Scene 1 — Alexis POV
"Get the kids inside now!"
My voice didn't sound like mine. It came out raw—command, not panic—because panic was contagious and I couldn't afford to infect anyone.
Amber snapped into motion the second she heard it, hair whipping as she pivoted and started shoving the smallest ones toward the nearest door. Not dragging. Not begging. Directing—because if she hesitated, they'd freeze, and if they froze…
We'd be dead.
I hit the ground and my boots slid through mud and snowmelt. The camp lights flickered, weak yellow halos bleeding into the dark. Everything outside that light felt too big. Too hungry.
Asher was already in my hand.
I launched two arrows back-to-back, both overloaded with Astral energy until my fingers buzzed and my forearm screamed.
The first arrow struck and detonated—not a clean blast, not a heroic burst—more like a violent cough of force. Metal from the arrowhead fragmented into shrapnel and threw itself into the bodies of the men charging us.
They looked like men.
But they moved like they didn't care about bones.
The second arrow hit before the first scream finished. Another explosion. Another burst of jagged metal. Bodies folded—heads snapping, limbs crumpling—like puppets whose strings got cut mid-step.
"Front line! Hold!" Amber shouted as she slammed a barrier sigil to the ground. Her voice carried down the line like a whip.
The tanks and front liners tightened up, shields and bodies becoming a wall at the edge of the light. Behind them, the back line posted at doors and windows—anything that could become an opening, anything that could become a mistake.
I kept firing.
Not because I was confident.
Because if I stopped, they'd remember Amber existed.
I pulled another arrow back and fired. One of the zombie-looking men took it in the throat. He dropped, choked, convulsed.
Good.
I didn't celebrate. I didn't even blink.
My eyes were already tracking the next one—one trying to snake around the flank, using the downed bodies as cover like this was a real fight with real tactics.
I jumped back, boots scraping. My second arrow tore through the would-be flanker's shoulder and pinned him to the ground.
He still crawled.
I felt something cold settle in my stomach.
Not fear.
Confusion.
Because the wound should've stopped him.
Because humans stop.
Because even Travelers—trained, hardened, angry—still obey blood loss and shattered lungs and torn muscle.
These things were bleeding.
They were dying.
And they weren't quitting.
My gaze caught a twitch from a body I'd already put down. He was flat on his back, stomach open, blood pouring out in a steady sheet. It wasn't even dramatic. It was just… excessive. Wrong.
And still—
He moved.
A hand clawed. Fingers flexed. Knees drew like he was trying to stand back up, like the concept of "down" didn't apply to him anymore.
For a second my brain tried to rationalize it.
Shock. Adrenaline. A last spasm.
Then his head turned toward the kids.
Toward the door Amber was trying to hold.
And my body made the decision before my mind could argue.
I drew an arrow and poured energy into it—too much, too fast. The shaft vibrated. The fletching smoked. The air around it warped, like heat shimmer without heat.
A mini shooting star.
That was the only way I could explain it. Not fire. Not light. Not flame.
A falling.
I aimed to erase the body. To make sure there was nothing left that could crawl. Nothing left that could stand.
The arrow hit.
The body didn't explode so much as… come apart. Flesh shredded, bone cracked, the energy chewing through him like reality had decided he wasn't allowed to exist in one piece anymore.
And that's when my throat tightened.
The smell hit a second later—copper and rot and something chemical beneath it, like burned antiseptic. My stomach rolled so violently I thought I'd fold on the spot.
I swallowed hard.
Once.
Twice.
My mouth flooded with saliva, my gag reflex screaming at me to bend over and vomit until there was nothing left inside me.
But I didn't.
Because I could feel it—every kid behind that door listening for the moment the grown-ups broke.
Every front liner watching me for cues, watching for permission to panic.
We weren't losing because we were weak.
We were losing because we were new.
Inexperienced.
Too used to training dummies and controlled drills, too used to enemies that stayed down when you hit them in the right place.
This wasn't that.
This was a wall closing in, and if I cracked, the whole line cracked.
So I forced the sickness down like it was an enemy too.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my wrist.
Drew another arrow.
And kept shooting.
Scene 2 — Derek POV
BUUUUUUUUURRRR
BURR.
"All Travelers at the ready! There's an attack happening at the rescue camp 4. All Travelers in the area are to report to the site at the earliest possible moment!"
The radio voice didn't shake.
That was how I knew it was bad.
My squad and I were already moving before the message finished, boots crunching over frozen leaves as we cut through the trees. We were close—too close to ignore it. Close enough that the decision wasn't even a debate.
We pivoted.
We forsook our mission.
Because the academy kids didn't need "support."
They needed a rescue.
Not because they were helpless.
Because they were young. Because most of them hadn't fought humans that wanted them dead. Because even the ones who could fight—could swing, could cast—still didn't know what it felt like when the enemy refused to obey pain.
