Ezra didn't remember falling asleep.
One moment the fire was breathing its last; the next, it was gone — the world swallowed by darkness. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw someone standing between the trees: tall, unmoving, a pale shimmer caught in the mist. He blinked, and the shape dissolved like smoke.
The silence after felt heavier than the dark. He could still feel eyes on him — not cruel, not kind, just… there. Watching.
When he woke, the fire was alive again. A small pile of wood sat neatly beside it, dry despite the dew. Whoever had built it had done so quietly, before the sun had even touched the leaves.
No one admitted to it.
Rowan assumed one of the recruits had taken initiative.
Ezra wasn't so sure.
The forest floor was soft, half-rotted leaves swallowing every footprint — but when he went to fetch water, he saw them anyway: faint impressions circling the edge of camp. Boot treads. Too small to be Soren's, too deliberate to be an animal's. Whoever it was had walked a full arc around the camp, never stepping close enough for the firelight to reach.
He followed the trail for a few steps until it vanished into moss and shadow. When he turned back, the camp felt smaller somehow — tighter, as though the trees had crept a little closer while he wasn't looking.
Later, near the stream, he noticed a stone wedged between the roots of an old tree. Flat, smooth, its surface unnaturally clean — like something placed there. A few words were carved into it, shallow but precise, each stroke cut with patience.
Be aware of the misguided.
Ezra crouched, running his thumb along the letters. They were fresh — no moss, no weathering, the edges sharp. Whoever had left the message had done it recently. Maybe that same night.
He carried it back to camp, the stone cold even through his calloused palms.
When he showed Rowan, the older man frowned but said nothing. Varik only laughed.
"Probably one of the kids trying to be clever," he said, stirring the fire with his crooked staff. "You can't trust any of them."
Ezra watched him — the way the light caught his grin, small and lopsided, like he was in on a joke no one else got.
Across the fire, Cassian looked up from sharpening his blade. His eyes flicked to Ezra's and held, catching the same emberlight. For a moment, both men looked cut from the same steel — sharp, deliberate, unreadable.
That's when the unease started — a small, cold seed under his ribs.
Varik and Cassian couldn't have been more different, yet in that instant, they looked the same. Both measured. Both waiting.
They spoke the same way too — calm, deliberate, their words capable of slicing truth clean in half and still sounding reasonable. The kind of tone that made people follow without realizing they were being led.
And now the warning looped in his head.
Be aware of the misguided.
Who was misguided?
He didn't know when it had started — the space Cassian put between them. Back at the Academy, he'd been loud, reckless, impossible to ignore. Now, every time Ezra looked at him, he felt like he was staring at someone behind glass.
He turned the phrase over until it lost meaning, but it still itched behind his skull, whispering every time the fire crackled.
He tossed the stone into his pack and lay down, but sleep wouldn't come again. Every pop from the fire sounded like a footstep retreating into the dark. Every gust of wind felt like breath on the back of his neck.
He kept glancing at Cassian.
At Varik.
At the jagged line of trees just beyond the light.
Something out there moved — unseen, patient. Ezra couldn't tell anymore which frightened him more: the stranger in the dark, or the people sitting beside him.
Morning came slow, gray and wet. Mist coiled around the trees like ghosts, swallowing every sound until even breath felt too loud. Ezra hadn't slept — not really. His eyes burned, his head throbbed, and every thought came warped and too bright around the edges.
The others stirred one by one, stretching stiff limbs, packing in silence. No one wasted words anymore. Words felt expensive out here, like they cost something to speak.
Rowan's voice finally broke the quiet. "We move in ten. Eat something if you can."
No one argued.
Ezra sat near the fire pit, staring at the ash that had once been wood. The stone with the message still weighed in his pocket, cold even through the fabric.
Be aware of the misguided.
The phrase pulsed behind his eyes, rhythmic as a heartbeat.
Varik was already up, humming something tuneless as he polished the warped metal head of his staff. He looked perfectly at ease, like the night hadn't happened at all. When he caught Ezra's stare, he smiled — thin, knowing, unbothered.
Cassian stood at the treeline, scanning the fog. His hand rested on his knife, the movement so casual it almost looked lazy — but Ezra saw the tension in it. He didn't speak to anyone.
Ezra found himself studying him again. The way Cassian moved now — too still, too deliberate. Back at the Academy, he'd been all noise and fury, the kind of person who made chaos just to feel alive. Now he was quiet. Controlled. The kind of quiet that made Ezra's instincts pull back.
Something in him wanted to trust Cassian — he always had. But something colder, deeper, whispered caution.
Rowan caught him staring. "You good?"
Ezra blinked, forcing a shrug. "Fine." The lie scraped his throat raw.
Rowan didn't press. "Stick close to Cassian today. Soren's taking point, but I want eyes on the flanks. Forest feels off."
"Off how?" Varik asked lightly, still working the edge of his staff.
"Quiet," Rowan said. "Too quiet."
Varik chuckled. "That's how it starts."
They began to move.
The morning air hung thick and heavy, muffling sound until even their footsteps vanished. Ezra fell into position beside Cassian, the butt of his spear tapping lightly against his leg. The scent of moss and rust clung to everything.
Cassian didn't look at him, only muttered, "You're staring."
"Didn't sleep," Ezra said.
Cassian's mouth twitched. "None of us did."
They walked in silence, branches creaking overhead. Ezra wanted to ask — about the footprints, the wood, the stone, the message — but the words caught behind his teeth. What if Cassian knew something? What if he'd written it?
He forced his eyes forward, but the unease stayed.
Up ahead, Varik's laugh broke the quiet. It was low, sharp, and wrong — like something whispering through broken glass. Ezra's fingers tightened around his spear.
The path narrowed between two leaning trees. The light dimmed. Rowan lifted a hand for quiet, but it was already there — that unnatural silence pressing against their eardrums until even breathing sounded too loud.
No birds. No insects. Not even the wind.
Ezra felt it before he could name it: that same presence from the night before — patient, circling, listening.
He tried to shake it off, but it clung to him like cobwebs. His pulse quickened. His grip on the spear slicked with sweat.
Varik's shoulders swayed ahead of him, staff tapping softly against the ground, steady as a heartbeat. Cassian moved beside him, silent, eyes unreadable.
Ezra looked between them — the liar who smiled too much and the friend who'd forgotten how.
And for the first time, he wasn't sure which one he trusted less.