By the time Ethan, Lily, and Selene returned to the grain store, the fog had thinned enough to reveal the damage.
The yard was littered with broken limbs—both wood and bone. Marcus and Rowan stood among the wreckage, both heaving for breath. Behind them, the storehouse's left wall was blackened, smoke curling from the open gap.
Marcus was the first to speak. "You left." His voice wasn't angry—it was flat, which somehow felt worse.
Ethan tightened his grip on his sword. "Three of them slipped past us. If we hadn't gone—"
"If you hadn't gone," Marcus interrupted, "maybe the fire wouldn't have started. Maybe the roof wouldn't have collapsed on two of our fighters."
Selene stepped forward. "Marcus, enough. People in the inner streets are alive because of them."
Rowan's expression was harder to read. "And some aren't. We saw the smoke from here. You didn't bring everyone back."
Lily flinched, her voice low. "We couldn't. Not with how they moved."
The silence after that was thick enough to choke on.
Ethan's mind replayed the image of the rooftop crash—the scream that ended too quickly. The system had given no guidance, no amplification. Just that cold, passive awareness of proximity to danger.
[Local Threat Reduction: 42%]
[Casualties: Recorded]
He almost wished it hadn't told him at all.
Selene broke the silence. "We can't do this halfway anymore. If the Dark are coordinating, they'll hit the weakest points first—and keep hitting them until there's nothing left."
Marcus shook his head. "We're not enough to cover them all."
"Then we make ourselves enough," Selene said sharply. "Or we find people who can."
Rowan's gaze lingered on Ethan. "That's easy to say. But next time the line breaks—who decides which side you stand on?"
Ethan didn't have an answer.
The group gathered what supplies they could salvage. The smell of smoke clung to their cloaks as they left the yard. Somewhere deeper in the village, a mourning bell began to toll.