We did not talk after the first execution.
No one suggested it, but the silence spread naturally, as if speech itself might provoke something else to emerge from the trees. The group reorganized without discussion—instinctively, poorly. Positions were taken based on comfort rather than logic.
It looked like formation.
It wasn't.
The terrain shifted as we moved farther from the path. The ground rose unevenly, roots breaking through the soil like grasping fingers. Visibility shortened. The forest closed in until sightlines collapsed into narrow corridors of shadow and leaf.
This was where instructors would have stopped us.
This was where we were expected to learn instead.
The second encounter came in fragments.
First a sound—movement to the left. Then another, farther ahead. Someone turned too quickly. Someone else stepped back without checking behind them.
The spacing broke.
I felt it immediately.
Not as panic, but as absence—gaps where awareness should have been. I adjusted my pace, tried to compensate without taking command, shifting just enough to cover blind angles.
It wasn't enough.
A monster struck from behind the rear line.
Not large. Not strong.
Just fast enough.
A trainee went down hard, breath knocked from his lungs as claws raked across armor joints. He screamed—not from pain, but from shock. The sound tore through whatever discipline we had left.
Formation shattered.
People moved at once, colliding, separating, reacting to threats that were no longer where they thought they were.
This was the moment restraint failed.
I stepped forward.
Too far.
The pressure inside me tightened sharply—not resisting, not surging—but aligning with intent I had not fully chosen yet. I redirected one creature, struck another aside, forced space open through presence alone.
It worked.
For a moment.
Then someone else overcorrected.
Seeing me move, a trainee rushed past my position, blade raised high, reckless with relief. He slipped on blood-wet ground and went down just as another monster lunged.
I reached him in time.
Barely.
Steel met flesh. The kill was messy. Inelegant. Necessary.
When it ended, the forest felt closer.
Breathing was ragged. Hands shook. No one looked at the fallen trainee, who lay conscious but bleeding, unable to stand.
This was the first real failure.
Not because someone had died.
Because we had learned the wrong lesson too late.
As we regrouped, eyes kept drifting toward me.
Not with blame.
With expectation.
That frightened me more than fear ever could.
Formation had broken because no one had been ready to lead.
And now, whether I wanted it or not, the space for command had begun to form around me.