The whistle rang.Sawyer stood. The rest could not.
A low groaning note haunted the air. Pressure mounted on the skulls of all who heard it. The cold felt warm and the warm felt cold. Reality bent. The world lurched.Time dilated, seconds felt like minutes. Age grew heavier, yet their body screamed youth.
The goblins shrieked first. Not in pain, not in anger, but in confusion so raw it stripped the sound down to something animal. Several staggered mid-charge, claws scraping uselessly against earth as their balance abandoned them. One slammed face-first into a wagon wheel and did not rise.
Humans fared little better.
Light bent. Depth collapsed. The ground tilted both to the left and to the right.
The whistle vibrated through Sawyer's chest, through bone rather than ear, its resonance threading cleanly through him without catching. He exhaled slowly as the note faded, fingers already loosening from the cord at his neck.
Around him, the world reeled.
Kristaphs dropped to one knee, one hand braced against the dirt, the other clenched tight as if gripping something invisible. Bran swore, the word slurring halfway through as his sense of direction betrayed him. He hugged the side of a wagon, pressing his head against the wood. Desperate to feel any form of stability. Agnes staggered sideways, boots digging furrows as she fought to stay upright, eyes narrowed in furious concentration. Her canines bit hard on her lip as blood dripped across her chin.
"What—" someone started.
The sentence never finished.
Faust folded forward.
Not staggered. Not braced. His body rejected the world outright, spine locking as he dropped to his knees and retched hard enough that it sounded violent. Whatever had been in his stomach came up in choking spasms, bile splashing against the dirt as his hands clawed uselessly at the ground.
Again.And again.
Each heave came with a sharp, involuntary gasp, as if his lungs couldn't decide whether they were meant to breathe or scream. His eyes watered uncontrollably, vision swimming, the afterimage of the sound still vibrating behind them like a struck bell that refused to settle.
"Faust—" Bran tried, then stopped as his own balance wavered.
Aluna didn't answer.
She had both hands clamped over her ears, fingers digging into the edges of her hood as if pressure alone might force the sound back out. It didn't help. The ringing cut through everything—high, thin, relentless. Not a tone so much as a presence. It drowned out voices, swallowed the scrape of boots, blurred the space between thought and sensation.
She dropped to one knee, breath coming shallow and uneven.
The sound was wrong. The sound was wrong. The sound was wrong.
Her soul repeated this mantra. Its familiar currents no longer aligned with her sense of self, pulling too fast in one moment and lagging behind the next. Each pulse of resonance arrived a fraction too late, like an echo answering a question that had already changed.
Her teeth clenched as another wave of ringing surged.
Nearby, Faust gagged again, dry this time, shoulders shaking as his body tried to expel something that was no longer there. One hand pressed to his chest, the other trembling against the dirt, fingers slick and unsteady.
"This—" he tried, voice cracking, then broke off as another spasm hit him.
The ground still wasn't steady.
The Song felt dead.
Not silenced—never silenced—but torn into overlapping threads that refused to align. Its steady guidance collapsed into discordant fragments, each pulling in a slightly different direction. Steps fell out of rhythm. Breaths mistimed. The caravan's careful cohesion unraveled in seconds.
Sawyer moved anyway.
He stepped forward into the confusion with deliberate calm, boots finding solid ground where others guessed and failed. His presence cut a narrow path through the disarray, not because the world favored him—but because the world rejected him.
Sawyer crossed the short distance to Agnes in three measured steps.
She was still standing—barely—eyes narrowed against a world that refused to settle, jaw clenched hard enough that her teeth creaked. Blood traced a thin line from her lip to her chin, unnoticed. Of all of them, she had taken the sound the least… and that frightened him more than if she'd fallen.
The weight in his arms shifted.
The little girl lay limp against his chest, curls matted with dust, lashes resting too still against her cheeks. She breathed—shallow, even—but did not stir. The whistle had taken her cleanly, mercifully, into darkness.
"Agnes," Sawyer said, low and steady.
She flinched at the sound of her name, eyes snapping to him with visible effort. For a moment, she looked past him—through him—trying to anchor reality to something that wouldn't slide away.
Then she saw the child.
Her breath caught.
Sawyer did not hesitate. He stepped in close and transferred the girl into her arms with deliberate care, guiding Agnes's grip where instinct had already moved ahead of thought. One arm under the shoulders. One beneath the knees. Secure. Balanced.
Agnes's hands trembled—but they did not fail.
She cradled the girl automatically, posture shifting to protect, to shield, to not drop her at all costs. Whatever the world was doing, that rule still held.
"I—" Agnes started, then swallowed as nausea surged. "Sawyer… what—"
He didn't let her finish.
Sawyer reached up and took her head gently but firmly between his hands, palms sealing over her ears. The contact was grounding—solid, unmistakably real. He leaned in just enough that she could see his eyes clearly, steady and focused.
"Stay with me," he said quietly.
The ringing dulled.
Not gone—but pushed back, smothered beneath pressure and presence. Agnes's breathing slowed as the world grudgingly began to reassemble itself into something navigable. The tilt eased. The smear of light sharpened. Her stomach still churned, sour and heavy, but the violent disorientation receded into a manageable wave.
She blinked. Once. Twice.
Understanding crept in behind the sickness.
Her eyes widened slightly.
"That sound," she whispered. "You—"
Sawyer was already moving again.
