Nessa's quarters overlooked the western district of Windas.
Not high enough to see beyond the walls, but high enough that the wind moved differently there—steady, restless, carrying forge smoke and distant salt like the city was breathing through iron lungs.
Lore knocked once.
The door opened before his knuckles could fall again.
"I heard you coming," she said.
No pride in it. No softness. Just fact.
The room was orderly but lived in. Maps layered across a narrow desk. Mana-etched plates pulsing faintly with slow-moving threads of light. Her staff leaned beside the window, close enough to reach without thought.
No infirmary cot.
No bandages.
She had returned to herself.
"You're leaving," she said.
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Before dawn."
She nodded once. Her eyes studied him—not scanning wounds, but posture.
"You're bracing," she said quietly.
"I'm tired."
"That's not what I meant."
Her hand rested against his cuirass.
"You're pulling inward. Like something's about to hit you."
Lore exhaled slowly.
"Maybe it is."
Her fingers drifted toward Oathless at his hip.
"I can feel the magic emanating from it," she said.
"It's stable," Lore replied.
"Yes," she agreed. "But it isn't quiet."
She brushed the guard lightly.
"It responds to you."
"It amplifies," Lore said.
"It reflects," she corrected.
Silence settled between them.
"You don't have to become stone to survive this," she said.
"Stone doesn't break."
"With enough pressure," she replied softly, "stone crumbles."
That landed.
Not as accusation.
As warning.
She stepped closer.
The kiss was not desperate. It was grounding. Warm. Measured.
Her forehead rested against his.
"Come back because you want to," she whispered.
Not because the Order demands it.
Not because Windas expects it.
Because you choose it.
"I will," he said.
He left before he could reconsider.
Mud still clung to their boots when they crossed back into the eastern yard. Dawn hadn't broken. The sky was low and colorless.
Threx waited near the gatehouse.
He didn't greet them.
"There's a strong construct moving through the eastern pass," he said.
Ash stopped adjusting his shield.
Needle's posture shifted, barely.
"How strong?" she asked.
"Strong enough that two patrols didn't come back."
That was all the answer they needed.
"It's heading west," Threx continued. "Breaking tree line. Clearing its own path."
Lore felt Oathless steady against his hip.
"You'll move ahead of a full squad," Threx said. "Confirm what it is. Slow it. Mark it."
Not kill it.
"Once we know what we're dealing with," he added, "I'll send weight to crush it."
Ash nodded once.
So that was it.
They weren't the hammer.
They were the first blade.
Threx's gaze rested on Lore.
"Do not try to finish this alone."
Not sharp.
Not accusatory.
Just placed exactly where it needed to land.
"You investigate," Threx said. "You survive. You report."
Wind pushed at the gate chains.
"Move."
No more was needed.
They turned toward the forest again before the sky had even lightened.
Behind them, Windas remained still.
Ahead, something was walking through trees like they weren't meant to stand.
The eastern gate sealed behind them, iron teeth grinding back into place.
Windas disappeared quickly once the trees thickened.
The first mile was familiar ground. Managed timber. Trimmed underbrush. Tracks worn by patrol rotation and trade caravans.
The second mile felt different.
The road narrowed.
Branches leaned inward.
Mist began to cling low along the roots.
Ash slowed first.
"Tracks thin here," he muttered.
Grave crouched briefly, fingers brushing soil. "They left the road."
Needle scanned the treeline. "That's not standard sweep pattern."
Lore didn't answer. He didn't need to.
They followed where the patrol had veered off—into tighter growth. Older trees. Knotted roots. Soil that held water like it wanted to keep what sank into it.
The air cooled.
The sound of Windas vanished entirely.
Another half-mile in, the first tree lay broken.
Not uprooted.
Not rotted.
Snapped clean at chest height.
Sap bled down the bark in thick amber threads.
Ash placed his palm against the split.
Still damp.
"This didn't happen yesterday."
Lore looked at the angle of the break.
The trunk hadn't fallen backward or forward.
It had been shoved sideways.
Forced through.
They moved again.
The further they walked, the more the forest told a story.
Branches crushed beneath weight.
Bark scraped away in wide arcs.
Roots exposed where something heavy had pivoted.
Needle crouched near one gouge.
"Stride's wide," she said quietly. "Deliberate."
Grave glanced up at the canopy.
"No burn damage."
Which meant it wasn't flailing.
It was controlled.
The second sign of the patrol came nearly two miles deeper.
A broken spear haft.
Not snapped in combat.
Stepped on.
Ash picked it up, turning it in his hand.
"They didn't get a formation call off."
Lore felt the mana in the air now—faint, distorted, like pressure before a storm. Not a flare. Not a surge.
Compression.
They found the first body almost three miles from the walls.
Face down in soft earth.
No spray of blood.
No torn ground.
Just an indentation where something heavy had struck once.
Ash knelt.
The backplate had collapsed inward like hammered tin.
"Didn't see it," he said quietly.
Needle's voice dropped. "This wasn't a skirmish."
Lore straightened slowly and looked ahead.
The forest corridor narrowed unnaturally.
Trees leaned inward where others had been removed.
The ground sloped upward toward the pass.
And the air felt wrong.
Not empty.
Held.
Grave shifted, eyes sweeping left to right. "Second patrol crossed here."
Needle nodded toward the incline. "If they made it to the ridge."
Lore studied the slope.
The trees there were thinner.
But something had forced them apart.
Not snapped.
Bent.
As if something immense had pressed between them and moved through.
Ash inhaled once. "That's fresh."
Lore felt it then.
Not wild mana.
Not instability.
Pressure.
A weight in the air.
Needle's voice was barely more than breath.
"It knows we're here."
A trunk shifted somewhere ahead.
Not falling.
Moving.
Wood grinding against wood.
Measured.
Deliberate.
Ash lifted his shield.
Grave's fingers hovered over oil flasks.
Lore's hand closed around Oathless.
The sound came again.
Closer.
Branches bowed outward.
The canopy ahead darkened.
Something interrupted the light.
Needle's voice broke the stillness.
"Lore--"
The ground trembled beneath a single step.
Trees split outward.
And something began to push through.