The searing agony had resolved into a profound, muscle-deep ache. He registered the new feeling first—the satisfying soreness of healing, not the fire of injury.

  He was lying on a bed of ferns. The morning light, cool and gentle, filtered down through the high canopy in dappled spears, painting the forest floor in shifting patterns.

  He could feel the healing balm, now a dry, cracked layer on his skin like a clay mask, pulling slightly as he breathed. At his side, a solid, warm weight was a comforting and familiar presence; Skate was keeping a silent vigil, its hum barely perceptible.

  Across their small, hidden dell, Mara was crouched, a statue of deadly patience with her back against a copper-barked tree.

  Trenn opened his mouth to speak, a dry rasp forming in his throat, but before any sound could escape, her head snapped toward him, and a single, black-clawed finger pressed to her snout.

  Her eyes returned to their fixed point across the dense foliage that cloistered their camp.

  He followed her line of sight, slowly turning his head, his ears straining against the quiet sounds of the forest.

  A small patrol of three Goblins, moving sluggishly through a patch of morning sun. They blinked and shielded their flat faces with their hands, their movements clumsy and reluctant in the uncomfortable daylight.

  They moved without purpose, their crude spears dragging in the dirt, their flat, ugly faces pinched in identical expressions of weary disgust. As they passed through a sunbeam, one of them threw up a hand to shield its eyes, letting out a long, theatrical groan.

  "Sun," it grumbled, its voice a low, gravelly complaint. "Hate the sun. We should be sleeping, not looking for runaway meat."

  Another one kicked at a root, its shoulders slumped. "Hobbers ain't so great," it spat, the words a sour mix of resentment and fear. "Two of 'em dead already. Dyin' like flies."

  A third, smaller Goblin snorted in agreement. "Yeah, why are we even listenin' to 'em anyways?"

  The first Goblin suddenly whirled around. Its fist, surprisingly quick, shot out and connected with the smaller Goblin's jaw with a sharp crack. The dissenter stumbled back, a hand flying to its face, its eyes wide with shock.

  "Shut your mouth," it snarled. "The One-Eye says follow the Hobbers, we follow the Hobbers."

  The small patrol, continuing their march, left Trenn’s earshot. Their grumbling voices and the scrape of their spears on stone gradually faded into the background hum of the forest, leaving a heavy silence in their wake.

  As the last of the Goblins’ grumbling faded, Mara finally relaxed her posture. The rigid tension flowed out of her frame, and she turned from her watch post, her amber eyes assessing him with a clinical detachment.

  "How are you feeling?" she asked, her voice low and practical.

  Trenn pushed himself into a full sitting position, testing the limits of his recovery. He rolled his good shoulder, feeling the deep, satisfying ache of muscles that were healing, not tearing. "Sore," he admitted, his voice hoarse. "But the sharp pain is gone."

  A dry, huffing sound that might have been a laugh escaped Mara's snout. "Good," she said, a flicker of dark amusement in her eyes. "I had to cover you in that stuff. You really are smooth all over."

  The comment made Trenn shift uncomfortably on the bed of ferns, but his mind was elsewhere. He looked away, focusing on a patch of moss.

  No longer consumed by his own physical pain, his mind became a hollow echo chamber for the last sounds Tyndral ever made. The sickening thump of a club hitting something solid but yielding. The choked, gurgling gasp.

  A violent shudder wracked his body as the memory of Tyndral's death returned. He forced himself to meet her gaze, his own eyes haunted. "Mara," he began, his voice cracking, "Tyndral... I'm so sorry."

  The amusement in Mara's eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, hard mask of brutal pragmatism. "Don't," she said, her voice like flaked obsidian. "He's gone." She turned away, checking the tension on her bowstring. "Finish the job. That is how we honor him."

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  Trenn nodded, a silent acknowledgment. He took a deep breath and tried to push Tyndral’s execution into a locked box in his mind.

  "What about this... One-Eye?" he asked, his voice low and focused.

  Mara looked up, her vulpine head tilting in genuine puzzlement. Her ears twitched slightly. "Who?"

  He stared at her, the realization dawning. She can't understand them.

  "The goblins," he said, "they were talking about someone called the One-Eye. The one they were taking me to. The one in charge."

  Mara’s amber eyes narrowed, processing the intelligence. She shook her head. "I've never heard of a 'One-Eye.' Tyndral's mission was the Hobgoblins. I'm finishing that mission. I'm going after the last one."

