The morning board was pinned with new red lines like a net being cast. Recruits clustered around it, breath steaming in the cold, voices low as they traced routes and compared sightings. Someone had drawn arrows in thick ink toward the marsh and the dry riverbed; other notes—"feathers," "claw marks," "fight site"—were circled in a sloppy hand.
Riken nudged me. "That curve there—see it? Looks like they drew a straight line from the marsh to the northern ridge."
I followed his finger and stopped. The red path of Squad Four arced up from the east and then bent north. Directly across from it, another path—Squad One—cut south from the northern ridge into the same strip between the hills. Where the two routes met, someone had scrawled a heavy question mark.
Tessa stood beside her squad with the rest of Squad One behind her, colors neat, boots squared. She watched us the way predators watched prey—head cocked, ready to pounce.
"Looks like our patrols overlap," I said before I could stop myself.
Tessa's lips tightened. "They put us on the same ground," she said. Her voice carried. "Command must want both of us there."
"Or they think we'll need backup," Riken offered, but there was a hard edge to his grin.
Squad One shifted as one. Liora did not—Tessa did. I'd known the woman a week and a half, but her posture already read like iron. She'd been made leader in a way I had not—by expectation, by pedigree—and it showed.
"You see the same thing I do?" I asked Tessa, not letting the challenge lay unreturned.
She stepped forward and pointed at the thin strip on the map. "Both trails cross there. Tracks show they've tangled before. If the Monster's heading north and the other thing—whatever it is—moves south, we'll be right in the middle."
"So we split and watch both lines," I said. "We don't push into fights we can't handle."
Tessa's jaw worked. "Or we take the Monster. That's the real threat to people. The other one—if it's anything like you lot say—won't just slaughter for sport." Her gaze flicked to the green feather in my satchel when she spoke the last words, fingers brushing the air where the glow rested.
My hand went to the satchel without thinking. "If the Beast—if it is a Beast—is trying to stop the Monster, ignoring it is shortsighted. You attack the Monster from behind and you might drive it into where the Beast is hiding. We'll be stuck between them."
A murmur rose behind Tessa. She met my look with something almost like contempt. "So we babysit the myth while livestock gets torn apart?"
"You think I want to babysit anything?" I asked. "You said it yourself: the den we found was careful. Whatever that other thing is, it's not a rampaging beast. It's deliberate." I forced my voice even. "We can protect people and try to keep the Beast from being forced into a corner. That's practical."
"You want to play diplomat with a thing that isn't human?" Tessa shot back. "I don't put my squad at risk for fairy tales. We kill threats. We don't romance them."
Riken's face had gone flat. Behind him Brayden shuffled, uncomfortable. Vell's hands flexed against her thighs, ready to move. Danya's eyes narrowed; she said nothing. The rest of Squad Four stood behind me like a shield I had to decide whether to raise or lower.
"Stop it," Riken said, louder than necessary. "We're arguing in a time-sink. Pick something."
Tessa didn't like being told what to do. She stepped closer, a hand resting on the haft of her sword. "Fine. You can take the south and follow your ghost-bird. We'll take the north and hunt the Monster. If you chicken out, you signal and we come running. But if you try to follow anything into a trap, don't expect we'll come clean you up."
That was both a promise and a threat, and the two sat ugly together.
I could feel the old instinct—the street-side math of it—counting risk versus reward. What would expose us? What protected the people? What kept my squad intact?
"Spread the work," I said finally. "Squad One takes the northern ridge, watches the heavy tracks. Squad Four follows the lighter prints south. If either squad finds hostiles, we fire the prearranged signal and converge. No lone chases. No hero moves."
Tessa's shoulders tightened. There was an argument in her eyes about honor—about the right way to win a fight. But the lines on the map were unhelpful to pride. She gave a curt nod. "Agreed," she said. "Signal, converge. Don't be idiots."
We split like that—two knives pulled apart. I felt the tension like a chill as we walked away, each step toward our own assigned flank.
The bent-toed trail led us through a narrow gorge lined with wind-swept stone. The creature had been there, I could tell: the frost had thawed in a wide arc, tufts of reed caught in the crevices, and higher up, three pale feathers snagged in a crack—too high to reach without climbing. I pointed upward; Riken climbed and retrieved one, its downy softness catching the weak light.
"That mark again," he said, handing it to me.
We moved slower. The trail grew faint and then strong, started and stopped like someone testing a jump. Vell whistled under her breath. "Short wingspan for that height," she observed. "It's using wind currents."
"Sky-hunter," Brayden muttered.
We didn't find the Beast that day. We found more signs—feathers, a small pool of blood in the reeds, a rune-scratched stick discarded near a fighting patch. When we turned back, heading toward the rendezvous, I glanced up. Tessa's squad was already on the ridge, spears at the ready, eyes like knives.
Halvren stood near the main hall as we returned—leaning, unobtrusive, head tilted as if listening to a voice only he could hear. He watched us gather, watched the exchange of reports, the clipped nods between squads. His face didn't betray anything, but his hands moved only once—tapping the edge of the map. His gaze held mine a breath longer than courtesy required.
He was watching. Not openly, but the way a hawk watches the ground.
That night, the fire felt smaller and the feather heavier in my satchel. Tessa's words stung in a way that would keep at me. We were assigned lanes, yet our feet walked across the same ground. Beasts and Monsters moved like forces beneath our feet, and somewhere higher up, an instructor marked our progress with quiet lines.
I wrapped the feather in cloth and slid it under my cot. Tomorrow we would follow our paths again, and the line between obedience and choice would get thinner.
We were in the middle of something that did not care for our rank.
And neither, apparently, did the Empire's curiosity.