Chapter 2: New Blood

MADISON

Trumpets at dawn.

Cold air, breath visible, boots thudding into formation—too many bodies packed into a camp that had been laughter and smoke a few hours ago. Now it felt like a blade edge. Madison stood with the recruits, fingers stiff on her shield strap, and tried not to look for her father's statue in a city that wasn't Jul.

The feast still sat heavy in her stomach. Last night the camp had smelled of roasting meat and sweet wine and cheap ale. Now it smelled of oiled leather and iron and the particular sourness of men who had slept in armor. The morning sun was still low behind the eastern hills, catching the tips of spears and the polished surfaces of shields. Everything glinted. Everything waited.

Hegal addressed them from the central platform.

"Congratulations," he said. His voice carried the way a stone carries when it hits water—no echo, just impact. "The proving is over. Service starts now. We deploy in parties. Each party receives one assignment. You complete it and report. Delays have consequences. Failures have consequences. Understand this now."

"Yes, Master!" came back in uneven unison.

He began calling groups.

Party One: a squad of veterans who barely blinked, already moving before their leader's name finished leaving Hegal's mouth. Party Two: mixed, younger, nervous. Party Three: heavy on knights, their armor gleaming new. Party Four.

Madison tracked Puli and Tyba in the line by sound more than sight. She could hear Puli's nervous breathing and Tyba's habit of clicking his tongue against his teeth when he was anxious. She kept her eyes forward but her awareness spread, the way Captain Thorne had taught her—know where your people are without looking.

"Party Five," Hegal called. "Leader: Mantis. Sub-leader: Madison."

Silence. Not the comfortable kind. The kind that carries weight.

Sub-leader?

She was the newest member of the guild. She had been in Haze for less than two days. She had never led anything except a fishing boat through Jul's harbor when Puli was too hungover to steer.

Heads turned. Not all of them friendly. Some measured her the way you measure a tool—useful or useless, too early to tell. Others narrowed their eyes with the particular resentment of people who had trained longer and been passed over.

Mantis raised a hand from the front of Party Five. Broad-backed, mid-thirties, beard trimmed short, eyes calm and assessing. He wore his armor like a second skin—not new, not old, just used. Every strap sat where it should. Every plate had been adjusted to his body over years of wearing it. A veteran's posture: no wasted motion, no wasted words.

Madison stepped out and crossed to him under the weight of a hundred looks. The walk felt longer than the Sword of Fury's weight on her hip.

"Lanz recommends you," Mantis said quietly as she arrived. His voice was pitched for her ears only. "Says you solve what others don't solve. Says you're Maximo's daughter." He paused. "I don't care whose daughter you are. I care whether you can think under pressure. Can you?"

"Yes," Madison said.

"We'll see." He gave a short nod. "Good. Stay close, watch how I run things, and don't hesitate to speak up if you see something I miss. That's what sub-leaders are for."

He started calling names.

"Mantis, leader. Madison, sub-leader. Puli, archer. Nocta, archer. Merita, archer. Rovan, archer. Juvar, druid. Keto, knight. Boro, knight. Vask, knight."

Ten in total.

Puli was with her.

Tyba was not.

The realization landed in her chest like a stone dropped into cold water. She had known it was possible—parties were assigned by balance, not friendship—but hearing the names read and not hearing Tyba's among them felt like something had been cut away.

Tyba caught her eye from another formation and gave a small, resigned lift of the chin. Later. If we have luck. The unspoken words traveled between them across the crowded camp, carried on years of shared silence and shared understanding.

Madison turned back to her new party and studied the faces around her. Some she recognized from the trials. Others were strangers who had survived different proving grounds, fought different monsters, and carried different reasons for being here.

Puli stood two places to her left, his grin tight but genuine. He had one thumb hooked in his quiver strap, the other hand making small, habitual adjustments to his bowstring tension. Archer's habits. The kind you build over years until they become as natural as breathing.

Nocta occupied the opposite flank—narrow jaw, sharp eyes already scanning the crowd as if counting threats even here, surrounded by allies. His throwing stars sat in leather holsters across his chest in a pattern that suggested left-hand dominance, though his right hand rested easy at his side. He looked like a man who was always watching and never worried about being watched.

