The first to go is Marcus.
He just isn't at morning drills, and Marcus is never late. Dren doesn't say a word. He just leaves. An hour later, he's back, his face like carved stone, holding a slip of paper.
Marcus is gone. He didn't just disappear; he left. Packed a bag, walked right out of the village, and joined a caravan heading east. Straight into cult territory.
His mother gave Dren the note. Reading it, the real shock sets in. It wasn't angry. It was thoughtful.
I read it. We all pass it around. It's not the rambling of a kidnapped man. It's his handwriting, clear and steady. He says he's sorry. But he also says we're wrong.
He writes that we fight the void, while the cult understands it. That we see the curse as something to be managed, while they see it as evolution.
He writes that we're the ones who are afraid. That they are embracing the future.
"It's logical," Lysara whispers, and her hands are shaking as she holds the paper. "His arguments are sound. From his perspective."
"It's poison," Kaela snaps, her voice a whip-crack. "They seduced him with words."
But it's not just Marcus.
A week later, two more scouts are gone. Elara and Jon. Same story. Just gone. Then a healer's apprentice vanishes. Then a council guard—one of Felric's own.
The emergency council meeting is a disaster. Ironwood is panicked, shouting about banning cult texts, making any contact with them illegal.
"That creates martyrdom." Lysara's voice cuts right through the noise. Everyone stops. "You ban an idea, you make it stronger. Especially for young people. You can't fight an ideology with force."
"Then what?" Ironwood demands.
"A counter-ideology," she says. "We have to articulate our vision. Right now, they offer purpose. We just offer fear. We have to be better."
So Lysara dives in. She gets her hands on their texts. It's all she does, sleeping in the library, poring over their strange doctrines. She's hunting. Not for spells, but for philosophy.
She finds us late one night, her eyes blazing in the candlelight.
"They really believe it," she says, her voice hushed with a terrifying awe. "Their core philosophy... it's consistent. They believe we're evolving. That the void isn't an enemy, it's potential. That we're the ones resisting nature."
"That's insane," Kaela says, but her voice wavers.
"Is it?" Lysara challenges her. "Or is it just a different interpretation? Ren, you're less human than you were. You're more void-touched. They say that's evolution. We say it's integration. The only difference is perspective."
"It's not just perspective," I manage, my voice hoarse. "They use it to justify Millbrook. To justify killing people."
"They'd argue that's necessary," Lysara whispers. "Destruction of the old to make way for the new."
She's not agreeing with them. She's understanding them.
And that's terrifying.
They're not just monsters. They're believers.
"We have to counter this," Lysara says, her hands clenched. "We have to understand why it's compelling, so we can be more compelling."
"You're talking about a philosophical war," Kaela says flatly.
"Yes." Lysara's eyes burn. "And we're losing. Because we're trying to fight an idea with swords."
I just think about Marcus. His note. He didn't sound brainwashed; he sounded certain.
What if... what if some people are supposed to go? What if the cult is right about some of it? What if Marcus was recognizing something true?
The thought feels dirty. Wrong.
"That's defeatist," Kaela snaps, as if she heard my thoughts.
"Maybe," I say. "Or maybe it's honest. Maybe their ideology is seductive because it has truth in it. We integrate. We manage. We balance. But what if there's another path? What if becoming void is valid, too?"
"That path leads to monsters," Kaela argues. "That's Elian!"
"Unless..." Lysara's voice is barely a whisper. "Unless consumption isn't consumption. Unless it's transformation. Unless we've been thinking about this wrong the entire time."
The silence in the library is deafening.
We don't reach a conclusion. How could we?
Later that night, on the roof, it's quiet.
"They're recruiting," Kaela says, breaking the silence. "That's the now problem. We have to address that."
"How?" Lysara asks. "Force won't work. It'll just prove they're right."
"We have to show them," I say. "Show another way. Show that our path—balance, integration—isn't weakness. That it has meaning, too."
"That's harder than fighting," Kaela mutters.
"Yeah," I agree. "It is. But Marcus left because he was seeking something. If we can offer that same something, maybe others won't leave."
"And if we can't?" Lysara asks, her voice small.
"Then we have to let them go," I say, and the words hurt. "And hope they find what they're looking for. Because forcing them to stay just makes us the tyrants."
Below us, the village sleeps. Uneasy.
In the east, the cult grows.
And we're just starting to understand what this war is really about.