Rin’s boots struck the sodden boards with a steady rhythm. The obstacle course no longer felt like a gauntlet designed to break her, but a crucible where each step burned weakness away.

  Her lungs screamed, her heart hammered, and yet she kept running, retracing a nameless technique shown to her by the Nightblade.

  [By strong will, vigor unending.]

  Rin staggered for a moment as her vision blurred into another body’s: She saw hours of fighting with no rest compressed into a single impression. Strings of mana, each an independent intent, enhancing the muscles, rejuvenating the heart and lungs.

  When her sight snapped back, she was still running—The phantom memory of how the technique felt to perform had embedded itself in her brain.

  She could never hope to design such an impossibly complex tapestry of magic herself. She knew no one that could.

  And yet, by imitation and guidance, she already could extend her capabilities well beyond her norm.

  By the time she vaulted the last ridge, she was winded but not broken. The knife-edge between collapse and endurance had shifted.

  Rin dropped to the mud, chest heaving, only to hear them again. The two soldiers at the fence, laughing. They had made it a habit to try and get under her skin.

  “Look at her go. Hey, elven bitch, I got a bed for you to warm!”

  “Oy, where are you going?”

  Rin’s hand twitched. She hoped they would try and touch her.

  [An empress suffers no opposition.]

  The Nightblade pressed into her mind once more.

  Suddenly, the mud around her turned into the finest marble encrusted with gems. Rin found herself among elven nobles of old. The Nightblade conjured her illusions around those that stood up to her reign and those she found inconvenient. Soon, many of the poor souls were swatting at insects that weren’t there and flinching from phantom touches.

  “Did she snap? Tell me she snapped! I want to put her in her place so badly.”

  Rin blinked and kept moving through the mud, her skin was covered in sweat and grime again. Without a glance, she cast delicate illusions, as instructed. One of the soldiers complained of a fetid smell. The other jerked as a spider crawled across his neck.

  Their laughter faltered.

  She straightened, walking to her quarters. And that day, her chin was held high not just for appearances.

  Dolen sat in a plush armchair. A constant, thrumming filled his skull, a sensation he had grown so used to that he barely registered it anymore. It kept him detached, dulling his thoughts and emotions.

  The cozy room was filled with a one-sided conversation and the low crackle of the fireplace. Scent of stale wine thickened the air.

  Across from him sat Cero, staring into the fire as he listened to Alver. His armor was gone, replaced by simple clothes, and his face, once so full of life, was now a mask of quiet grief. Alver, the de-facto leader of the rebellion in Vennevar, paced the room with restless energy.

  "If something sounds too good to be true," Alver started, but gave up mid sentence. "You know the drill. We got greedy, enticed by Hiveo, that rat. But I’m not giving up. You shouldn’t either."

  “I am not giving up.” Cero mumbled. “Janni would see it through. So I will, in her place.”

  Dolen remained silent.

  "We made a mistake," Alver continued, his pace quickening. " I did. We should have stuck to the original plan. We'll go back to it. See it through to the end."

  Dolen tilted his head. What was the original plan again?

  He couldn't focus as a part of his mind kept screaming at him to go perform a spell. He knew he would, once he was alone.

  The conversation shifted, the men discussing the growing tensions in the kingdom. There were whispers of war, with more and more of the Empire's agents making it across the burnt lands.

  "I hear there’s more of them these days," Cero said, his voice barely a whisper. "The undead bastards."

  Dolen leaned forward, his vacant eyes suddenly focused on the knight. “More? If they’re being culled, shouldn't there be less of them?”

  Alver looked at him, surprised by the sudden break in his usual silence. "Well, yes? But with so many living dead clustered together, almost every new casualty joins their ranks. I heard mana is hard to control near them, too.”

  Dolen nodded, but said nothing. He didn't know why he had reacted that way, why the mention of the undead had sent a shiver down his spine. Barely a few seconds passed, and he already couldn’t remember.

  “Darryl is out there, working to get the populace on our side. In the meantime we’ll try to make contact with the Empire.” Alver continued, moving past Dolen’s interruption. “Though they are a separate country, I think they might aid us. We all have an enemy in the council, after all.”

  Darryl checked his position one last time, eyes scanning the dark treeline where his men crouched in the undergrowth. Twenty-three soldiers, three battlemages, and one pink-haired girl. An orphan who shouldn’t be there.

