The rest didn't come.
The soldiers scattered across the clearing like broken shadows, trying to sleep wherever they could — on hard ground, on torn blankets, leaning against cold stone.
They tried… but they failed.
Some turned from side to side every few minutes, too restless to fall asleep.
Others clutched their own arms, pressing hidden wounds to dull the pain.
One or another murmured names, maybe pleas, maybe memories.
The cold bit into skin.
The forest breathed around them.
No one looked truly alive — only trying not to give in.
Brianna walked among them without resting a single muscle.
Rigid posture, eyes always awake, steps exact and steady.
She assessed every wounded soldier with quick, precise movements: tightening bandages, repositioning arms, measuring breath, touching skin to feel for infections buried deep.
No wasted words.
No gesture too gentle.
It was as if the night itself followed her, recognizing in the princess a different kind of darkness — a darkness that didn't yield.
At the edge of the clearing, Karna remained where he had been since the beginning: leaning against the trunk where his arrow was embedded.
His thumb traced the mark in the wood, slow, as if that simple touch could keep him anchored.
He didn't smile.
Didn't joke.
Didn't let his breath relax.
Eyes fixed on Brianna ahead of him.
The arrow carved into the tree vibrated — not like wood, but like something had touched it without touching at all.
Karna opened his eyes.
There was no wind.
No footsteps.
No approach.
Only a sudden displacement of air itself, as if space had been torn from one point and placed somewhere else within the forest.
The world blinked.
And Éon was there.
Not walking.
Not emerging from shadow.
Simply occupying a place that had been empty a second before.
The moonlight around him took a moment to adjust, as if reality had to remember where it belonged.
Karna didn't turn his head.
"Seems like…" he said, eyes still on the Brianna, "we have no doubts left."
Éon remained still.
No audible breath.
No movement.
The soldiers shifted, uneasy, without knowing why.
The temperature dropped half a degree.
A thin breath of air slipped between the rocks, like the forest itself exhaled.
Brianna lifted her gaze.
And found Éon there.
Alive.
Awake.
And different.
Different in a way no one had words for.
Éon's presence still seemed to hum in the air when Brianna approached them.
Her steps made no sound.
But her gaze cut like a blade.
"The situation is far from good," she said, blunt as iron. "The blow we took today… there's no recovering from it."
Karna finally pushed off the tree, brow tightening.
"And Ryden?"
Brianna inhaled — a silence worth more than any answer spoken aloud.
"We'll only know at dawn," she replied. "If he's going to live… or die."
Karna swallowed hard. Jaw locked. He didn't look at Éon — maybe because he didn't know what he'd see if he tried.
Brianna, on the other hand, looked directly at him.
Éon did not react.
Not a muscle.
Not a shadow of interpretation.
She held her gaze steady.
"The men are scared," she said. "When they marched, they expected soldiers. Men. Not… this."
She turned her head slowly, facing the makeshift camp.
Soldiers trying to sleep.
Others shaking.
Some staring at their own hands as if expecting them to change shape.
"If my hypothesis is right…" she continued, voice low but unwavering, "the civilians from the three villages… and those who lived within the Eastern Kingdom walls…"
She stopped.
The wind slipped between stones like a warning.
"…were transformed."
Karna looked away, like the sentence carried physical weight.
Éon remained still.
Cold.
Silent.
Watching something no one else could see.
Brianna passed by them, her torn cloak shifting in the weak wind.
"You'd better rest," she said, without looking back. "And pray that I'm wrong."
She didn't wait for an answer.
She crossed the clearing, vanishing among shadows and exhausted bodies, like someone carrying truth in their hands — and hating every piece of it.
Silence.
Karna watched Brianna fade into the distance and then looked back at Éon.
"I don't know what happened back there," he began, without softness this time, "but tomorrow we face something… brutal."
Éon said nothing.
Karna continued:
"Honestly… moments like this, I wish your brother were here."
Éon raised his eyes slowly.
Karna didn't look away.
"Because someone like him… he'd know what to do. Or what to say to these men."
