We rode into the forest in formation.

  Arthur at the front, his cloak a dark cut against the fog. Behind him, Adrian led the group of soldiers, bolt rifles at the ready, horses trotting across the gravel road. Mary and I rode side by side, squeezed into the middle of the formation.

  The trees tightened, branches knitting together until the world went dim. A deep fog rolled across the ground and swallowed the path. The horses slowed to a wary march. Everything smelled of wet wood and old smoke.

  Arthur's voice was calm over the ranks. "Slow down. Keep formation."

  I squinted into the white.

  "I can barely see Arthur." My words came out soft enough that only Mary heard.

  She tipped her head, eyes scanning the mist. "What are we looking for exactly?"

  "There's an abandoned town at the center," I said. "The whole reason why there's gravel roads here. No one's lived in it for fifty years, not since Morren started pulling people into the walls. That's when the Nameless Ones moved in probably. So the towns the best bet for the Bishop."

  Mary's jaw tightened, the light in her eyes folding in on itself. "So that's where they'll be..."

  We moved slower now, boots crunching on gravel, the column of soldiers collapsing into a hushed march. Ten minutes passed or an hour, it was unclear as the fog killed both time and certainty.

  When the trees broke, the town crouched ahead like a sleeping animal. Wooden taverns sagged, shutters hung crooked, a rusted sign swung on a single chain. The main square lay bare, a cracked fountain dead in its center. Gravel roads finished in ragged yards where children might have once played.

  Arthur ordered us to dismount as we continued forth on foot. I made sure to grab a short sword - sheathed and hanging on the side of the horse.

  At least I finally remembered to grab a sword this time.

  But as soon as my feet touched the ground, an anxious feeling assaulted me as my skin prickled.

  "Uneasy?" Adrian asked without turning.

  "Yeah," I said. "Something about this place feels like it's waiting to swallow us whole."

  "Then keep your eyes open, we can't risk anything against these heretics," he said. His silhouette was a sharpened thing in my periphery. Adrian had always taken his job seriously, despite our banter. He was as faithful to the Empire as he was skilled at serving it.

  We entered the town on foot, slipping off our mounts and moving in tight. The fog thinned, but not enough to make anything comfortable. Shadows pooled in doorways like spilled ink. Windows were blind.

  A shape moved in the distance. Then another. Faint silhouettes created a wall of darkness in the distance.

  Arthur's hand rose, slow and measured. "Hold."

  Adrian's shoulders tensed behind him, soldiers aligning like metal teeth.

  The fog parted like curtains. At the square's center, a figure stood in the middle of an endless crowd - hundreds of people pressed together, motionless as tar. Behind them, the cathedral's bell tower crouched, bell rusted and still.

  He was easy to recognize even through the smear of fog. The broken white mask. The sickly green light in his visible eye that seemed to glow in the white veil. The grin that never reached anything human.

  The Bishop.

  And behind him, seemingly an army.

  He straightened and looked at us as if we were late to a party. His voice sailed across the square, oddly civil. "Ah. Guests. More than I expected. I am only ordained to host a select few."

  Arthur stepped forward, blade already at his side. His back faced me, but I could still feel the disgust in his voice.

  "Silence, filth."

  The Bishop laughed - thin, delighted. He folded his hands as if offended. "I try very hard to be clean." He let the words sit, then sneered. "Unlike the pigs standing before me."

  He inclined his head at Arthur with mock respect. "But tell me - why have you not yet struck? Is it because your Path of the Solar Flare requires light? The Path of the Azai clan is fair in the dawn. Not so helpful in the dark, no?"

  Arthur's jaw tightened. A yellow shimmer began to lick the edge of his sword, a faint solar tremor that made the blade look as if it were breathing.

  "Keep the Azai name from your mouth," Arthur said, voice low and taut.

  The Bishop's mask tilted. "Arthur is a strangely western name for a man of Eastern blood. But then again, the Azai were burned out long ago. Dying names mean nothing to me."

  A rustle moved through the gathered mass at the Bishop's feet. His personal army came into view - seemingly composed of ordinary people. At least, they were ordinary until I saw their eyes. Not pupils. Nothing. Just glossy, flat black like polished gemstone. Light shuddered on them and died.

