Harlen's expression was answer enough.
He was already moving, pulling Vesperyn with him.
"Don't look at it," Harlen ordered. "Focus on the ground. On me. Keep moving."
But Vesperyn couldn't stop seeing it.
The red was spreading.
Growing brighter.
All the sources were moving in the same direction.
Toward them.
"Harlen," Vesperyn whispered. "They're coming this way."
"I know."
"How did they find us so fast?"
"The awakening," Harlen said between breaths, pace quickening. "The Seeress must have sensed it immediately. Three days, I thought we'd have three days—"
He cursed viciously.
"They sent their best."
The forest thinned ahead. Open ground.
Harlen changed direction sharply, pulling Vesperyn into denser undergrowth.
"Stay low," he ordered. "Quiet."
They crouched in the shadows behind a fallen log, half-buried in dead leaves.
Vesperyn's heart hammered so loud he was certain it would give them away. His breath came too fast, too shallow. He pressed his hand over his mouth, trying to muffle the sound.
Through the trees, movement.
White armor caught the fading sunlight. Blessed weapons gleamed with inner light. Seven figures moved with military precision, spread out in a search pattern.
Paladins.
Vesperyn's breath stopped.
One of them—a woman at the front….raised her hand.
The air shimmered around her fingers. Not gold like Harlen's light, but silver. Sharper. Colder. It spread outward like frost across glass, searching.
Tracking.
She was tracking something.
Tracking them.
"Harlen," Vesperyn breathed, barely audible.
"I see her."
The Paladin's head turned slowly, scanning the area.
Her gaze swept across their hiding spot.
Vesperyn pressed himself flatter against the ground, heart threatening to break through his ribs.
Harlen's good hand moved to his belt, fingers closing around the handle of a hunting knife.
One knife.
Seven Paladins.
The odds were impossible.
"When I move," Harlen whispered, so quiet Vesperyn almost didn't hear it, "you run. Southeast. Don't stop. Don't look back. Find the Oracle border."
"I'm not leaving—"
"You don't have a choice."
The Paladin took another step closer.
Ten meters away.
Nine.
Harlen's muscles tensed, preparing to spring.
Then—
A bird startled from a tree fifty meters to their left, wings beating frantically against branches.
The Paladin's attention snapped toward the sound.
She gestured sharply. Three of the Paladins moved toward the disturbance.
"Now," Harlen hissed. "Move."
They ran.
Low. Fast. Using every bit of cover the forest offered.
Behind them, a voice called out:
"There!"
The chase truly began.
They ran until Vesperyn's lungs burned.
Until his legs stopped responding properly.
Until he tasted copper in the back of his throat and his vision narrowed to nothing but Harlen's back ahead of him.
Harlen didn't slow.
Despite his broken arm hanging useless against his chest. Despite his age. Despite everything.
He ran like death itself was behind them.
Because it was.
The forest blurred past. Trees became obstacles to dodge around. Roots became traps to leap over. Every breath scraped Vesperyn's throat raw.
"How…." Vesperyn gasped. "How much—farther?"
"Keep running," Harlen snapped.
He pulled Vesperyn left, then right, constantly changing direction. But even with the erratic path, Vesperyn could still see them in his doubled vision.
The crimson auras.
They weren't fading.
They were getting brighter.
Closer.
"They're gaining," Vesperyn managed between breaths.
"I know."
Ahead, the trees opened suddenly into a clearing.
Harlen cursed and tried to change direction, but it was too late. Momentum carried them forward into the open space.
Then Vesperyn saw it.
The border marker.
A stone pillar stood at the far edge of the clearing, maybe sixty meters away. Ancient symbols were carved into its surface…., Pilgrim iconography on one side, Oracle script on the other.
The border.
Safety.
Right there.
"Run," Harlen said. "Straight line. Don't stop for anything."
They burst into the open ground, exposed and vulnerable.
Vesperyn's legs found strength he didn't know he had left.
Sixty meters.
Fifty.
Behind them, voices shouted commands. The sound of armored boots hitting earth.
Forty meters.
Vesperyn's chest burned. His vision spotted at the edges.
Thirty.
Almost there. Almost—
Light exploded in front of them.
Not gold.
Silver.
A barrier slammed down between them and the border marker, materializing in an instant. It stretched upward like a wall of translucent ice, humming with power.
Vesperyn couldn't stop in time.
He crashed into it hard, the impact throwing him backward. He hit the ground, breath knocked from his lungs.
Harlen caught him before he could fall completely, hauling him upright.
They turned.
Seven Paladins emerged from the treeline, fanning out in a semicircle. Weapons drawn. Blessings active. White armor gleaming in the fading light.
Surrounding them.
Cutting off every escape route.
And at the front—
A woman in commander's armor.
She was younger than Harlen but moved with the confidence of someone who'd seen combat. Her face was hard, professional.
But when she looked at Harlen, something flickered in her eyes.
Recognition.
Pain.
Conflict.
The clearing went silent except for Vesperyn's ragged breathing.
The Paladin commander stood there for a long moment, just looking at Harlen.
Then she spoke, voice carefully controlled:
"Captain Rost."
Harlen's shoulders sagged.
All the fight seemed to drain out of him at once. The knife in his hand lowered, though he didn't drop it.
"Hello, Celeste," he said quietly.
The name carried weight. History.
Vesperyn looked between them, confusion cutting through his panic.
They knew each other.
Celeste's jaw tightened. Her knuckles went white around her weapon's grip.
"I was hoping," she said, "that the reports were wrong."
"They weren't."
"Then you know why we're here."
Harlen didn't respond.
His eyes moved past Celeste to the border marker, just ten meters beyond the barrier.
So close.
Unreachable.
Celeste followed his gaze and understood.
"The barrier extends underground," she said. "And twenty meters into the air. There's no way through without my permission."
Silence.
Vesperyn's doubled vision showed the crimson auras of all seven Paladins surrounding them. Bright. Powerful. Unwavering.
They weren't going to escape.
Harlen seemed to realize it at the same moment.
The knife fell from his hand, hitting the dirt with a soft thud.
"Weapons down," Celeste ordered, though her eyes never left Harlen's face. "Both of you. Slowly."
Vesperyn didn't have a weapon to drop.
Harlen raised his good hand, showing it was empty. His broken arm remained pressed against his chest.
"Bind them," Celeste said.
Two Paladins moved forward cautiously, blessed chains ready.
And Vesperyn understood, with horrible clarity, that this was it.
They'd lost.
The border—salvation—sat just meters away, visible but impossible to reach.
Like everything else Vesperyn had ever wanted.
Always just out of reach.
…..
[PS: If you are liking it, send some powerstones, it helps withs book monetisation and gives me a reason to keep going!!!]