The Stonewood Forest was a place of ancient silence and tangled light. Massive, pale-barked trees soared into a canopy so thick it turned day into a perpetual, green-tinged twilight. The old elven paths were little more than faint depressions in the thick carpet of moss, known only to scouts like Ciski and a few other old-timers. It was the perfect route for a stealthy flanking maneuver, just as Oleik had planned. But as Retour walked beneath the immense, silent trees, the oppressive quiet felt less like concealment and more like a held breath.
The mist within him was restless, a nervous flutter at the edge of his perception. It wasn't the eager hunger he'd felt before Elaron, but a low, warning thrum, like a hound sensing a distant storm. He tried to dismiss it as his own paranoia, a leftover tremor from the Codex's psychic assault and the gnawing emptiness that had followed the siege.
"Something feels wrong," he murmured to Dean, who walked beside him, his eyes constantly scanning the shifting shadows between the trees.
"The forest is always watching," Dean replied, his voice low. "It plays tricks on the mind. Stay sharp."
Ahead, Ciski moved with a hunter's grace, her form fluid and silent. She occasionally paused, head tilted, listening to things only she could hear. She had tried to speak with Roty that morning before they marched, but he had brushed her off with a sullen, non-committal grunt. The memory of his coldness was a splinter in her heart, but she buried it deep, focusing on the task at hand. The path ahead curved around a particularly dense thicket of thorny undergrowth, a natural choke point.
The attack came not with a roar, but with a whisper.
The first sign was the soft thwip of a crossbow bolt. It wasn't aimed at Retour or Dean. It struck the tree trunk inches from Ciski's head, splintering the pale bark. A warning shot. A marker.
Then the forest erupted.
Silent, efficient figures clad in mottled grey and green leathers dropped from the trees above and rose from concealed pits in the ground around them. There were no battle cries, no challenges. This was not a fight; it was an extermination. Kora's elite rangers moved with a chilling synchronicity, their attacks coordinated to split and isolate.
"Ambush! Form a perimeter!" Dean bellowed, his voice cutting through the sudden chaos of clashing steel and grunts of pain. He shoved Retour back towards a large, moss-covered boulder, creating a makeshift defensive position.
Retour's mind reeled. They knew. They knew the route, the timing. The realization was a cold fist closing around his heart. The mist surged in response to his spike of fear and betrayal, but he fought it down, the effort like holding back a tidal wave with his bare hands. He couldn't use it here, not in this confined space, not with his people so close.
Ciski became a whirlwind of controlled violence. Her twin knives were extensions of her arms, deflecting a sword thrust, opening a gash on an attacker's arm, ducking under a swinging axe. She fought her way toward Retour and Dean, her sole purpose to plug the gap in their crumbling defense. For a few, glorious moments, it seemed they might hold. Her skill was a terrifying beauty, a dance of death that kept the encircling rangers at bay.
Then Kora herself stepped from the shadows between two great trees.
She didn't rush. She walked, her movements economical and utterly assured. Her winter-pale eyes found Retour, then shifted to Ciski, who stood as the last bulwark between her and her prize. Kora didn't even bother to draw her sword. In one fluid motion, she unslung a compact, heavily modified crossbow from her back. It was not a weapon designed for war, but for a single, precise kill. It hummed with a faint, alchemical charge.
"Clear the way, little rebel," Kora said, her voice flat.
Ciski didn't flinch. "You'll have to go through me."
"That is the plan," Kora replied.
The shot was faster than the eye could follow. A bolt, shorter and thicker than normal, tipped with a needle-like point, flew with a sound like a tearing silk. Ciski, already moving to deflect what she thought was a standard projectile, was a fraction of a second too slow. The bolt didn't aim to kill. It punched through her leather armor just below the collarbone, a precise, brutal strike.
The effect was instantaneous and horrifying. Ciski didn't cry out. She gasped, her eyes flying wide. A spiderweb of black veins erupted from the wound, spreading across her chest and neck with terrifying speed. Her knives fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, clattering on the stone. She took one stumbling step backward, her body already seizing from whatever vile toxin coated the bolt.
"No!" The word was torn from Retour's throat, a raw, primal sound of denial.
The sight of Ciski falling, the black poison crawling over her skin, shattered his tenuous control. The red mist did not erupt; it boiled over. It was not a focused blade this time, but a wave of pure, undiluted rage and grief. It exploded outwards from him in a silent, expanding dome of crimson energy.
The result was catastrophic. The ancient trees at the edge of the clearing didn't just rot; they flash-petrified, their vibrant green turning to dull, brittle grey before crumbling into gravel. The attacking rangers caught in the radius didn't have time to scream. Their bodies desiccated in an instant, armor and flesh flaking away into nothing but fine, grey dust and the ghost of their final, silent shock.
But the wave did not discriminate. It washed over his own fighters as well. Two rebels standing too close to Retour were caught in the edge of the effect. One man's arm withered to a dry stick; another screamed as the leather of his boot and the foot within it disintegrated. The dome of annihilation was expanding, threatening to consume Dean, the wounded, everyone.
Dean, acting on pure instinct born of a lifetime of combat and a newfound, terrified understanding of the power he served, didn't try to reason. He turned and slammed his full weight into Retour, driving him hard against the unyielding stone of the boulder.
"Retour! STOP! Look at what you're doing!" Dean roared directly into his face, his own eyes wide with a horror that was not of the enemy, but of his prince. "You're killing us! You're killing us all!"
The physical impact and the raw terror in Dean's voice were a bucket of ice water on the inferno of his rage. The mist recoiled, snapping back into him with a force that stole his breath. He collapsed to his knees, gasping, the world swimming back into focus. He saw the petrified forest, the piles of ash that had been men, the maimed forms of his own people writhing in agony. And he saw Ciski, lying motionless on the moss, the black poison still creeping across her skin.
He had not saved her. He had only added to the slaughter. The victory at Elaron, Roty's betrayal, the Codex's torment—it all culminated in this single, devastating moment. He had been afraid of becoming a monster. In his grief and rage, he had just taken a long, unforgivable step toward that abyss.