  A whisper of movement crawled at their ankles. Shadows braided around their boots, lifting and settling like obedient dogs.

  My mouth went dry. "Shit."

  Mary's eyes widened, reaching the same realization as me.

  The Bishop's grin widened. He raised his hands. Two torches were slowly placed into his waiting palms by figures at his back. He did not light them himself. The flames snapped into life as if by command, and he hurled both torches outward like a child tossing bonfires.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "But don't worry, lost child of the Azai! I don't intend to fight on unequal grounds."

  They struck the buildings to his left and right.

  The wood took the fire as though thirsty - instant flames licking up facades that hadn't known flame in decades. Sparks painted the fog with orange. The light made the Bishop's mask shine like bone, and the rain seemingly did nothing to calm the flame.

  "It would be... not fun, otherwise."

  Now we could see the crowd fully - one that numbered in the hundreds. The glossy black eyes turned and focused on us with a patient hunger.

  The shadows slithered up their arms, threads of darkness that crawled through fingers and pooled at throats. When the Bishop motioned, they obeyed - rising from their cluster, moving like corpses called from graves.

  He laughed then. The sound cracked like ice. "Time to cull the guests that weren't invited. Come, Arthur. Show me your sun, pig. Let us see how bright it burns in the darkness I've cultivated."

  Everything narrowed to the moment before steel met bone. Soldiers readied. Adrian barked a command that I heard only as static. Mary stood rigid next to me, her lips white with something like resolve and fear.

  Arthur's eyes burned. Yellow flame traced the runes along his blade. He did not hesitate.

  He moved.

  And the world ignited.

  Arthur silently rushed towards the line of puppets, and then the Bishop's puppets surged forward - hundreds of them, shadows writhing around their limbs, black eyes transfixed. The fog seemed to turn dark.

  Arthur's blade flashed golden as he ran straight into the mass of bodies, cutting through them as though they were smoke. Each swing split flesh and shadow alike, leaving streaks of burning light in his wake. He carved a path toward the Bishop without slowing, flame trailing from his sword like a comet's tail.

  Just before he reached the Bishop, Arthur swung his sword in a crescent shape. Flame pulled itself from the burning houses as it flung itself towards the bishop - burning the crowd of black eyed puppets in its wake.

  The Bishop laughed - high and wild - and raised his hand. Black light poured from his palms, swallowing Arthur's glow. They met in the center of the square, the clash of flame and void searing the air, their shadows dancing madly across the ruined buildings. The fog itself burned away where they struck.

  I barely had time to watch. The rest of the Bishop's puppets were already upon us.

  "Form line!" Adrian's voice cut through the chaos. "Kneeling front! Standing rear! Fire on my mark!"

  The soldiers moved like clockwork, years of discipline snapping into place even as death closed in. I pulled Mary behind the line, forcing her against the wall of a nearby tavern.

  "Stay down," I hissed.

  Adrian's arm came down. "Fire!"

  The rifles thundered as one. Dozens of shots tore into the charging mob. The first line fell like wheat under a scythe, their shadows hissing into the ground, black tendrils writhing before fading.

  "Reload!" Adrian barked.

  The soldiers racked their bolts, brass casings clattering across the cobblestones. Another volley cracked through the fog, the flash of muzzle fire lighting the horror in brief, sharp glimpses - men and women with empty eyes collapsing into heaps of smoke.

  But for every one that fell, two more replaced them.

  "Again!" Adrian shouted. "Keep firing!"

  The rifles boomed, again and again, until the air was nothing but thunder and smoke. But the tide didn't stop. The crowd pressed closer, crawling over the dead. The shadows were endless.

  Adrian's face hardened. "Fall back! Into that tavern - move! Those kneeling - form a vanguard!"

  I grabbed Mary and sprinted in, ducking through the shattered doorway of the two-story tavern. Half the soldiers followed us - the other half turned to cover the retreat, their rifles flashing through the fog outside.

  Then came the screams.

  I looked back just long enough to see the vanguard swallowed whole. Shadows erupted from the ground, ripping through flesh like claws. Bodies broke apart in seconds, bones snapping, limbs dragged into the black tide. The air filled with the sound of tearing, wet and human.