Keto stood with his shield slung over his back, broad-shouldered and quiet, his face bearing the permanent sunburn of someone raised outdoors. He had the stillness of well-trained fighters—not tense, not relaxed, just ready.

Merita was younger than Madison expected. Dark-skinned, restless—fingers never still, always adjusting a strap or touching her quiver as if making sure it hadn't vanished. Her eyes jumped between the road and the sky and back again. Nervous, but not weak. More like a drawn bowstring: tight with potential, not fragility.

Rovan stood with his arms folded, older than the rest of the archers, a weathered scar running along his jaw from earlobe to chin. He had the look of a man who had already decided most things in the world weren't worth worrying about. His bow leaned against his leg, unstrung but ready.

Boro and Vask were knights—Boro stocky and solid with a face like a closed fist, Vask taller with narrow eyes and a way of standing that suggested he was always ready to move sideways.

And Juvar.

The druid stood slightly apart from the group, staff in hand, a carved wood totem hanging from his belt. His robes were layered green and brown, the colors of forest floor. His face held the comfortable detachment of someone who had seen enough of the world not to be surprised by any of it. When Mantis read the roster, Juvar had simply nodded. No excitement. No complaint. Just a small, easy acceptance that sat wrong in Madison's gut for reasons she couldn't name.

Mantis unfolded a sealed mission patch and read aloud.

"First assignment. Collect a supply caravan from the Alderan Magic Emporium in Haze—the owner has contracted the guild for secure delivery. Transport the goods to the trade center northeast of the city. Standard escort. Standard pay."

He looked up. "Simple on paper. First missions always are." He folded the patch and tucked it inside his gorget. "Move in ten. Fill water. Check straps. No heroics."

They walked back into Haze through the north gate, ten bodies in loose column. The morning light caught white stone walls and turned them gold. Madison had seen the city only in the rush of arrival—now it opened around her in layers, deeper and wider than Jul had ever been.

Market cries rose from the stalls like a flock of competing birds. Horses clattered on cobblestone. A woman sold roasted chestnuts from a brass cart, and the smell—hot, sweet, laced with char—cut through everything and made Madison's stomach pull. Children darted between legs. An old man argued with a merchant over the price of dried fish, their voices rising and falling in the practiced rhythm of men who had been having this same argument for twenty years.

The buildings grew denser as Mantis led them into narrower lanes. Two-story houses with shuttered windows leaned toward each other across alleys so tight Madison could touch both walls. Laundry hung on lines overhead, dripping onto cobblestone. Someone was cooking onions—the smell was thick and warm and reminded her painfully of Elane's kitchen in Jul.

Mantis turned another corner with the confidence of a man who had walked these streets many times before. He moved the way water moves through a channel: finding the path of least resistance without appearing to think about it. Madison filed that observation away. Everything about Mantis was observation-worthy.

The magic shop sat in a quiet side street, its entrance recessed between a tailor's workshop and a chandler's stall. It was a narrow building with windows that glowed faintly, the glass thick with age and faintly warped. Through it Madison could see runes arranged in rows behind the counter, vials of blue and red catching the morning light like jewels set in stone. A painted sign above the door read Alderan's in faded gold script that had once been elegant and was now merely stubborn.

Something stood outside.

A panda. Not quite solid—its edges flickered, as if it were made of light or smoke, and the air around it wavered like heat over summer road. It shifted its weight on the cobblestones with a soft, uncertain sound, then locked eyes with Madison. Something in that look was wrong—not animal, not tame. Intelligent in the way that made your hand reach for a weapon before your mind decided to be afraid.

It rolled forward in a sudden, clumsy lunge.

Madison's hand was on her hilt, the Sword of Fury half-drawn, her heart hammering against her gorget, when the shop door banged open.

