The Hollows were not coming in a wave.

  They were coming in layers.

  At first, it seemed manageable. A dozen shapes slipping between the trees, bodies thin and bent, mouths open in that constant, rasping hunger. Seren Dal planted his spear into the soil and called for a defensive arc. Digiera moved without waiting, already counting angles, already deciding which direction would bleed least.

  Gemma raised her hands. The Light answered. It did not roar. It pressed.

  A translucent barrier unfolded in front of them, bending faintly like glass submerged in water. The first Hollows hit it hard, their bodies slamming against the surface with dull, meaty thuds. They shrieked, not in pain, but in frustration, clawing at something they could feel but not understand.

  For a heartbeat, the line held.

  Then more came.

  From the left.

  From the rear.

  From places Gemma had sworn were empty seconds earlier.

  They poured out of the forest as if the ground itself had begun to reject them. Too many. Far too many. They trampled over their own fallen, pressing forward without fear, without hesitation, without memory.

  Gemma’s barrier shuddered.

  Not cracking.

  But straining.

  “More coming!” Legs shouted, his voice high and brittle.

  Aros cut down two Hollows in quick succession, his movements sharp and economical, but even he could see it. The sheer number of them. The way they piled forward, collapsing against the barrier, bodies stacking until their weight alone became a weapon.

  Gemma gritted her teeth.

  The Light burned hotter under her skin now, no longer a quiet tide but a force demanding release. She reinforced the barrier instinctively, layers folding over each other, shimmering brighter with every second.

  Her knees shook.

  She could feel the pressure, not just from the Hollows, but from the world itself, pushing back. Magic was not infinite. It was borrowed.

  And the forest wanted its due.

  The barrier bowed inward.

  A Hollow’s arm punched halfway through before dissolving into ash. Another followed. Then another.

  “They’re climbing it!” Digiera barked.

  Indeed, some of the Hollows had stopped striking. They were climbing, scrambling over their own dead, clawing at the barrier’s surface, using the press of bodies as ladders.

  Seren Dal drove his spear upward, skewering one mid-leap, but three more took its place immediately.

  “Aros!” he shouted. “This won’t hold!”

  Gemma felt it then. The fracture point. Not in the barrier, but in the formation.

  The group was too tight. Too visible. The forest around them had become a funnel, channeling the Hollows inward.

  “We have to fall back!” Aros yelled.

  “To where?” Legs cried. “They’re everywhere!”

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  Gemma’s vision flickered white at the edges.

  She made a decision she didn’t announce.

  The barrier expanded outward suddenly, not forward, but sideways, splitting the pressure, forcing the Hollows apart for just a moment. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t controlled. It was brute force shaped like light.

  “RUN!” she screamed.

  They scattered.

  Not strategically.

  Not cleanly.

  They broke.

  Seren Dal vaulted left, spear carving a path through underbrush. Digiera vanished to the right, low and fast, disappearing into shadow. Legs stumbled backward, nearly falling before Aros grabbed him and shoved him toward a narrow ravine choked with roots.

  The barrier collapsed.

  Gemma felt it tear away from her like skin ripped free.

  Hollows surged in immediately, filling the space it had held as if it had never existed.

  She turned, and collided hard with Candriela.

  Candriela grabbed her wrist, eyes sharp, already moving. “This way.”

  They ran.

  Branches tore at their cloaks. Roots caught at Gemma’s boots. She could hear the Hollows behind them, too close, always too close, their breathing wet and irregular, their feet pounding the ground with animal persistence.

  Candriela veered suddenly, dragging Gemma down a steep slope toward a cluster of fallen trees tangled together like a barricade made by accident.

  They slipped beneath the mass of wood and leaves, crawling until the forest swallowed them.

  Silence fell.

  Not true silence, never that, but the immediate, crushing sound of pursuit faded. The Hollows passed by in erratic streams, some doubling back, others surging onward, drawn by movement elsewhere.

  Gemma pressed her hand over her mouth, forcing her breathing to slow.

  Minutes passed.

  Her heart hammered painfully against her ribs.

  Candriela remained motionless beside her, blade drawn, eyes fixed on the narrow opening between roots.

  Then...Movement.

  Two Hollows peeled away from the larger mass, drawn by scent or chance. They crept toward the fallen trees, heads jerking, jaws slack.

  Gemma lifted her hand.

  Candriela moved first.

  She lunged forward, blade flashing once, twice. One Hollow collapsed with a wet sound, its neck opened cleanly. The second leapt, too fast.

  Gemma thrust her palm outward.

  Light flared.

  The Hollow slammed backward into a tree trunk hard enough to snap its spine. It slid down in a heap, twitching once before going still.

  They waited.

  Nothing else came.

  Candriela exhaled slowly and wiped her blade on the dead creature’s torn clothing.

  “We should stay here a few minutes,” Gemma whispered. “Let them pass.”

  Candriela nodded, but something in her posture felt… wrong.

  Gemma studied her more closely now. The way her shoulders were held too rigid. The way her eyes avoided Gemma’s for half a second too long.

  “Candriela,” Gemma said quietly. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes,” Candriela replied immediately.

  Too immediately.

  Gemma frowned. “You don’t feel like yourself.”

  Candriela said nothing.

  After a moment, Gemma asked the question she had been circling since the forest swallowed them.

  “Did you find Virea?”

  Candriela’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

  “Yes,” she said. “I found her.”

  Gemma waited.

  “She was dead,” Candriela continued flatly.

  The words landed heavy between them.

  Gemma’s chest tightened. “I’m sorry.”

  Candriela nodded once, but there was no grief in it. No anger either. Just emptiness.

  “How do you live with that?” Gemma asked softly. “How do you walk away without killing everything in your path?”

  Candriela’s eyes flicked toward the trees. “I couldn’t have,” she said. “Even if I wanted to. It was just me against the entire Valval Priesthood"

  Gemma looked at her.

  Truly looked.

  And did not believe a word.

  But she said nothing.

  Not yet.

  “We wait,” Gemma said instead. “A few more minutes. Then we find the others.”

  Candriela nodded.

  The forest breathed around them, thick with danger and lies.

  And somewhere beyond the trees, the group was broken into fragments, each one fighting to remain whole long enough to find the others again.

  Gemma closed her eyes briefly, feeling the Light pulse weakly beneath her skin.

  Whatever Candriela was hiding, it would surface. Everything always did.

  But not yet. Not while the Hollows still listened.