When night settled and dinner was done, and I was clearing away the st of the stone tableware, Rocher appeared at the edge of the firelight.

  He stopped there for a second, as if deciding whether to interrupt, then cleared his throat.

  "Cire. Can we talk?"

  My heart kicked hard against my ribs.

  "Yes," I said. "Let's talk."

  I turned back to the table, lifting another pte. Before I could stack it, his hands came in from the side and took it from me.

  He didn't look at me when he did it. Just carried it to the basin and set it down carefully, like this had always been his job.

  For a few seconds, we worked in silence. Stone against stone. Water sloshing. The quiet scrape of his thumb along the rim of a bowl as he rinsed it clean.

  "I've been thinking all day about what I should say," he said finally. "Or ask." A faint huff left him. "Every time I try to rehearse it, it comes out wrong."

  "Then don't rehearse," I said, softer. "I'm here when you are ready."

  He nodded once, still focused on the basin. He looked tired. Not in body, but in spirit. The kind of tired that came from carrying too much alone.

  "It hurt," he said. "Knowing you were keeping something from me." His hands stilled in the water. "But it hurt worse realizing you were doing it to protect me."

  My chest tightened. "I thought I was helping," I said. "All I really did was shut you out."

  He set the bowl aside and finally looked at me.

  "I want to be someone you can trust," he said. "Someone you don't feel like you have to manage."

  The words nded harder than I expected.

  "I do trust you," I said quickly. Then slower, more honest, "I just... don't know how to show it yet. When you pulled away, all I could think was that I'd said too much. That I should have kept more to myself."

  His jaw tightened.

  "I shouldn't have left," he said. "I thought giving you space was the right thing." He shook his head once. "I didn't realize I was leaving you alone with it."

  Something sharp and sudden stung behind my ribs.

  I stepped closer. Close enough to feel his warmth. My hand lifted without thinking, then stopped short of touching him.

  "Seems like we have a lot to figure out," I said, managing a small smile.

  He nodded. "I'm with you. Every step of the way."

  His eyes lifted to mine—uncertain, hopeful, vulnerable in a way that made my breath catch.

  Something warm and aching unfurled under my ribs. He meant it. It wasn't just comfort; it was a promise.

  For a moment, it looked like he might reach for me—just y his hand over mine, or cup my cheek the way he had the night before everything between us broke. I found myself leaning in, just a fraction, hoping——and the world tore open.

  The sound hit us before he could move—a noise I had never heard from Ysel's barrier.

  A high, shrieking note that vibrated through bark and bone like the wail of something ancient being wounded.

  I jerked upright.

  Before I could form a single coherent thought, the ground burst open beneath us, roots twisting and spelling into the dirt:

  BREACH. EASTERN CORRIDOR.

  Then came another shriek. And another. And another. The roots knotted over themselves, desperate to force Ysel's warning into words.

  I felt my stomach flip.

  "They're starting the attack!" I shouted. "Go!"

  The world snapped into motion.

  Nyxara's golems thundered awake. Ferric shot into the trees like an arrow of fire. Seraphine summoned her staff and sprinted into the woods.

  Rocher met my eyes—a single heartbeat where something like apology and promise flickered between us—before he leapt into action.

  I grabbed my gear and ran to join Evelyn.

  "Scouts?" I asked.

  "No. Judging by the volume, it's a full-scale assault."

  "It's too early," I muttered. "Looks like your ploy didn't buy us that much time."

  Evelyn didn't get the chance to answer.

  Another shriek split the air. The next vine-message carved itself into the soil at our feet.

  I drew a breath, steeling myself.

  "That's our cue. Time to go, Evelyn."

  Orders shattered the moment the ground moved.

  A captain shouted for shield formation, voice cracking as the earth itself lurched beneath his feet. The call was echoed—then contradicted—then lost entirely as roots tore through the ranks, splitting men apart before lines could settle.

  Holy wards fred instinctively, triggered by proximity and motion rather than intent. Pale light shed outward, striking bark and leaf and empty air while the real threat surged from below. One padin went down screaming as his ankle vanished into the earth, armor ringing uselessly as he cwed at roots that tightened like fists.

  The sanctification surged unevenly. Tightening in some pces. Thinning in others as distant invocations overpped out of sync. Whatever was maintaining the cordon was responding—but blindly.

  The witches gave them no time to adapt.

  Nyxara's golems burst from the treeline along the western slope, their stone bodies emerging from shadow into sudden spell-light.

  They moved faster than anything that size should, stone limbs pumping with relentless momentum. The first collided with the padin front like a siege ram. Shields caved. Bodies lifted off the ground and scattered, armor shrieking as it tore through moss and undergrowth slick with night dew.

  Seraphine saw the opening.

  She flung her hands forward and ripped lightning out of the air. Then adjusted on instinct, fingers twitching as she redirected the fork of lightning away from the sanctified ground beneath their feet and into the shield wall instead.

  The bst struck steel, not flesh—enough to overload the warding runes etched into the metal without turning bodies into ash.

  It would have been easier to let it burn hotter.

  She swallowed the thought and cast again.

  The bolt split into three jagged forks mid-flight, smming into the clustered ranks and turning night briefly into blinding white. Holy resistance fred, pale and stubborn, but it could not absorb that much force at once. The magic sputtered. Failed. Armor glowed white-hot in the darkness, heat bleeding through steel. One padin screamed as he fell, convulsing, smoke curling up into the bck canopy.

  Ice followed lightning.

  Not a careful weave. Not restraint. Raw, brutal cold poured from her palms, fsh-freezing shields, locking joints, frosting breath solid in lungs that already burned in the chill night air. A man staggered backward, visor fogged white, panic visible even through steel.

