softly. Big Mama’s eyes reflected orange from the dark.

  Eventually the sobbing faded into uneven breaths. Then into nothing.

  Ressa pulled away, wiping her face with shaking hands.

  “I can’t forgive you,” she said.

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  She looked at him once more, then turned and went back to the fire. The others made space for her and closed it again.

  Ethan stood alone.

  Azrael hovered nearby. Silent.

  His hands were steady. That felt wrong.

  The night passed without sleep.

  They moved before dawn.

  No one spoke of what had happened. The line tightened—children in the center, hunters wide, Big Mama closer now, her patrols shorter and faster.

  Ethan walked at the back.

  The forest deepened. Game trails appeared and vanished. Twice they heard wolves. Each time, the group froze until the sound faded.

  By midday they reached a river, fast and cold. Maurik and Krill found a narrowing upstream and rigged a rope.

  Ethan helped from the far side, hauling each goblin through the current.

  The elder fell twice. The second time, it took longer for him to stand.

  “We need to stop,” Ethan said.

  “Not here,” Maurik replied.

  “I can,” the elder said. Thin voice. Unyielding. “Move.”

  They did.

  At dusk, the trees opened onto a defensible clearing—rock on one side, dense growth on the others.

  Maurik surveyed it. “Here.”

  They made camp.

  A child asked where Pip was.

  The answer came softly. Final.

  Ethan looked away.

  Azrael settled beside him. “How much farther?”

  “Four days,” he said. “Maybe five.”

  “They won’t last at this pace.”

  “I know.”

  “So?”

  Ethan watched the firelight flicker across exhausted faces. “We keep moving.”

  Azrael didn’t argue.

  Across the fire, Ressa met his eyes once. No forgiveness. No trust. Just shared weight.

  She looked away first.

  Ethan took watch.

  Somewhere behind them, the cave was ash.

  Ahead lay something else.

  The forest swallowed them.

  And the story moved with it.