We followed the wagon for nearly an hour before it did anything worth noting.

  That alone was information.

  No shouted orders. No escorts cycling in and out. No signal fres or runners. Just a steady roll through ground the fighting had barely touched. The forest here was quieter, its undergrowth intact, roots unbroken. The cart never slowed, never hesitated, never checked its surroundings.

  Behind us, the war chewed through men and mana.

  Ahead of us, it did not.

  The cart slipped off the main path and into narrower nes that looked natural at first gnce. But the wheels were warded against snagging, and the ruts were too shallow for the weight it carried. Someone had reinforced this route carefully, then gone to great lengths to make it look accidental.

  Evelyn kept pace beside me, her steps falling where mine already had. "This is it."

  "It has to be," I said.

  The wagon crested a low rise and dipped into a shallow bowl of nd where the trees bent inward, canopy knitting overhead. Lantern-light flickered ahead, hooded and sparse. Tents clustered where the ground allowed rather than where defense would have dictated.

  I slowed.

  Six guards, moving in overpping loops. No fixed posts. No shieldline. The ntern cones barely touched, leaving irregur pockets of shadow between them.

  And at the center—

  There.

  The pylon rose from the earth like a white column, its surface smooth and unmarred except for the sanctified runes carved into it in strict, repeating bands. It glowed with steady, disciplined light.

  Its holy appearance belied the truth of what it was: a weapon that made other violence possible.

  I exhaled slowly.

  They had hidden it well.

  The camp around it was thin. No reserves visible. No Night Wardens. Just enough presence to keep priests working and nothing more.

  This was not a position meant to be fought over. Not yet, at least.

  The wagon rolled straight toward the pylon, angling through a narrow gap between tents where the light dimmed further. The driver shifted on his seat, boards creaking softly under his weight.

  I slowed and lifted two fingers, palm down.

  Hold.

  Evelyn nodded once without looking at me, eyes still on the patrol loop to our left.

  We let the cart close the distance.

  The pylon's hum set my teeth on edge as we matched its pace, steps measured, breath controlled. The warding on the wheels fred faintly as it crossed the camp's perimeter.

  I closed my hand.

  Evelyn moved immediately.

  She vaulted for the rear axle, catching it cleanly and swinging beneath the cart in one smooth motion. I followed a heartbeat ter, hands stinging as I grabbed hold, boots skimming dirt.

  We rode like that in silence, bodies tucked tight, letting the wagon carry us through the st stretch of open ground.

  When it slowed again, Evelyn dropped and vanished into shadow. I followed, hitting the earth and going ft as the cart rolled on without pause.

  No shout. No arm.

  The camp breathed on, unaware.

  I crawled beneath a half-colpsed supply rack and did not move again until my pulse slowed. From here, the pylon's glow backlit the clearing, throwing long shadows that would silhouette anyone approaching.

  Good.

  I could see them before they saw me.

  The pylon loomed close enough now that I could make out hairline fractures in the sanctified stone, fine cracks spidering where the stress of usage had already begun to show.

  Evelyn appeared at my left without a sound, eyes bright, grin sharp. "In position."

  "Yes," I whispered. "So far, so good."

  I shifted, settling into cover, eyes on the pylon, counting guards, counting the seconds between patrol passes.

  Here, the machine waited—quiet, confident, and entirely unprepared for what was coming.

  All we needed was an opening. Now it was up to the others to give us one.

  The cordon swallowed them in pale light.

  Rocher lurched forward, driving through the thick of the underbrush.

  He didn't know whether it was the sanctification or the Forest Guardian's blessing or both, but it was working. Seraphine choked as the corruption was scoured from her veins, the bck retreating painfully fast.

  But he felt the loss immediately.

  The magic in his limbs guttered and went dark, runes fading as if they had never been there.

  His legs buckled.

  Not colpse. Not failure. Just the sudden, brutal truth of his body asserting itself. Muscle screamed where it should have obeyed. His left thigh seized hard enough to steal his breath; his calf burned like it had been fyed. The strength that usually answered his will simply... wasn't there.