He pulled his hands away and began undoing the clasps on his gauntlets, metal sliding free with soft, efficient clicks. He pressed them into her arms atop the child, forcing her to adjust but never loosen her hold.
"Take my gauntlets," he said, voice calm, unquestionable. "Help the rest."
Agnes stared at them, then at him. Her fingers tightened reflexively around both metal and child.
"You're—"
A guttural snarl cut through the night.
Behind them, goblins began to stir.
Those caught in the whistle's reach dragged themselves along the ground, limbs uncooperative, movements jerky and misaligned. They crawled more than walked, heads snapping toward phantom sounds, jaws snapping at nothing.
But beyond them—
Foliage exploded.
Fresh shapes burst from the tree line, eyes sharp, movements coordinated. A second wave—too far to hear the whistle. Too intact to hesitate.
Sawyer turned.
"I'll hold them."
There was no bravado in it. No promise of safety. Just statement of fact.
Agnes opened her mouth to argue.
The goblins screamed.
And Sawyer stepped forward to meet them alone.
He reached the nearest supply crate and tore free an unlit torch, the cloth-wrapped head dry and intact despite the night's chaos. He turned, stepped to the campfire, and thrust it down into the coals.
Flame caught immediately.
It bloomed up the torch head in a low whump, orange light surging outward and carving shape back into the night. Smoke curled thick and sharp, the smell of pitch and burning fiber cutting cleanly through bile and fear.
Sawyer straightened, torch in hand.
The new wave of goblins hesitated.
Not long—just enough.
Fire meant something to them. Even now. Even disciplined, even driven, their bodies remembered what their minds pretended not to. Yellow eyes narrowed. Snarls dropped half a pitch as heat washed across their faces.
Sawyer lifted the torch slightly.
The message was simple.
Come.
Behind him, Agnes moved.
She carried the girl the last few steps to the wagon, arms locked tight around the small, unmoving weight as the ground still pitched beneath her boots. Lantern light flickered across the child's face as Agnes lifted her into the carriage, easing her down onto a folded blanket with a care so deliberate it bordered on reverent.
"Stay," Agnes murmured, though the girl could not hear it.
She checked the rise and fall of the child's chest once—twice—then pulled back, swallowing hard as the ringing pressed in again.
A hand steadied her shoulder.
Aluna stood beside her, pale and drawn, one hand still hovering near her ear as if the echo might return at any moment. Her breathing was controlled—forced into control—but her eyes were clear now, sharp with purpose.
"She's alive," Aluna said quietly, more reassurance than statement. "Get the rest."
Agnes nodded once. There was no room for relief yet.
She turned and slipped Sawyer's gauntlets from her forearms.
The weight of them was grounding. Heavy, and extraordinarily cold. Yet they felt empty. Hollow.
She went to Bran first.
He was slumped against the wagon's side, eyes unfocused, one hand braced uselessly against the wood as if it might stop the world from sliding away. Agnes stepped into his space without asking, set the gauntlets over his ears, and held his head steady.
"Look at me," she said, voice low and sharp. "Don't fight it."
Bran sucked in a breath. Then another. His shoulders eased as the ringing dulled beneath pressure and contact, the world stitching itself back together inch by inch.
"I—gods," he muttered. "That was—"
"Later," Agnes cut in gently, already pulling away.
Aluna moved with her.
Where Agnes grounded, Aluna guided.
She placed a hand on Bran's back as Agnes stepped away, murmuring a quiet phrase that wasn't a spell so much as a reminder—breath, balance, here. The Song answered her hesitantly, still fractured, but willing.
Kristaphs was next.
He had forced himself upright but swayed on his feet, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed as if he were trying to outstare the vertigo. Agnes caught him before he could pitch sideways, pressed the gauntlets to his ears, and anchored him in place.
"Steady," she said.
Kristaphs exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled. When his gaze sharpened again, he gave her a single nod and stepped aside without a word, blade coming up as his balance returned.
Aluna watched him go, then turned her attention outward—counting civilians, marking who was still struggling, who needed help next. Her lips moved in silent prayer as she worked, weaving calm where she could, patching gaps where the Song still refused to settle.
Faust was harder.
He was still on his knees, retching dryly, hands shaking as if his body hadn't yet agreed that the danger had shifted. Agnes knelt in front of him, ignoring the smell and the tremor in her own stomach, and brought the gauntlets up.
He flinched at first—then sagged.
The tension bled out of him in a shuddering breath.
"I thought my head was splitting," he whispered hoarsely.
"I know," Agnes said. "You're back. Stay back."
Aluna crouched beside him, pressing her palm briefly to his shoulder. "Breathe with me," she said, soft but firm. "Don't cast. Not yet."
Faust nodded weakly, clutching the ground as if it were the only thing keeping him anchored to the world.
Agnes moved again.
One by one.
A hand on the jaw. Pressure on the ears. Eye contact until focus returned. She repeated Sawyer's method with brutal efficiency, passing clarity along like a lifeline while the camp reeled around her.
Aluna followed in her wake, reinforcing what Agnes restored—guiding civilians into the wagon, calming shaking hands, steadying voices that threatened to break.
Behind them, the wagon filled.
Ahead of them—
Firelight flared.
Sawyer advanced alone, torch raised, as goblins began to scream and surge.
Agnes tightened her grip on the gauntlets.
Both backs now faced each other. They moved in only one direction.
FORWARD.