Éon stood motionless for a few long seconds.
Then he rose without a word and walked into the forest's darkness.
Karna watched until the silhouette was gone — swallowed by night without leaving a trace.
For a while, no one spoke.
The fire cracked once, weakly, and fell silent again.
Night began there.
It dragged.
The wind shifted only a few times, always too cold for that season.
The fire shrank to faint embers, unable to push back the damp air that settled over camp like a heavy veil.
Some soldiers slept by exhaustion.
Others only shut their eyes and pretended.
No one truly rested.
Now and then someone jolted awake — not from dreams, but from remembering what they'd seen.
Brianna stayed awake most of the night, sitting near the men, checking pulses, changing bandages when needed.
Her movements were calculated, nearly mechanical, but her eyes missed nothing.
Karna slept little.
When he did, it was light, fractured sleep.
He woke looking toward the forest, as if waiting for footsteps — any sign of Éon.
But Éon didn't return.
The moon crawled across the sky and vanished behind heavy clouds.
And when darkness began to pale, it wasn't a beautiful dawn — but a dull gray that thinned the night without bringing light.
No birdsong.
Nothing alive greeted morning.
Only wind through trees, carrying a metallic scent, too familiar for those who've seen too much blood.
Dawn arrived.
Gray.
Silent.
Wrong.
Morning brought no warmth.
No color.
Only that dead, ashen light that made everything worse.
Brianna walked to where Ryden lay, apart from the others.
He barely looked human — not because of wounds, but because of the stillness, too perfect.
No twitch.
No involuntary tremor.
His chest rose and fell so faintly it was almost not there.
Induced death held his life by a single thread.
Karna joined her moments later, quiet, as if afraid of what he might see.
Brianna knelt beside him.
"Stable rhythm," she murmured, touching his neck. "But… far too cold."
She drew a small curved blade from the sheath at her thigh.
Karna's brows tightened.
"What are you going to do?"
"Confirm," she answered, crisp, without looking up. "Or discard my hypothesis."
She set the blade to the skin of Ryden's shoulder where his tunic had been removed.
The cut was tiny — a single line.
The reaction came immediately.
A thread of dark liquid, thick, almost oily, slipped out.
Not blood.
Not pus.
Something… dead.
The smell wasn't strong, but it held a metallic bitterness that made Karna step back half a pace.
"That… that isn't human," he whispered.
"No," Brianna said, watching the black liquid drip. "It isn't."
She pressed the skin around the cut, forcing a little more.
Another dark thread emerged — thicker, more clotted, as if it had been still for hours.
The blade clinked as she set it beside him.
"The induced death halted everything forming in him," she concluded, voice low and controlled. "Including that."
Karna looked at Ryden, then at the dead liquid, then at Brianna.
"You mean that… if he were awake…"
"He'd be transforming," she finished, without softening.
Silence.
Heavy.
Cruel.
Honest.
Brianna cleaned the wound with cloth, wiping away the black stains with minimal contact.
"But that doesn't mean he's safe," she continued, eyes on Ryden's face.
"If the infection progressed before induction… we can't know if something alive is still in there. Waiting."
Karna felt his stomach fall.
"And if… if he wakes and—"
"Wakes in fury? Or deformed?" Brianna cut in. "Yes. It's possible."
She turned slightly, locking eyes with Karna.
There was no fear in her.
Only calculation.
"But there's also a chance he wakes normal."
Karna drew a shaky breath.
"You're going to try waking him?"
Brianna cleaned the black residue from the blade, slid it back against her thigh.
"No. Not yet."
She rose slowly, as if lifting the weight of responsibility itself.
"He survived the night," she said, looking up at the gray sky. "Surviving the day will depend on what's dead… and on what's still alive inside him."
Karna ran a hand over his face, trying to understand.
"And Éon?" he murmured — without knowing why the question escaped.
Brianna didn't hesitate.
"I didn't feel him once during the night."
For the first time.
She looked toward the tree line, where the darkness was deeper than it should be in morning light.
"And that worries me more than Ryden."