The first arrow struck the standing stone beside Adrian's head.
Stone splintered.
"Shields!" Thorne roared.
There were no shields.
Only trees, moss, and instinct.
Royal guards burst through the undergrowth in polished mail and crimson cloaks, torches flaring gold against the dark. Their captain rode behind them, visor lowered, voice sharp.
"By order of His Majesty—seize the heretics! Kill the rest!"
Adrian's stomach turned.
They had not come to arrest.
They had come to erase.
Thorne moved first.
The air around him rippled, and for a heartbeat his skin seemed traced with lines of dull red light. When he swung his blade, sparks followed the arc. A guard met the strike—and was thrown backward as if hit by a battering ram.
Not flame.
Not yet.
But heat.
Ignis stirred.
Mirael dragged Adrian behind one of the stones as arrows thudded into bark.
"You shouldn't be here," she whispered, panic edging her voice.
"I gathered that," Adrian muttered, drawing his rapier.
Across the clearing, Garrick planted his boots and drove the butt of his spear into the earth.
The ground answered.
A tremor rippled outward. Loose stones lifted and snapped into place around him like a crude bulwark. A guard lunged—his sword glanced off a sudden ridge of rock that had not been there a breath before.
Ferrum.
Adrian stared despite himself.
This was no superstition.
It was power.
A guard broke through the tree line to Adrian's left. Young. Terrified. Sword shaking.
"For the crown!" the man shouted.
Adrian parried automatically.
Steel rang in the night.
The guard pressed forward with desperate strength, forcing Adrian back against the moss-slick stone.
"Stand down!" Adrian hissed. "You don't know what you're fighting!"
"I know treason when I see it!"
The blade came down hard.
Adrian twisted, caught the man's wrist, and drove his rapier's pommel into the guard's helm. The soldier staggered. Adrian kicked him backward and disarmed him in a clean, practiced motion.
He did not deliver the killing blow.
The hesitation cost him.
Another soldier charged from behind.
Before the strike landed, shadow unfurled.
It spilled from Seraphine's feet like ink in water, stretching wide and tall. The torchlight dimmed where it touched. The charging guard faltered mid-step, eyes unfocused.
He swung at nothing.
At ghosts.
Vespera's whisper slid through the clearing.
"Look at what hunts you."
Three illusions peeled from the dark—towering silhouettes with horned crowns and hollow eyes. The guards recoiled, formation breaking.
"Witchcraft!" someone screamed.
Seraphine swayed slightly when the shadows snapped back into her.
Adrian caught her before she hit the ground.
"You can't hold that long," he said.
Her breath was shallow. "Nor can they."
Thorne's voice cut across the chaos.
"More coming!"
Through the trees, Adrian saw them—riders fanning out to encircle the clearing. Too many.
This was no patrol.
This was premeditated.
Far away, in the palace tower, King Vortigern's golden gaze shifted slightly—as if adjusting to distant movement.
Within him, Lucifer observed.
Let them run, he thought calmly. Pressure shapes conviction.
A thin smile curved the king's mouth.
Back in the forest, Garrick barked orders.
"Break north! Toward the ravine!"
Thorne grabbed Mirael's wrist and hauled her forward. Adrian half-carried Seraphine as they plunged into the trees.
Arrows hissed past.
One grazed Adrian's shoulder. He bit back a curse and kept moving.
Behind them, the clearing fell silent except for crackling torches and groans.
They ran until the ground sloped sharply downward. The forest thinned, revealing a narrow ravine carved by an old river.
"No bridge," Mirael gasped.
"There doesn't need to be," Thorne said.
He stepped to the edge.
For the first time, Adrian saw Ignis fully awaken.
Heat rolled outward in a violent wave. The air shimmered. Veins of red light flared beneath Thorne's skin, brighter now—like molten metal under glass.
He drove his sword into the rock face.
Flame did not burst forth.
Instead, the stone cracked from sudden, concentrated heat. Fractures spread in jagged lines. With a roar, Thorne wrenched the blade free and kicked.
A slab of rock broke loose, crashing into the ravine below, wedging between the cliffs in a rough, unstable span.
"Move!" he shouted.
Garrick crossed first despite his age, testing the stone. Mirael followed. Adrian guided Seraphine across carefully.
Hooves thundered behind them.
An arrow struck the rock near Adrian's foot.
He turned just as a royal captain emerged at the tree line, helm gleaming in torchlight.
"Lord Adrian Voss!" the captain called. "Return now and His Majesty may yet show mercy!"
Adrian stared across the gap.
"Does his mercy still glow gold?" he called back.
The captain's silence was answer enough.
Guards began attempting the crossing.
The stone shifted dangerously.
Thorne waited until the first two were halfway across.
Then he exhaled.
Ignis flared brighter—controlled, precise. He struck the cliff wall beside the makeshift bridge.
The weakened rock gave way.
The slab split and dropped.
Guards shouted as they fell into darkness below.
The ravine swallowed them.
Silence returned, broken only by distant echoes.
Thorne's glow faded. He swayed, catching himself on his blade.
Adrian looked at him differently now—not as rival, but as weapon and man both.
"They won't stop," Adrian said quietly.
"No," Garrick agreed. "They won't."
Seraphine stirred in his arms.
"He knew," she whispered again. "The moment you took my hand."
Adrian's mind replayed the balcony. The faint cold current. The sense of being watched.
Not by spies.
By something older.
"If he knows," Adrian said slowly, "then this was allowed."
Garrick's eyes darkened.
"Yes."
Mirael hugged herself. "Why?"
Across the ravine, torches regrouped but did not advance further.
Seraphine met Adrian's gaze.
"Because fear spreads faster than fire," she said softly. "And now you've been seen running with us."
The weight of it settled.
Court whispers would become proclamations by morning.
Lord Adrian Voss—heretic sympathizer.
Traitor.
Exactly as Lucifer intended.
Far above, in the palace tower, the king turned from the window.
"Prepare the decree," he said calmly to the empty chamber.
And in the faint reflection of the glass, for just a flicker, the golden gaze smiled back.