  "Damn it," he breathed.

  Every step after that nded heavier. Slower. The ground seemed to tilt against him. He staggered, caught himself, forced another pace forward anyway.

  Seraphine writhed in his arms, a sharp, involuntary sound as the st of the corruption burned out of her veins. She sagged fully then, dead weight, fingers cwing weakly at his shoulder.

  "Rocher—" she tried.

  "Hold on," he grunted, though he could already feel the lie in it.

  Steel rang behind him. Boots hit the boundary and did not slow.

  He didn't look back. He couldn't afford the distraction.

  His knee gave a second warning tremor. Pain spiked up his spine, white and blinding, and for the first time since the fighting began he understood, with perfect crity, that if he kept moving like this he would go down hard—and take her with him.

  So he stopped.

  Rocher lowered Seraphine to the ground as gently as his shaking arms allowed, easing her back against the base of a tree. He stripped his grip from her with visible effort, fingers slow to uncurl.

  She blinked up at him, unfocused but conscious now, breath coming in uneven pulls.

  He stepped forward, pnting himself between her and the sound of the oncoming footfalls.

  No magic this time.

  Just muscle, breath, and stubborn refusal.

  A rustle.

  The first Night Warden struck fast, bde angling for his throat.

  Rocher caught the wrist in one hand. Pain fred up his forearm as he twisted, the joint giving with a crack. The bde fell. Rocher kicked it away without looking and drove his shoulder into the man's chest, hurling him backward into another Warden.

  They hit the ground together in a tangle of limbs.

  The second Warden came in low. Rocher took the blow on his forearm, pain ncing white-hot up to his shoulder, and answered with a headbutt that snapped the man's helm back and dropped him ft.

  More came.

  They moved well. Coordinated. Trained to exploit openings, to overwhelm through angles and numbers. Any other man would already have been on the ground.

  But he couldn't afford to be a man. He had to be a wall.

  A bde gnced off his ribs. He ignored it. A crossbow butt smmed into his shoulder. He absorbed the impact and broke the weapon across his knee.

  Breath burned in his lungs. Pain bloomed and yered. His arms shook with the strain.

  Still, no one got past him.

  The Night Wardens began to adjust.

  They backed off a step. Spread wider. Tried to pull him away from Seraphine, to draw him out of position.

  Rocher didn't follow.

  He stayed exactly where he was.

  A bolt fired and bit deep into his thigh. He staggered, vision fshing white—but caught himself before he fell.

  Something burned wrong beneath the pain.

  Poison.

  Rocher shoved the thought aside and drove forward anyway. He lifted one Warden clear off the ground and threw him bodily into two more, sending all three crashing into the undergrowth.

  They hesitated.

  Just a fraction.

  Then—

  White.

  The air snapped. A fsh of sanctified fire lit the night sky, from the direction he'd entered the cordon.

  He held his breath, recognizing it at once—the same signature Cire had shown them.

  The forward pylon was down. And with it, the cordon.

  The pressure vanished so abruptly it felt like being hauled out of deep water.

  Behind him, Seraphine inhaled sharply.

  Her next spell tore through the clearing like a scream.

  Ice and lightning braided together, smming into the Wardens in a violent surge that sent bodies flying, armor smoking as they hit the ground.

  Rocher froze for half a heartbeat.

  Her magic was clean.

  Unfettered.

  Runes fred back to life along his arms and legs—brighter, steadier than before.

  He ughed once, sharp and breathless.

  Fear bloomed openly now.

  The Night Wardens looked at each other. Looked at him. And understood.

  Rocher surged forward.

  He disarmed one with a twist of the wrist and a snap that left the man screaming on the ground. He drove another into the dirt and pinned him there with one massive boot until the man stopped struggling. A third tried to flee—Rocher caught him by the back of the armor and smmed him down hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.

