They moved before dark, like Brennar said, and walked until the sky went the color of old iron. At first light they were already on the road again, Oriel circling above, Pan nowhere near the group but slipping like ink through the treeline. The caged raider stumbled when Ashwyn's roots tightened, kept moving when the thorns bit his skin.
By noon, they reached the first village.
From the lane it looked like a mouth with its teeth knocked out. Roof beams leaned black and broken. A cart lay on its side in the ditch. The well had been kicked in, water spreading like a bruise.
No voices. No dogs. Only the sound of ash when the wind touched it.
Rowan slowed. He felt for water by instinct — a jar, a trough — but it tasted wrong, boiled dry in his mind. Lyra touched his sleeve. He nodded and let the feeling go.
They found the bodies later — a sheet in the square, a hand stiff under a beam. Brennar lifted the wood aside like it was firewood to be split, jaw set, saying nothing. Lyra covered what they couldn't bury. Ari traced tracks behind the houses, Oriel scouting high. Ashwyn crouched with his palm to the dirt, listening to what the ground remembered.
"Night work," he said at last. "Two wagons. Wolves drove the edges. They passed a day ago."
Toren stood at the well rope, fists tight. The light under his shirt flickered faint, like embers choking for air.
"We left them," he muttered.
Rowan met his eyes. "They were gone before we got here."
"It still feels like leaving," Toren said.
Brennar turned from the graves they had built. "Standing in a hole doesn't save anyone," he said. "You move to solid ground, then you pull others onto it. That's what strength is for."
Toren's jaw tightened. "How do I pull anyone if I'm not strong enough yet?"
Brennar's grin was sharp and humorless. "By getting stronger. Starting now."
---
They left the graves behind in silence, boots crunching on the road. No one hurried. No one lagged. Smoke still smeared the horizon, and every crow overhead felt like a watchman.
By afternoon they reached the next village. This one had not burned, but it was no less empty. Doors hung open. Bowls still sat on tables. A doll lay face down in the lane, one button eye staring at the dust.
Rowan's stomach tightened. "They didn't even bury their dead…"
Ashwyn's gaze swept the street. "No dead here. Only chains." He pointed at the long, bright scratches where metal had scored the stone by the well. "They took them alive."
Brennar grunted, rolling his shoulder. "Alive or dead, won't matter if we're not ready when it's our turn." He snapped a branch from a fencepost, cut it down with his axe until it matched the length of a sword, and tossed it at Toren.
"Steel away," he ordered. "You're not ready for cuts yet. Stance first."
---
Toren planted his feet. Brennar shoved his knee with a boot. "Soft. Don't lock. You lock, you die." He pushed Toren's elbow down. "Guard low. Trouble comes from the belly and below."
They worked in steady beats. Cut short. Reset. Cut again. Toren's farm-boy arms swung heavy, but Brennar forced him to tighten, trim the waste. Rowan corrected his elbow, Ari called counts, Nyx tapped his heel when his stance drifted.
Sweat soaked his shirt. His chest heaved. The faint glow beneath his ribs pulsed with his breath.
When Brennar finally called a halt, they broke for water. Toren bent double, sweat dripping from his hair. Ari re-strung her bow. Rowan wiped his blade.
Nyx lingered in the shadow of a doorway, arms crossed. Her eyes flicked to Ari, then away again. After a moment she muttered, low enough that Rowan almost missed it:
"Back there. The arrow. …If you hadn't—"
Ari looked up, brows raised.
Nyx's mouth twisted. "Don't make me say it twice."
For a moment, the corner of Ari's mouth curved — not quite a smile, but close. She only nodded and tied off her bowstring.
Rowan blinked between them. Brennar snorted. "Well, mark the day. Shadows can talk polite."
Nyx shot him a look sharp enough to cut, but didn't deny it.
---
Then Brennar hefted his branch again. "Now we see."
He pressed, not cruelly, but fast — strikes that tested Toren's guard, turned his blade aside, pushed his balance. Toren parried one, missed another, stumbled, recovered. His breath steadied. His eyes sharpened.
And then it happened.
For a heartbeat, the light under his shirt flared bright white-gold, a haze around his shoulders. His swings smoothed, his parries sharper. He moved as though something inside had caught fire in silence.
Rowan saw it first. "His aura—"
Ashwyn's voice cut across. "Don't speak. Let him hold it."
Toren held. He parried, cut, reset. His glow stayed steady, then faltered, then steadied again. At last it faded, leaving only sweat and the rasp of his breath. He looked down at his shaking hands, astonished.
Brennar barked a laugh. "Well, there it is. Battle Focus." He slapped Toren's shoulder. "Hold that long enough and you'll step through. You'll Awaken."
Toren frowned. "I… didn't mean to."
"You don't," Brennar said. "Not the first time. But now you know it's there."
Ashwyn stepped forward, staff clicking against stone. "The sooner you Awaken, the sooner you learn to veil it. Right now you shine, boy. Shine draws hunters. Shine is death."
Toren swallowed, still staring at his hands. The glow was gone, but he could feel the echo of it under his skin like a second heartbeat.
---
That evening, they camped beyond the ridge. Smoke carried on the wind, bitter and heavy. Another village burned somewhere ahead.
Rowan sat polishing his harpoon. Toren sat with the branch-sword across his knees, staring into the fire.
"When it came," Toren murmured, "it didn't feel like strength. It felt like everything else went quiet. Like the noise stopped."
Rowan nodded. "That's what power really is. Not noise. Clarity."
Toren's gaze held the flames. "Then I want more of it."
Ashwyn's voice drifted from the dark. "And you shall have it. But remember—clarity cuts both ways. To wield it, you must know who you are. Or it will decide for you."
No one spoke after that.
At the edges of the camp, two guardians kept watch. To the left, Pan bled into the shadows until only a faint glimmer of eyes betrayed it. To the right, Ashwyn's wolf paced the treeline, its coat shifting like bark and moss, blending with the forest until it vanished between one step and the next.
Between shadow and earth, the company slept, wrapped in a silence that was not peace, but protection.