The fog thickened after the fight.
Not immediately—slowly. Deliberately.
A faint green tint pulsed through it now, synchronized with something deeper than breath. Alex wiped his spear against dead grass, Tenebris still tingling faintly along his fingers.
Milo moved ahead, bow raised. "We're being watched."
Alex nodded.
Then the fog parted.
A figure stepped through—broad, deliberate, staff dragging lightly through the mud and leaving a thin trail of frost behind it.
Kaelthar.
"Impressive," he said. "You survived."
No praise. No warmth.
Sera stepped forward. "Professor—"
"Don't," Kaelthar said. "This isn't a classroom."
His gaze passed over the group, lingering on injuries, posture, spacing. It paused briefly on Alex.
"Survival is not understanding," Kaelthar continued. "And understanding is what this place extracts."
The marsh seemed to lean closer.
"You think this is a test of combat," he said. "It isn't. It's a test of decision density. How many choices you can make under pressure before your thinking collapses."
Alex felt the words settle, heavy and precise.
"You will not be shielded from consequence," Kaelthar said. "Not by allies. Not by talent. Not by luck."
Milo's Path rune flickered once, faint but tense.
"I will guide you," Kaelthar went on. "Only where intervention does not invalidate the trial. Beyond that, what you lose is yours to carry."
Silence followed.
Then Kaelthar stepped back into the fog.
Gone.
No reassurance. No command to follow.
Just absence.
Alex scanned the group—Milo steady but alert, Sera already recalculating routes, the others tight-jawed and quiet.
They were capable.
They were not safe.
And beneath the weight of it, Alex felt the familiar pressure return—not confidence, not certainty, but inevitability.
Leadership wasn't something the marsh allowed you to refuse.
It only punished hesitation.
— — —