The fog had not lifted when the fighting stopped.

  It hung low between the trees, damp and clinging, swallowing sound the way the Forest swallowed light. Somewhere deeper in it, a branch creaked and settled. Otherwise, there was only the soft rasp of breath and the faint hiss of sanctified residue burning itself out against bark and moss.

  Rocher moved through it with measured care, sword lowered, shoulders tense but controlled.

  Precise. Methodical.

  But there was something off in the set of his shoulders, a tightness that did not match the moment. Not fear. Not fatigue. Something held inward, like his attention kept circling elsewhere instead of the task at hand.

  I kept wanting to ask if he was all right, but I knew it would only be met with deflection.

  And I was too embarrassed by how I'd lost control earlier.

  He knelt beside each fallen padin in turn, checked for breath, then reached for the belts.

  The phials were small. Unassuming. Gss no thicker than my thumb, stoppered tight, etched with the same devotional script. Each one represented a choice already made.

  "Careful," I murmured, more habit than instruction.

  He nodded without looking back and slid another phial into the satchel at his hip.

  This had been my request.

  If we were going to find a way around them, I needed to understand them. Composition. Triggers. Limits. Something. Anything that let me design a countermeasure that did not involve killing every padin we encountered before they could reach their belts.

  Less blood now meant more soldiers ter. There was less than a year left before the Demon Lord was due to assault in earnest, and the kingdom needed every able body it could muster.

  Rocher accepted it without argument.

  But I could tell something was eating at him. Something he didn't dare share.

  Perhaps that was why he missed it.

  Why I saw the attack before he did.

  Just a flicker at first. A pale glint where there should have been only fog. Metal catching light, then vanishing again.

  My stomach dropped.

  "Rocher!"

  The word tore out of me sharp and loud, far louder than I meant it to be. It echoed off the trees, bounced back wrong.

  He spun just as a bde cut through the space his throat had occupied a heartbeat earlier. Steel rang. Rocher caught the strike on instinct and shoved the attacker back, boots skidding on churned earth.

  Too te.

  Shapes moved in the fog. More than one. Footfalls. Shields brushing branches.

  A second forward party, attracted by the commotion.

  A voice barked a command.

  The padin leader turned his helm toward the sound of my shout. Toward the trees.

  "There," he said. "Two after the witch. The rest with me."

  The fog split.

  Four padins surged toward Rocher in a coordinated rush, shields locking as they advanced. Two broke wide, angling straight for the treeline.

  For me.

  I fired on reflex.

  The first tanglevine snapped tight around one man's legs mid-stride, yanking him off his feet with a startled grunt. He hit the ground hard and did not get back up.

  The second kept coming.

  I turned and ran.

  Branches shed my face as I crashed deeper into the trees, lungs burning, fingers already fumbling for another bolt. The Forest shifted underfoot, roots slick with moss and dew.

  My boot caught.

  The padin was already there.

  Armor crashed through ferns and roots as he closed the st few steps and smmed into me shoulder-first. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs. I stumbled, heel catching on a buried root—

  His hand seized my arm.

  He wrenched it up and back in one brutal motion, torque snapping through my shoulder until white-hot pain burst behind my eyes. My feet barely touched the ground. My spine arched involuntarily as my arm was forced higher, wrong, wrong—

  I screamed, the sound ripped from somewhere deep and old.

  For a split second, I was not in the Forest.

  I was hanging.

  Salt. Rope biting into my wrists. Shoulders screaming as my weight pulled wrong, pulled apart. The stone ceiling spinning above me, vision narrowing to white around the edges as breath turned thin and distant.

  I gasped, choking on the memory.

  Then something roared in the fog.

  Not a command. Not a prayer.

  A sound torn from a human throat and twisted by rage.

  Wet sounds followed. A crack like bone snapping under pressure. A gurgle, abruptly cut off.

  The padin holding me froze.

  So did I.

  Footsteps thundered closer, fast enough they barely seemed to touch the ground. A shape loomed out of the fog, blotting out what little light there was.

  Rocher.

  He was covered in blood. Not spttered. Soaked. It darkened his hair, streaked his jaw, soaked into the seams of his armor. His chest rose and fell hard, breath rasping, eyes locked forward and empty of anything I recognized.

  He looked enormous. Too big for the space he occupied. Like the Forest had shaped itself around him and failed.

  The padin dragged me back against his chest, bde shaking as he leveled it.

