The forest swallowed them whole.
The survivors moved in silence beneath the canopy, their boots sinking into wet earth blackened by ash. The night hung heavy with the scent of smoke and blood. Leaves dripped with the mist that rolled down from the mountains, each droplet whispering like rain over graves.
Zeke walked at the rear of the line, his revolver loose in his hand, eyes scanning every shadow. Each step felt heavier than the last. The trees around them were half-burned, their trunks scarred by the firestorm from the battle. The world had turned to ruin, and they were ghosts walking through it.
He glanced ahead. Seraphine led the column, torch in hand, her shoulders squared though her limp had grown worse. What was left of the company followed behind her—ten souls, maybe fewer. No banners, no trumpets. Only the low moans of the wounded and the quiet shuffle of boots dragging through mud.
Zeke holstered his weapon and adjusted the bandana around his neck. The smoke still clung to everything. His throat burned when he breathed.
They reached a clearing where a river cut through the forest, thin and sluggish. Seraphine called for a halt. The soldiers dropped where they stood, some collapsing outright. Two men fell beside the water, washing blood from their faces with trembling hands. One woman tore a strip from her cloak and tied it around another's leg, binding a wound that refused to close.
Zeke sat on a fallen log and stared at the firelight flickering on their faces. They looked like the living dead—eyes hollow, armor cracked, hands shaking from exhaustion. He couldn't tell which of them had fought beside him at the altar and which had just been pulled from the ashes afterward.
Seraphine moved among them, wordless, checking wounds, whispering orders. When she passed by him, Zeke could see the dark stain spreading beneath the plates of her armor.
"You're bleeding," he said.
"So is everyone else," she replied, not slowing.
He looked away. The guilt sat like a stone in his chest. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw them—the men who'd stood shoulder to shoulder with him before the altar exploded, the flash that erased them from the world. Their screams didn't fade.
He rubbed at the mark beneath his shirt, the faint warmth of it pulsing like a reminder. He wished it would fade, wished it would vanish the way his friends had. But it didn't. It was alive. Watching.
When night deepened, they built a small fire, careful to hide its glow beneath a fallen canopy of branches. The wounded lay in a circle around it, wrapped in tattered blankets. Someone passed around a flask. Someone else hummed a broken tune that once might've been a prayer.
Seraphine sat across from Zeke, sharpening her sword with a piece of stone. Sparks jumped in the dark.
"Don't look like a man who believes he's done good," she said quietly.
Zeke's gaze stayed on the flames. "You ever see that many dead, and feel proud about it?"
"No," she said. "But you should know the difference between guilt and grief."
He snorted. "Both weigh the same."
She looked at him for a moment, then set her sword aside. "You did what no one else could've done. Without you, the dragon would've come through."
Zeke didn't answer. His hands trembled slightly as he fed another branch into the fire. The flame caught slow and mean, like it resented the effort.
Seraphine studied him in silence. "What did you see?"
He frowned. "When?"
"When the explosion took you."
Zeke hesitated. He could still feel the heat of that endless darkness, the pull of the dragon's eyes, the whisper that had followed him back. Break my chains… and I'll send you home. The words coiled behind his ribs, hungry and waiting.
"Nothing worth remembering," he said finally.
She didn't press further, but her eyes said she knew he was lying.
The wind moved through the forest, carrying the sound of distant drums—soft, far away, but there. Zeke's hand found his revolver. "They're hunting us."
Seraphine nodded. "They'll track the wounded first. But the cult never stops."
He scanned the trees. The shadows between the trunks seemed to breathe. "Then we don't stop either."
Hours passed. The fire burned down to embers. Most of the soldiers had fallen asleep, wrapped in cloaks, their weapons within arm's reach. The air had grown colder, and the night sounds of the forest crept back—the crack of branches, the hiss of unseen things moving in the dark.
Zeke couldn't sleep. He sat against a tree, hat tilted low, revolver resting across his knees. His thoughts drifted like smoke.
Seraphine approached again, silent as the mist. She sank down beside him, the exhaustion etched deep in her face. "You blame yourself," she said softly.
"Blame don't change what's buried," he replied.
"Then stop digging it up."
He glanced at her. "You got a way to do that?"
Her lips twitched faintly. "Keep fighting until the noise in your head shuts up."
He nodded once. "That's a start."
They sat in silence, listening to the river and the slow crackle of dying fire. Somewhere above, the stars glimmered through the gaps in the canopy—cold, distant, uncaring.
Then it happened.
Zeke felt it before he saw it. A heat rising beneath his ribs, a pulse that wasn't his. The mark on his chest flared to life, its glow cutting through the night like a brand. He cursed and clutched at his shirt, but the light only grew brighter, bleeding through the fabric.
Seraphine's head snapped toward him. "Zeke—what is that?"
He stood, staggering back, his breath ragged. The glow cast long shadows across the camp, painting the trees in gold and red. The soldiers stirred awake, blinking at the sudden light.
"I don't know," he ground out. "It just—"
The pulse intensified. Pain lanced through his body, sharp and electric. He dropped to one knee, teeth gritted. The air around him began to hum.
Then, from far beyond the trees, came a sound—a chorus of voices rising in the distance. The cult's chant. Louder now. Closer.
Seraphine's sword was in her hand before he even looked up. "They've found us."
Zeke forced himself upright, gasping. "No… they're coming for me."
The symbol blazed brighter still, as if answering something unseen in the forest. The chanting grew into a roar. The survivors scrambled for their weapons, forming a ragged line around the camp.
Zeke's eyes burned with the light of the mark. Somewhere deep in the forest, a horn sounded—low, guttural, echoing through the trees.
Seraphine shouted orders, pulling the wounded behind the line. "Zeke! Can you control it?"
He shook his head, voice raw. "If I could, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Then came the first torchlight—orange flares weaving through the black. Shadows moved between the trees. Dozens of them. Hundreds.
Zeke drew his revolver. The cylinder clicked empty. He pulled his knife instead, the blade catching the firelight. His jaw tightened. "Looks like the night ain't done with us yet."
Seraphine raised her sword beside him, face grim. "Then we stand."
The chanting swelled to a fever pitch. The glow from Zeke's chest reached its peak, flooding the clearing in light so fierce it set the mist ablaze.
And from within that blinding fire, something stirred—an answering call, deep and ancient, echoing from the void beyond the world.
The cultists screamed their devotion, crashing through the trees. The survivors raised their weapons.
The mark on Zeke's chest burned hotter, brighter—alive.