  She felt it then. That familiar pull. The way her magic always wanted more than she gave it.

  She shoved the feeling down and struck again.

  A padin dropped to one knee, shaking. His gaze flicked wildly through the flickering spell-light between the chaos around him and his own hands. Then his fingers went to his belt.

  Seraphine's heart stuttered.

  The phial gleamed briefly, catching reflected firelight, already half free of its csp.

  A sharp whistle cut through the battlefield.

  Something small and fast plunged from the canopy above him, barely more than a shadow against the night. A bird-shaped golem smmed into the padin's hands, metal talons tearing the phial free with a ringing snap. It spun end over end through the dark.

  Her hand caught it. The phial smashed under her boot heel.

  Seraphine exhaled a breath she had not realized she was holding as the bird wheeled away, already searching for another target.

  Through the fog of ice and steam, gold light fred near the broken edge of the padin line.

  She caught a glimpse of Rocher for just a second, already moving terally along the cordon's outer edge.

  They nodded at each other once before he disappeared back into the treeline.

  I felt the battle before I saw it.

  The Forest beyond the cordon pulsed with violent light, lightning flickering through the canopy to the west, fire reflecting off armor to the south, the ground shuddering under the weight of golems. Sound carried wrong here, muffled and sharp at the same time, like listening through water.

  We were already moving east, inside the cordon.

  Evelyn flowed ahead of me, low and silent, bdes loose in her hands. I kept my crossbow leveled, breath slow, senses stretched thin against the sanctified pressure crawling over my skin.

  A mage stumbled into view between the trees, eyes widening as he spotted us.

  His mouth opened.

  I fired.

  The dart struck his throat and burst into choking dust. He cwed at the air, gagging, spell unraveling before it could form.

  Evelyn was on him in an instant. One sharp strike to the base of the skull and he crumpled, breathing but unconscious.

  She did not slow. Just flicked her gaze back at me. "There's no time to waste. We have to keep going."

  "I know," I said, my feet already moving.

  Behind us, the battle roared. Ahead of us, the Forest y taut and watchful, paths bending subtly under sanctified strain.

  Somewhere inside this cordon, the machine behind this operation was still running.

  And we were going to find it.

  The enemy came for him together.

  Three padins broke from formation and charged downslope after him, weapons raised, holy symbols bzing like beacons in the night. Their boots crushed undergrowth as they closed, confident, relentless.

  Rocher did not retreat.

  Cire's voice echoed in his memory, calm and precise, as if she stood beside him instead of somewhere deep inside enemy lines.

  Listen first. Then act. Move not with momentum, but purpose. Understanding.

  He drew in a breath.

  The world sharpened.

  Gold light ignited along his arms and legs, runes fring to life beneath his skin and throwing hard-edged shadows across the forest floor. The air trembled around him, pressure rippling outward like a held breath finally released.

  The first padin swung.

  Rocher stepped inside the arc and struck with an open palm. Spirit-infused force detonated through armor and muscle. The man dropped instantly, weapon cttering away into the darkness as his body went limp.

  The second tried to grapple him, shield-first.

  Rocher ducked, swept the man's legs, and drove a glowing knee into his chest. The impact punched the breath clean out of him. He folded with a strangled gasp, eyes wide and reflective in the spell-light, hands scrabbling uselessly at the ground.

  The third padin hesitated.

  Just long enough.

  His hand went for his belt.

  Rocher moved without thinking.

  He caught the wrist, twisted, and snapped the phial free in one smooth motion. It shattered under his heel a heartbeat ter, gss crunching softly beneath his boot, lost beneath the rger roar of battle.

  It was working.

  The magic did not tear at him. It did not resist. It flowed, clean and responsive, every movement precise. He struck tendons, joints, nerve clusters exactly how Cire had wanted. Nonlethal. But final.

  When the st padin fell, groaning but alive, Rocher stood alone for a single stolen breath beneath the dark canopy.

  His pulse thundered. His hands shook faintly.

  Cire.

  The thought steadied him. His anchor. His compass. The one who had believed he could do this before he ever had.

  Behind him, voices rose, carrying strangely through the night.

  Rocher did not stay to watch.

  As he fled deeper downslope into the trees, shadows swallowing him almost immediately, he heard it.

  Shouting. Confusion. Rescue reserves were already moving in, nterns bobbing as they knelt, grunting, dragging wounded bodies back into encampment. The cadence of their movement frayed, overpping instead of reinforcing.

  Just as she'd predicted, the machine had begun choking on its own mercy.

  Behind us, the vestiges of war continued to rage.

  But Evelyn and I were in deep now, behind enemy lines—executing our part of the pn.

  We followed a supply trail until it split.

  Most of the carts and porters were being redirected west toward the wounded, exactly as expected. Priests shouted orders, hands full, attention dragged outward by the bodies piling up.

  But not all of them.

  A smaller line peeled away to the east, quieter, better guarded.

  No urgency. But just as purposeful.

  I slowed, crouching low, and traced the tracks with my eyes. Reinforced axles. Extra warding sigils worked into the wood.

  Evelyn followed my gaze. "That's not a simple resupply."

  "No," I murmured. "That's our lead."

  The sanctified pressure shifted again, thinning just enough that I felt it brush past instead of press in. Somewhere behind us, priests were being pulled from the cordon faster than they could compensate.

  The machine was straining.

  I rose, heart steadying despite the noise of battle bleeding through the trees.

  Evelyn's smile was sharp and feral. "Let's hurry before we lose it."

  We slipped after the trail, deeper into the cordon, while behind us the war adapted around the damage we had already done.