  "Stay back!" he shouted, voice cracking. "Stay back, monster!"

  Rocher did not slow.

  He vanished.

  One blink, he was several paces away. The next, he was there, inside the padin's reach.

  I closed my eyes.

  The sound was awful.

  Impact. A sharp, wet crunch. Something heavy hitting the ground. Warm spray spattered my cheek and neck, metallic and thick.

  The grip on my arm vanished.

  I sagged, legs giving out, and was caught immediately, strong hands wrapping around me and hauling me close.

  "Are you hurt?" Rocher demanded.

  The question came out sharp, almost angry, as if volume alone could force the answer out of me.

  He did not wait. His hands were on me, gripping my wrists, turning them palm-up, then sliding up my arms, my shoulders, my ribs. His touch was fast, searching, almost rough—not careless, but desperate.

  "Rocher," I managed. My voice sounded distant. "It's not—"

  He stilled.

  His eyes tracked the smear on my sleeve. The spatter along my throat. The dark streak in my hair where something wet had caught.

  "It's just bruises, I think," I said, swallowing. "My shoulder. And my ankle."

  His jaw clenched hard.

  He leaned back just enough to look at me again.

  "Look at me," he said, quieter now.

  I did. My vision wavered, then steadied on his face.

  His hand came up and settled on my shoulder, careful this time. Anchoring.

  Like if he let go, I might disappear again.

  "You're still here," he said, as if trying to convince himself. "I didn't lose you."

  "Yes."

  Only then did his breath finally leave him, slow and shaking.

  He pulled me into him fully, forehead pressing briefly to my temple as he breathed in and out, forcing his body to stand down. I pressed my face into his colr and held on.

  Up close, he smelled like iron and smoke and cedar. Familiar things. Grounding things. I became acutely aware of how solid he was, how completely he enclosed me, how easily he kept me upright when my knees still wanted to fold.

  Then I felt it. The effort it took.

  Not just the tremor in his arms, but the way he was holding himself together by force alone, like there was something else he was bracing against that had nothing to do with me.

  My arms tightened without thinking. I tipped my head back just enough to look at him.

  "Rocher," I said quietly. "Are you okay?"

  His jaw worked once.

  "I'm fine," he said automatically.

  I did not move. Did not look away.

  A breath slipped out of him, slow and uneven. His grip shifted, not loosening, but adjusting, like he was redistributing his weight to stay steady.

  Whatever it was, he locked it away before I could reach it.

  "Sorry," he said again, softer this time. "I just need a moment."

  I nodded and rested my forehead against him, letting him take the space he needed without stepping back.

  When his breathing finally evened, I pulled back a fraction.

  He watched my face carefully, then loosened his grip enough that I could step away.

  "The phials," I said. "We need to collect the rest."

  Rocher caught my wrist gently and shook his head.

  "Wait," he said. "I'll do it."

  I looked at him, confused.

  "It's not..." He gnced back into the fog, jaw tightening. "It's not something you should see."

  I nodded once and let my hand fall.

  The fog closed in again, swallowing the clearing, the bodies, the blood.

  Rocher stepped back into it alone.

  After we were done—after the st of the vanguard had retreated—we were spent.

  Emotionally. Physically.

  Rocher stayed close as we crossed back beneath the Great Tree, as if ready to catch me in case I stumbled. Our shoulders brushed with every step.

  Ferric was already there—perched high on his golem, legs crossed, hair singed at the ends, grinning with feral pride and fond fatigue.

  Seraphine sat beside him, knees caging her downturned ears, Pulseweaver dimmed to a dull ember in her hands.

  Only the sound of our approach made her look up.

  "Are you okay?" she said, breathlessly, "You're both bleeding."

  I shook my head. "It's not ours. Not all of it, I think."

  Seraphine studied my face for a heartbeat longer, like she was checking the answer against her own instincts. Only then did she nod, jaw setting.

  She rose to her feet, shoulders squaring.

  "We left survivors as pnned," she reported.

  "Tell them how many," Ferric said, barely able to contain his satisfaction.

  Seraphine looked at her feet. "A few."

  I didn't need her to expin further.

  I simply walked up to her and pulled her into a hug.

  The adrenaline was fading, leaving a wired, buzzing exhaustion humming under my skin.

  The forest was settling too—branches rexing, roots unknotting, the air losing that sharp metallic tension of battle.