The recruitment camp is a column of greasy, black smoke behind us. I don't look back.
The three rescued kids run in my slipstream, their small feet pounding on the path of solidified darkness I'm laying down over the forest floor. It's a new trick, one of the dozens I've been forced to learn in the three months since Lysara died. Three months since the Harvest. Three months since everything. The shadow-road bypasses the roots, the mud, the gnarled undergrowth. It makes us fast. And right now, fast is all that matters.
"Commander, they're on us! Fast!" Kaela's voice crackles over the comm-crystal, sharp with static and the distant, thin shriek of a fight. She's rear guard, with five of our best scouts, holding back... whatever's left.
"Fall back to Rally Point Three," I say. My voice sounds steady. Calm. A good commander's voice. "We have the children. Mission... success."
The word tastes like ash. Success. Three kids saved. Fifteen others we'd found in a pit behind the camp, already dead. A recruitment camp burned, one of God knows how many.
Stop it, Ren. Stop thinking. Just run.
The smallest one, the little Beastkin girl with fox-features, lets out a panicked sob and stumbles. She can't be more than eight. Her new convergence marks are faint, dark veins on the backs of her small hands. She's terrified, exhausted, and her legs are giving out.
I don't slow down. I can't.
I just send a tendril of my shadow back, a solid, living thing, and scoop her clean off her feet. She's light, barely a ripple in my control. "Got you," I grunt, letting my shadow carry her as the other two boys, ten and twelve, keep pumping their legs, their eyes wide with terror. "You're safe. Just hold on."
And then, of course, the ambush. My fault. I should have sensed them. Sloppy, Ren.
Three cult operatives, bursting from the trees in front of us.
I don't even break stride. My shadow-steel blade is in my hand—it's part of me now, just a thought away. The first operative raises his own sword, his mouth open to shout. My shadow is faster. It snaps out, a black whip, wrapping around his throat, squeezing. He drops, gagging but alive.
Non-lethal. It's my rule. My one, stupid, desperate line in the sand. A rule the council, especially Elder Ironwood, hates.
The second operative lunges, his reflexes enhanced by a low-level curse. He's maybe 60% integrated. I'm... not. The power difference is a joke. I create a flicker of myself to his left. A shadow clone, only solid for a single, deceptive second. He spins, instinctively, to defend. His guard is open. I don't use my blade. I slam the hilt of my sword, reinforced with my own power, into his temple. Hard. He goes down in a heap.
The third operative, a woman, is the smart one. She doesn't even try to engage. She's already backpedaling, her hand crushing a crystal.
A flare of bright, stinking, red void-energy screams into the sky. Our position. Our exact position, broadcast to every cultist in five miles.
Damn it.
"Get the kids moving!" I yell, shadow-stepping, but she's already diving into the brush. My shadow-binds snap out, locking her ankles, her wrists. She hits the ground, hard. She'll be there for a while.
We won't.
The flare's damage is done. I can feel them now. Through the earth, through the roots, through my shadow-sense. At least twenty, maybe more, converging on us. Too many. Not with three children.
"Rally Three is compromised," I snap into the crystal. "New plan. Rally Five. Kaela, status! Status, Kaela!"
Static. Just static. And then... a sound. A shriek of metal on metal that makes my blood run cold. And her voice: "Engaged! Heavily! We're..."
The crystal goes dead.
The world goes cold. No. Not her. Not her, too. I can't. I can't.
The burn in my arms, the tell-tale, familiar sign, flares hot. 89.2%. 89.5%. 89.8%. The convergence marks on my arms are pulsing, a dark, hungry, visible light.
Control it, Ren. Breathe. Breathe, you idiot.
"Kaela! Report!" My voice is steady. The commander's voice.
A crackle. Static. And then, her voice, blessed and beautiful and angry. "We're clear! Lost the bastards in the ravine. Gods, they were ugly. We're moving to Five. Don't wait for us."
The pressure in my chest eases, just a fraction. The burn in my arms recedes. 89.1%.
Still... still too high. The 90% threshold. The line Miren warned me about. The line where 'Ren' stops and the 'curse' takes over. The line I'm getting closer to every single day.
I shake off the thought. Later. Deal with it later.
"Move," I tell the two boys, releasing the fox-girl from my shadow, setting her on her feet. "Fast but careful. Stay with me."
We run.
We reach Verdwood as the sun sets. The walls are... they're three times higher than they were when I was a child. A fortress-city. Guard towers. Wards that hum, a low, constant, magical thrum. Home. Or what passes for it now.
Elder Stoneheart meets us in the courtyard, his face a roadmap of exhaustion. He's aged twenty years in these six months. He puts a heavy hand on my shoulder. "Well done, Commander."
"Just Ren," I say. The ritual is hollow.
"How many?"
"Three," I say, as the fox-girl is gently led away by Miren's healers. "All under twelve. Early-stage. They're... they're alive."
"And the cult?"
"Camp's gone. Two dozen operatives... restrained. No fatalities on our side."
Stoneheart's expression tightens at that last part. No fatalities. He's one of the ones who thinks my non-lethal rule is a strategic liability. He thinks I'm too soft. He doesn't say it. Not tonight.
"Get some rest," he says, his voice weary. "The council meets tomorrow. We've... we've received a new report. Another stronghold. Northern territories this time."
Of course. Another stronghold. Another battle. It never, ever stops.
The children are hurried off to the medical wing. The scouts, my team, they disperse to the barracks, a tight-knit, silent group of survivors. Kaela lingers. She looks at me, then at the marks on my arms, which I know are glowing faintly in the twilight. The glow is new. And it's not good. She opens her mouth, then closes it. She just... squeezes my hand. Hard. Then she's gone.
I stand alone in the courtyard as darkness deepens. I watch the lights come on in the new stone buildings. I hear the sounds of... life. Cooking fires. Laughter from the mess hall. Children—marked and unmarked—returning from their evening drills, tired but alive.
Normalcy. Or the illusion of it.
My convergence marks pulse again, a faint, violet glow. 89.1%.
I think of Lysara. God, I miss her. She'd have the answer. She'd have a plan, a calculation, a new protocol for this. All I have is... this. This weight. This curse. This endless, grinding war.
I think of the fox-girl's face, streaked with tears and dirt, when she realized she was finally safe.
Small victories, I tell myself, the words a hollow mantra. They have to be enough.
Because if they're not... I don't know what I'm fighting for anymore.
I turn and walk toward the command building. The tactical maps are waiting. The reports need to be filed.
Three months since Lysara died.
Three months since I became the leader I never wanted to be.
And somewhere in the northern territories, the cult is planning.
The war continues.