Huginn's message had already hit my team's private channel—short, ugly, and full of the kind of silence that screamed louder than words.
Comms going dark.
Bodies not staying down.
Something watching.
That was enough.
"Come on, wolves!" I barked, and poured energy into my legs until the world blurred. I shot forward, weaving between trees like they were standing still.
Behind me, my team struggled to match pace. Good. Let it hurt. Let it burn.
"Derek!" my second shouted. "We need to slow down or we'll be exhausted when we get there!"
I glanced back, bored.
"Then surpass your limits like Yami," I said, like it was the simplest answer in the world. "Come on, you slow bastards. Push harder or I'll hog all the fun."
I pushed again.
Harder.
And the forest began to change.
Routes opened in my mind without thought. My senses smoothed out, picking the best angles, the best footing, the safest leaps. It felt like the world was finally cooperating—like my body was finally understanding what I'd been trying to force into it for months.
That should've made me smile.
Instead it just made me faster.
Because somewhere ahead, kids were learning what real terror felt like.
Scene 3 — Alexis POV
"Alexis!"
Amber's scream hit the air like a blade.
A body slammed into me—hard enough to knock the wind out of my lungs—and I rolled across dirt and broken glass, coming up on one knee with my dagger already out.
Lightning cracked.
Not a long chant. Not a ceremonial spell.
Just instant violence—Amber throwing bolts like she'd been doing it her whole life.
A man who was about to cut me open stiffened as electricity crawled through him, his muscles locking at the worst possible time.
I didn't waste the opening.
I drove my dagger into his chest.
The blade struck something hard—resistance, like hitting metal under meat—and then it broke through. The man collapsed in a heap, twitching.
I held my breath, waiting for the movement again.
Waiting for the crawl.
Waiting for the "down" that wasn't down.
Then—
Black fire erupted across the battlefield.
Not red. Not orange. Not heat.
Pure black flames, licking up bodies like shadows made solid.
And the men screamed.
Not the dull moans they'd been making.
Not the dead-eyed groans.
Real screams. Full of shock. Full of pain. Full of human horror like this was the first moment they remembered they could suffer.
My eyes snapped across the camp.
Who—
What—
I didn't see anyone casting.
No aura flare. No chant. No obvious source.
I thought of Crow without meaning to—because I'd seen him use black flame once, when he finally let loose and everyone around him looked like they wanted to kneel or run.
But Crow wasn't here.
So who was—
My gaze lifted.
And found him.
A figure standing on the building roof like he owned the night.
A white, box-looking mask. X and O for eyes.
Half robe hanging loose, one hand tucked inside like he was relaxed at a theater show. Dark skin visible beneath the cloth. No aura.
Nothing.
And that was the problem.
The most dangerous thing in the area felt like air.
Amber raised her hand—
"Don't—" I started, but my warning arrived too late.
Lightning launched.
The bolt screamed upward and—
He traced a circle with two fingers.
A ring of black flame formed, perfect and clean.
The lightning hit it and vanished.
Swallowed. Deleted. Like it never existed.
My blood ran cold.
That wasn't defense.
That was mastery.
That was someone treating a spell like an inconvenience.
"Here I was helping out kids," the masked man said, voice amused, almost friendly. "Now I'm being attacked."
He tilted his head like he was disappointed in us.
"At least your ability to attack the most dangerous person here is working."
Amber's face tightened. My grip on my dagger nearly snapped the handle.
"Until next time, children," he continued, then paused like he was thinking. "Your friendly neighborhood benima—"
His voice caught.
"Wrong name."
A chill crawled up my spine.
"Until darkness returns, little ones."
He lifted two fingers—the same ones that drew the ring—and waved like this was a goodbye at the end of a lesson.
Then the black flame ate him.
Not burned.
Not consumed.
Just… opened and closed, and he was gone.
A second later—
Something massive crashed down from the sky.
A larger man landed with a claymore that looked close enough to Thomas's to make my brain spark. The blade came down and bisected the rooftop line, cracking concrete like a fault line.
He dragged the sword free with a scream of stone and steel, then threw his head back and blasted a pillar of fire into the night sky.
A signal.
A challenge.
A warning.
"Not so fast!" he roared.
But the answer came like breath against my ear.
"Damien's little brother?" a voice teased—soft, right beside me, intimate in the worst way. "You gotta be quicker than that next time."
My entire body recoiled.
I jumped away on instinct, arrow already drawn, releasing mid-motion.
The shot snapped through the air—
And missed.
Because the thing I aimed at wasn't standing where it should've been.
A faint black flame brushed past where my face had been, littered with tiny motes of light drifting around it like fireflies.
Beautiful.
Wrong.
Deadly.
And I landed hard, realizing the truth with a clarity that made my earlier nausea feel like a warning I should've listened to:
We weren't just against the wall.
The wall was alive.
And it was leaning in.o