  The familiar weight settled over him. Another cull, another day making sure less kids ended up like her.

  He whistled softly, and signed to Yorick, his second in command. ‘Ready?’. In response he saw the man extend two fingers and shake his head.

  We’ve got time then. Darryl turned to Sally, keeping his voice at whisper level. "So, why are we going about this in this particular way?"

  "It's most efficient," she replied without hesitation. Good.

  "Why?"

  "If we set fire to the whole nest, monsters would run away in chaos, and become harder to cull. By giving them a single safe route, most of them will take it." Sally's young voice carried the mechanical cadence of lessons learned by rote.

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  "And then?" He asked, as he elbowed her softly, reminding her to keep it down.

  "They run into a wall of spears and swords." She gestured toward the dense formation bristling with three-meter pikes, ready to rise at his signal.

  “What’s our—”

  The first explosion shook the ground beneath them.

  Too early. Damn.

  A dozen more followed in rapid succession, fire blooming from multiple points around the nest perimeter in random order. Suddenly, the forest was lit like it was day.

  "Fuck, someone's been caught," Darryl muttered, taking his place at the formation's head, Brenn’s kiteshield glistening on his arm.

  The acrid smoke was already thickening, and he could hear the first confused roars from the depths of the nest.

  The Bristlemanes came in a thundering wave. Quick count showed four dozen adults, their namesake fur bristling with rage, eyes wild with protective fury.

  Seeing the monsters converge, Darryl calmed. One team failed to time the detonation, but others were already in place.

  "Up!" he barked.

  His soldiers rose from concealment like a steel hedge, tower shields locked, spears placed over and angled forward. The shields, as their wielders, were smeared with dirt and mud, hiding their scent. Unmatched in its simplicity.

  The Bristlemanes hit the spear wall with the sound of thunder. Their thick fur turned aside some points, but Darryl had positioned six men to target each beast in the narrow kill-zone.

  The front rank of creatures crumpled, their bodies forming a bloody barrier. But their sacrifice wasn't meaningless. Spear hafts snapped against their massive frames, and the second wave was already scrambling over their corpses.

  Always the same pattern. Darryl drew his sword as his men switched to close combat. Hold the line, trust the plan.

  A Bristlemane launched itself overhead, grabbing at a burning tree trunk, seeking to crush his soldiers from above. It struck an invisible barrier mid-flight and crashed to earth with a bone-jarring thud.

  Good. Elmira's worth every silver I paid her.

  Darryl caught a creature's clawed hand with his shield, then sliced it clean off. Around him, his men fought with disciplined efficiency—not heroes seeking glory, just professionals doing bloody work.

  When most of the pack had clumped before them, furiously trying to tear apart his scantily armored soldiers, Darryl raised his voice. "FIRE! BURN THEM TO ASH!"

  A new barrier shimmered into existence, one repelling heat while allowing objects through. The soldiers who previously aimed the spears, now threw vials of alchemical fire which arced through the air and shattered against fur and flesh. Fire bloomed instantly, turning the Bristlemanes' greatest protective layer into nothing more than burning carpets.

  The creatures scattered as flames consumed them, their anguished howls echoing through the forest. Darryl watched with professional detachment. It was never pleasant, but necessity rarely was.

  “Pursue!”

  As Darryl called out, the squad abandoned the heavy shields and gave chase to the running monsters. He took a step back to where Sally was, assessing the situation.

  "Won't the fire spread?" Sally's voice carried new uncertainty.

  "It’s just after a rainfall," Darryl replied, still tracking fleeing monsters with his eyes. "Makes more of them survive the cull, but should contain the flames by itself."

  Then he saw it—the blaze where the first team had panicked, far larger than planned, already licking at branches that should have been too wet to catch.

  Amateurs. Hopefully none of them died.

  "Elmira, handle this!" he called, already moving to pursue a wounded Bristlemane that stood a chance of escaping.

  The white-haired mage responded immediately, her subordinates sending ice and water to douse the spreading flames. Many battlemages turned to safer work once they passed forty years of age, but not her. And she had the experience and power to prove it.

  When the fires died out, the darkness had returned. As the last bristlemane stragglers died, Darryl and his squad entered the nest proper. The sights that greeted them were as expected as they were grim—deep pits lined with fresh carcasses and the mewling forms of newborn monsters.