  Seraphine moved with him now, spell and strike interlocking. She froze one mid-step just long enough for Rocher to knock him unconscious. She bsted another off bance, and Rocher sent him sprawling with a single punch.

  They cleared the space together.

  Not one of the remaining Wardens dared rise again.

  When it was over, Rocher stood amid the fallen, chest heaving, fists still clenched.

  He turned back to Seraphine.

  She was standing.

  Shaking. Bleeding. Furious.

  But alive.

  She wiped blood from her lip and shot him a look that was half feral, half triumphant.

  "Next time," she rasped, "don't stand in my line of fire."

  Rocher grinned, wild and unsteady. "Deal."

  The cordon failed with a sound like a breath being let out too fast.

  The sanctified pressure didn't vanish so much as slip—pulling away from the forest in uneven sheets, leaving the air thin and raw in its wake. I felt it immediately. The weight I had learned to brace against simply wasn't there.

  For the first time since we'd entered the camp, the machine was exposed.

  Ysel. Nyxara and Ferric. Rocher and Seraphine.

  They'd done it. My improvised weapon must have worked.

  I looked at Evelyn, and she nodded back.

  Now it was our turn.

  Evelyn stepped out of the shadows before anyone else realized what had changed.

  She didn't rush. She didn't crouch or sprint or dart between cover. She walked straight into ntern-light and lifted her chin.

  Then she donned the Sacred Mask of Xolotl.

  The effect was immediate.

  The air twisted.

  Not with force, not with pressure—but with attention. Every thread of sanctified magic in the clearing snapped toward her like iron filings to a lodestone. The faint hum along the mask's embroidered teeth deepened, threads glowing red and green as if lit from within.

  The padins' eyes fred crimson in perfect, horrible unison.

  They charged.

  The teeth on the mask curved, almost grinning, and Evelyn moved.

  She slipped the first strike by inches, pivoting on one heel as a sword carved empty air where her ribs had been. Another padin overcommitted, shield smming into a tentpole instead of her spine. She vaulted, rolled, rebounded off a crate, never staying where the eye expected her to be.

  They chased her like hounds after blood.

  Good.

  Priests shouted. Someone screamed for the cordon. Hands flew up in panicked unison as they began the invocation—too many voices, too fast, trying to rebuild what had just failed.

  The pylon glowed white, straining for connection. For the burden of reestablishing the broken cordon.

  That was what I'd been waiting for.

  I broke from cover.

  The world narrowed instantly—distance, angle, timing. I ran straight for the pylon, boots pounding packed earth, breath sharp in my chest. A guard noticed me too te, shout breaking as he fumbled for his weapon.

  I did not slow.

  The crossbow came up as naturally as breathing.

  I sighted once.

  And fired.

  The dart struck the pylon dead center, embedding with a dull, almost disappointing sound.

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

  Then it exploded.

  Setting off the payload of consecrated phials I'd armed it with.

  If the pylon was a body swollen with holy mana, then the phials were a struck spark.

  The runes fred all at once—blindingly white, lines overloading faster than they could vent. The hum rose into a shriek that vibrated through bone and teeth and thought.

  Light exploded outward.

  Consecration.

  The clearing vanished in white fire as the pylon ruptured, holy energy tearing itself apart in a perfect, incandescent bloom.

  And then—

  It was gone.

  No pilr. No runes. No hum.

  Just a crater of scorched earth and silence where the system had been.

  The remaining priests fell mid-chant, mouths open, magic colpsing into nothing. Padins staggered, blinking, weapons suddenly heavy in their hands. The red glow in their eyes guttered and died.

  Evelyn skidded to a halt at the edge of the bst radius, breathless and ughing, mask still humming faintly as the st threads of aggro unraveled.

  I stood where I was, chest heaving, crossbow still raised, staring at the absence.

  The pylon was gone.

  And with it, the certainty of how they killed us.

  I looked at Evelyn, then gathered my voice into a single word:

  "Run!"