  She turned, her gaze locking onto Trenn's with intensity. He was no longer just a survivor she was protecting; he was a partner, an asset, a variable in a deadly equation.

  "Are you with me?" she said, extending her hand.

  Trenn didn't hesitate. He reached out, his fingers finding hers. Mara’s grip was firm. With a single, powerful pull, she hauled him to his feet. A low groan escaped his lips as his recovering body protested the sudden movement.

  "I'm with you," he said, once on his feet.

  Mara gave a satisfied nod and began the methodical process of helping him back into the stiff, cured leather of the Reptile Kin armor.

  As she tightened a strap across his chest, Trenn’s gaze drifted upward, past her shoulder, to a flicker of movement high in the canopy. A familiar splash of vibrant color circled in the morning sun.

  "Hey," he said, nodding toward the sky. "That thing is following me around?"

  Mara’s hands paused. She followed his gaze, a flicker of something akin to respect in her amber eyes. "It saved your life," she stated. "Led me straight to you last night. Without it, I never would've found you before you reached a Goblin camp."

  Trenn watched the moth—his silent, colorful guardian—complete another lazy circle.

  "You saved my life again, huh?" he murmured. "You need a name, too. How about... Bomber?"

  "Bomber," Mara repeated, a vulpine grin splitting her face. She gave the final strap on his armor a satisfying tug and stepped back, her amber eyes blazing with a renewed, predatory fire.

  "Welcome to the team, Bomber," she declared, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "Now let's go hunt some Goblins."

  Lying prone in a thicket of ferns, the cured Reptile Kin leather of his armor feeling less like a costume and more like a second skin, Trenn kept his eyes fixed on the sky.

  The world was a quiet hum of insects and rustling leaves, a peaceful fa?ade that did nothing to soothe the coiled tension in his gut.

  High above the canopy, a silent, colorful speck wheeled against the deep blue. Bomber. For the last hour, he had been a patient, circling sentinel. His flight path changed.

  The lazy circles tightened into a sharp, deliberate figure-eight, a pre-arranged signal painted against the sky directly above a ridge a hundred yards to their north.

  Trenn closed his eyes, shutting out the visual world to focus on the one within. He took a slow, steadying breath, and with a familiar surge of will, he pushed his senses away.

  It was like flexing a muscle he hadn't known he possessed until a few days ago. His hearing detached and stretched, flowing silently through the trees in the direction Bomber was indicating.

  The world bloomed with new sounds. The buzz of a fly, the frantic scrabble of a squirrel, and cutting through the noise of the forest, the low, guttural grumbling of a Goblin patrol. Four of them, their voices a litany of complaints.

  "...stupid blinding daylight," one rasped, the sound clear as a bell in Trenn's mind. "Hobbers are dead, and we're still marchin'. Stupid."

  "Quiet, you," another snarled. "We check the creek, we circle back. The sooner we get there, the sooner we get back in our holes."

  Trenn opened his eyes, the connection snapping back, leaving a faint, buzzing echo in his skull. To his left, Mara lay so still she was a part of the undergrowth, a ghost of white fur and coiled muscle. He didn’t speak.

  He held up two fingers and drew a curving line in the air with his index finger. Mara's amber eyes narrowed in a flicker of understanding. A nod was her reply. She flowed backward into a patch of deep shadow and vanished.

  Trenn remained motionless, every nerve alight. He could hear the approaching crunch of the Goblins' footsteps, the lazy drone of the insects, the thumping of his own heart. He had placed Skate on a small, flat patch of moss two steps in front of him, a grey sphere teed up and waiting.

  A single, choked-off grunt came from the direction of the creek. A pause, thick with a sudden, terrible tension. Another, shorter gasp, followed by the thud of a body hitting the ground.

  Two Goblins burst from the trees, their flat faces warped by terror.

  Mara emerged right behind them, not in a frantic pursuit, but with a calm, loping stride, herding them forward like livestock to the slaughter.

  Trenn surged forward from his hiding place, his body moving with a practiced, explosive grace. His leg swung in a powerful, clean arc, his boot connecting squarely with the waiting grey sphere.

  Skate shot forward, a silent grey cannonball that crashed through the first Goblin's ribs, caromed off shattered bone to crush the second's skull, and ricocheted sideways, back to Trenn.

  Mara straightened up, a vision of lethal grace amidst the carnage. She methodically wiped her claws clean on the tunic of a dead Goblin. She looked over at Trenn.

  "Not bad, Wild Mage," she said with a satisfied growl. "Keep this up, we might make a Guardian out of you."

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