  “What’s this putrid smell?” Sally pinched her nose as she approached.

  “Rotting meat and shit,” Darryl shrugged. “Want some?”

  “Not funny,” the girl shot him a glare, but her curiosity overcame her disgust as she leaned to peek inside ”Are those… pups? Why?”

  "Pits stop them from following the call of the long night, and so they survive to breed once it passes," he explained. “Did you never wonder why all monsters converge on our towns and yet there were still more to be found?”

  “So if they could… Even those pups would try to attack us on the long night?” Sally shivered. “I… I almost pity them.”

  Darryl spat into the dirt at the ridiculous notion, already calculating pensions he would have to pay later in the day. "Skin the little shits, should be a pretty penny," His voice carried to the waiting soldiers. "If any adults aren't burnt too badly, get them too."

  A young girl could see a fluffy baby and suddenly start pitying monsters. Mad world we live in.

  Darryl left her behind as he grabbed a saw from his bags, then set out to pick a few especially gruesome corpses to decapitate. His job as officer of Vennevar was done.

  All that was left was his task from Alver.

  The villagers had gathered in a half-circle, torches swaying in the night wind, faces pinched with suspicion. Darryl stood at the center of the road, his soldiers in tight formation behind him, carts creaking under their load of supplies. From a distance, they might have looked like raiders. The villagers certainly thought so—every gaze was wide, hard, afraid.

  The chief tried to keep his chin high, but his hands trembled at his sides. “What is this?” he asked. “Are you here to threaten us, good sir?”

  At his signal, two soldiers heaved forward a sack. It landed with a wet thump, and a roll of severed bristlemanes’ heads spilled across the packed dirt, jaws slack, eyes dull. Blood smeared the ground in front of the man who looked to be the village chief.

  “The eclipse is only days away, and a nest of more than forty bristlemanes was half an hour from your doors. In a week, you’d all be dead,” Darryl’s voice cut through the murmurs. “In other words, we saved your asses.”

  Gasps rose from the crowd. Some villagers clutched their children tighter; others stared at the heads with dawning gratitude, or disbelief.

  The chief’s face was pale, but his words carried an edge. “And what do we owe our saviors? We’re poor folk—we’ve no coin to give.”

  “You have arms, don’t you?” Darryl’s voice boomed. “You have able bodies and strong wills. That is enough. Soon, we will rise against the tyrants who rule over us, and you will support us!”

  For a heartbeat, silence held the crowd. Then the chief barked out a laugh, rough and genuine. “It’s about time.” He turned to his people. “What are you staring at? Bring some drinks for the knights!”

  Darryl nodded as he stepped forward. They would talk, eat and rest, then repeat the same thing at the next village within Kira lands.

  People were starving for a change. Starving to be used.

  Sophie’s shoulders trembled slightly under the weight of the room. The polished marble walls and the soft wool carpet under her boots, made her feel incredibly small. And yet, it was all nothing compared to the pressure exuded by the man in front of them.

  Lord Romuald was dressed in elegant, yet simple, robes and sat on a high-backed chair, with purple banners of his house behind him.

  “These rumors,” The lord spoke. “Am I to understand, none of you know where they came from?”

  “No, my lord.” Sophie spoke, trying to sound confident. She was the one to request this meeting, after all. “One day, people noticed the magical contraptions and soon everyone was talking about it.”

  She peeked at other representatives, but none had any objections.

  “And what would the people want, then? You’re their voice, surely you must know, or you wouldn’t request my attention.” There were a dozen people in the room, and yet, Sophie felt as if the Lord was talking directly to her.

  The pressure on her shoulders increased ten-fold.

  “They need reassurance,” she steeled herself, then spoke with a clear voice. “If they–If we understood the Lord’s plans better, we needn’t fear.”

  “I am not used to divulging my secrets.” The lord admitted, though his voice carried an edge. “I hope you don’t doubt my intentions.”

  “Never.”

  “Very well. All you need to know is that we’re adding defensive measures against threats from within. Those that harbor no ill intentions have nothing to worry about.”

  And there was nothing she could say to that.

  After a few seconds of silence, the audience was concluded and guards ushered them outside.

  As she walked out of the lord’s manor, Sophie realized that no one aside from her had the chance to speak up.

  That… didn’t go as I hoped.