  Adrian froze, eyes wide, horror cutting through his composure. "Barricade the windows!" he roared. "Now!"

  I grabbed a broken table and shoved it against the nearest frame. Soldiers stacked furniture, overturned cabinets, anything they could grab. The sound of fists - no, claws - hammered against the wood a heartbeat later.

  Mary stumbled past me, gasping, then stopped at a soldier slumped against the wall. Blood gushed from a gash in his side. Without a word, she dropped to her knees, pressing glowing hands to his wound.

  "Mary, don't-" I started, but she cut me off with a shake of her head. Her face twisted with pain as light poured from her palms, veins in her neck standing out from the strain.

  "I can do it," she hissed, voice shaking but resolute.

  I stared at her - at the trembling determination in her eyes. Even now, surrounded by monsters, she refused to run. It hit me all at once. She wasn't green anymore.

  She was human - and learning how to bear with the pain from it.

  I turned back to the window. "Fix bayonets!" I shouted. "Hold the line!"

  The men obeyed without hesitation, forming a tight line behind the barricade. Rifles up. Blades forward. The pounding outside grew louder. Cracks splintered through the wood.

  "Brace-!"

  The wall exploded inward.

  Shadows poured through the breach, slamming into the soldiers. Steel flashed, screams followed. Men thrust bayonets into the dark shapes, only for the blades to sink uselessly into their bodies. The shadows clawed back, dragging soldiers to the floor. Black tendrils wrapped around their necks, crushing throats with wet snaps.

  "Push them back!" Adrian yelled, swinging his rifle like a club. "Don't let them in!"

  We fought in chaos. Gunfire, screams, and the crack of breaking wood filled the air. I cut down one shadow with my sword, then another. For every one I struck, two more replaced it, crawling from the corpses of the men they'd consumed.

  The room was a slaughterhouse. Blood slicked the floor, shadows writhed across the walls, and the smell of iron filled the air. Mary was still healing, trembling from exhaustion, her light flickering weakly.

  But somewhere in the chaos, I noticed something. A gap. A space where shadows should have been closing in but weren't.

  The shadows weren't touching me.

  They weren't touching Mary either.

  They lunged for every soldier, but every time one came near me, it veered off - as if repelled. One brushed my shoulder and stopped mid-swing, its arm trembling. Its head turned toward me, and though it had no face, I could feel its stare.

  It knew me.

  Mary screamed as another soldier fell, and Adrian stumbled back, knife raised, trying to fend off two shadows at once.

  I felt it then - that same pulse deep in my chest, the one I'd felt in the tunnels before. The same dark recognition that lived in my blood.

  Suddenly, the shadows in front of Adrian lunged at the same time.

  Shit-!

  I had no time to react. Before I knew it, I had jumped in front of Adrian.

  The black tendrils of shadow stopped suddenly, piercing my shirt and pricking my skin - enough to draw a small drop of blood that rolled down my white shirt.

  I felt Adrian tense behind me, and Mary look at me in shock. I could only stare in front of me, hoping my gamble would work.

  Every puppet in the tavern stopped. Their black eyes snapped toward me in unison, attentive, void of any humanity.

  The one closest began to change. Shadow dissolved into something more solid - a shape I recognized.

  The shape of a girl.

  Her hand reached up, trembling slightly as it touched my face.

  Their eyes gazed at mine. Even now as frozen as I was, I felt a sense of familiarity.

  The mass of shadows mouth open, uttering the words I dreaded to hear so clearly.

  "Damy...?"

  Her voice was small. Uncertain. But I knew it.

  Around me, the name echoed Different voices. Different tones. All calling the same word.

  Damy? Damy? Damy?

  Before I could react, their eyes all turned green.

  The shadows froze.

  Every shadow collapsed at once - strings cut, limbs falling limp. Silence.

  The room fell silent except for our ragged breathing.

  Adrian slumped against the wall, his chest heaving. "What the hell…" His eyes found mine, wild and disbelieving. "What the hell just happened?"

  I didn't answer.

  I couldn't.

  Because my whole body was shaking.