The red eye appeared in the sky three days ago. Now no one could look away.
Not literally—hunters still went about their duties, checked their weapons, ate their rations. But the eye was always there, at the edge of vision, a crimson star that pulsed with a rhythm that wasn't quite natural.
Sleep became difficult.
Dreams became strange.
Some hunters reported waking with their hands around their own throats.
Aurelion stood at the edge of the camp, watching the eye. It stared back.
Ami joined him. "The medics are running out of sedatives."
"People aren't sleeping."
"They're afraid to close their eyes. They say they see… things. When the eye pulses."
"What things?"
She hesitated. "Old wounds. Old mistakes. Faces of people they couldn't save."
Aurelion nodded slowly. "Zarveth is feeding on guilt. On fear. On the weight people carry."
"Can he actually see us? Or is he just… broadcasting?"
"Both." Aurelion's voice was flat. "The eye is his attention. Every time someone looks at it, they give him a piece of themselves. A memory. A fear. A moment of weakness."
"So don't look at it."
"You can't avoid it. It's in the sky. It's in your dreams. It's in the corner of your eye even when you're trying to look away."
Ami was silent for a moment. "Then what do we do?"
"We fight it the only way we can. We don't break."
The general called another briefing.
The mood was different now—no laughter, no celebration. The helicopters were still ready, but no one knew if they would work against the eye itself. And the knights were moving.
"They've advanced three miles," the general said, pointing at the map. "At this rate, they'll reach the outer settlements within a week."
"Can we stop them?" Thalia asked.
"We can slow them. But every time we engage, the eye watches. Every time we lose someone, Zarveth feeds."
Aurelion stepped forward. "Then we don't engage. Not yet."
"We can't let them march uncontested."
"We won't. But we need a different strategy." He looked at the map. The red glow of the Stain had spread further. "The knights are connected to Zarveth. If we cut that connection—if we blind the eye—"
"How?"
"I don't know yet. But I have an idea."
After the briefing, Aurelion gathered Valley's Watch.
"I'm going back to the castle," he said.
Ami's face hardened. "No."
"The eye is Zarveth's perception. If I can get close enough, I might be able to disrupt it. Blind him, even for a moment."
"And if he sees you coming?"
"He already sees me." Aurelion touched his chest, where the scar from the blood spear had healed. "He's been watching me since the first time I walked into his throne room. I'm not hiding from him."
"Then why go?"
"Because I need to understand how the eye works. What it's made of. How to break it."
Kael spoke. "I'll go with you."
"No. One person is easier to hide than two."
"You're not hiding."
"I'm not. But I'm not dragging anyone else into his gaze."
The journey to the Stain was silent.
Aurelion moved alone, through the dead trees and the cracked earth. The red eye followed him. It always followed him.
He reached the edge of the Stain and stopped.
The portal was massive now—a wound in reality that bled crimson light. The castle was visible beyond, its towers dark against the red sky. And above it, the eye.
Up close, it was enormous. A sphere of fire and shadow, pulsing slowly, its surface rippling like a solar flare. And at its center, a pupil—a darker red, almost black—that tracked Aurelion's every movement.
"I know you can hear me," Aurelion said.
The eye pulsed.
"You want me to be afraid. You want all of us to be afraid. But fear won't make us stop."
The pupil contracted.
Aurelion raised his blade. "So do your worst."
The knights emerged from the portal.
Not dozens—hundreds. Their red eyes glowed in unison, their crimson auras flaring. They moved in perfect formation, silent and inexorable.
Aurelion didn't run.
He stood his ground.
The first knight lunged. He sidestepped, drove his blade through its chest. It crumbled.
Another. Another. Another.
The eye watched.
He killed them—one after another, a rhythm of steel and shadow. But for every knight that fell, two more took its place.
He's testing me, Aurelion realized. Seeing how long I last. How much I can take.
He's not trying to kill me.
He's trying to tire me.
He fought for an hour.
Maybe more. Time lost meaning under the eye's gaze. His arms ached. His breath came in ragged gasps. The wound on his chest—the one Zarveth had given him—throbbed with every heartbeat.
But he didn't stop.
The knights kept coming.
And then, as suddenly as they had emerged, they stopped.
The portal dimmed. The knights retreated.
Aurelion lowered his blade, breathing hard. The eye was still there, still watching—but something had changed. Its focus had shifted. No longer fixed on him, it had turned toward the valley.
He watched, frozen, as crimson energy began to coalesce in front of the pupil.
Not a slow gather—a hungry one. Mana from the air, from the earth, from the Stain itself, all of it spiraling into a single point. The air around the eye began to shimmer with heat.
Aurelion's blood turned to ice.
He understood.
Not the mechanics, not the spellcraft—the intent. Zarveth wasn't just watching the valley anymore.
He was aiming.
Aurelion bolted.
He didn't think. He simply moved, pouring mana into his legs, forcing his body to move faster than it had ever moved before. The ground blurred beneath him. The wind screamed in his ears.
He ran through the Stain, through the dead trees, through the cracks in reality. The eye's glow painted everything red behind him.
Faster, he thought. Faster.
The camp appeared ahead.
"MOVE!" he roared. "EVERYONE MOVE! TAKE COVER!"
Hunters looked up, confused. Ami was on her feet. Corrin grabbed his shield. Kael drew his pistols.
They saw his face.
They ran.
The beam struck a second later.
It came from the eye like a lance of molten judgment—pure, condensed energy that screamed across the sky. It hit the ground at the edge of the camp, carving a trench through the earth, through stone, through everything in its path.
For a heartbeat, nothing else happened.
Then the explosions came.
Wherever the beam had touched—wherever it had even passed near—the ground erupted. Fire. Shrapnel. Shockwaves that threw hunters off their feet.
Aurelion dove behind a supply crate as the blast wave ripped past him. Debris rained down. Someone screamed.
When he looked up, the beam was gone.
The eye still watched.
And a line of destruction stretched from the Stain all the way to the edge of the camp—a wound in the earth that smoked and burned.
He found Ami behind an overturned vehicle. Her ears were ringing. Blood trickled from a cut on her forehead.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
"What was that?"
"A warning shot."
She stared at him. "That was a warning?"
He looked at the burning trench. At the crater where the first impact had landed. At the eye, still hanging in the sky, its pupil still fixed on the valley.
"He wants us to know he can reach us," Aurelion said. "Whenever he wants. However he wants."
"Then why didn't he hit the camp directly?"
"Because he's not trying to kill us. Not yet." He helped her to her feet. "He's trying to make us afraid."
"It's working."
Aurelion looked at the eye.
"Not for long."
The medics worked through the night.
Miraculously, no one had died. Several were injured—burns, broken bones, concussions. But the beam had struck dirt, not tents. Zarveth had aimed wide on purpose.
He could have killed us all, Aurelion thought. He chose not to.
Why?
The answer came to him as he watched the sun rise over the camp.
Because a massacre would unite us. Fear keeps us divided.
He turned his back on the eye and walked toward the command tent.
There was work to do.