A young woman stepped out—white-blonde hair, blue robe, cheeks already pink with embarrassment. She clapped her hands once with the sharp, exasperated authority of someone correcting a dog that knew better. The panda wavered, blurred, and vanished like breath in cold air. The street went still. The smell of ozone lingered where the creature had been, faint and electric.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I'm still learning to control my summons. He's not dangerous—just curious. And heavy. And occasionally aggressive. But mostly curious." She exhaled and tried again, steadier. "I'm Lucinda. This is my father's shop. You must be the escort."

From inside, an older man's voice snapped, "Lucinda—get back in here before you summon something that eats a customer!"

Lucinda winced, but she didn't retreat. She held her ground with the embarrassed dignity of a young woman who had been scolded in public one too many times to let it show. "The caravan is around back," she said. "My father has everything loaded—crates of runes, healing supplies, mana fluids, combat stones. It's all sealed and manifested."

She glanced at Mantis. "You're Hegal's?"

Mantis showed his insignia. "Party Five. We'll get it there."

"Good." Lucinda brushed a strand of white-blonde hair behind her ear. "The last escort company lost two crates to road bandits. My father hasn't stopped talking about it since." She lowered her voice. "He hasn't stopped talking about anything since. Be warned."

They walked around the building to a narrow yard where a small wagon sat loaded with crates bound in rope and canvas. A single horse stood in the traces, chewing hay with the philosophical patience of an animal that had done this journey a hundred times and expected to do it a hundred more. Lucinda's father—a lean man with wire spectacles and ink-stained fingers—was checking straps with the fussiness of someone sending a child to war.

"The manifest," he said, thrusting a folded paper at Mantis without looking up. "Sign at the bottom. If anything arrives damaged, it comes out of your guild's bond." He snapped a strap tight and tested it with a yank. "And don't open the sealed crates. Some of those runes are volatile. If someone tries to activate one without knowing the sequence—"

"They'll blow their own hand off," Lucinda finished. "He says that to everyone."

"Because it's true," Alderan snapped. "These are not trinkets. These are combat-grade rune stones, support healing runes calibrated for field use, mana fluids purified to third distillation, and life fluids pressed this season. The total value of this shipment exceeds what most of your guild members will earn in a year. Treat it accordingly."

"Understood," Mantis said evenly. His tone carried no irritation. Madison suspected he had dealt with anxious merchants before—the same way a surgeon dealt with nervous patients. Steady hands, steady voice, steady eyes.

While the rest of the party loaded their packs onto the wagon's side rails, Madison ducked into the shop. The air hummed with residual magic—a low vibration that sat behind her teeth and made the fine hairs on her forearms stand. Runes glowed behind the counter in neat rows, stones etched with symbols that pulsed faintly like small hearts. Vials of mana fluids shimmered blue on high shelves; life fluids caught the light like dark rubies.

She bought two support healing runes and an extra combat rune. The bundle was heavier than it looked, and warm—not body-warm, but the warmth of something that contained energy, like a stone that had been sitting in the sun.

Lucinda followed her to the door. "Be careful on the forest road," she said. "It's usually quiet, but once the sun drops, things move in there. Wolves, mostly. Sometimes worse." She hesitated, as if debating whether to say more. "And if you meet anyone selling runes on the road, don't buy them. If they're not from a licensed shop, there's no telling what's been carved into the stone."

"Speaking from experience?" Madison asked.

Lucinda's smile was rueful. "My father caught someone selling counterfeit fire runes at the market last month. They worked, but the binding sigil was wrong. The rune activated correctly, then kept activating. Burned down a stall and half a cart before someone threw water on it." She shrugged. "Bad rune work kills people. My father is many things—loud, fussy, annoying—but his runes don't malfunction."

Puli stuck his head in. "Mantis says we're moving."

Madison nodded to Lucinda. "Thank you."

"Come back alive," Lucinda said. "My father needs repeat customers."

They left Haze through the eastern gate.

The road stretched northeast through open farmland—plowed fields on both sides, low stone walls, the occasional farmhouse with smoke curling from its chimney. The air smelled of turned earth and wildflowers and the particular sweetness of a morning that didn't yet know what it would become. The city shrank behind them. The sky was enormous—a pale, washed blue that deepened as the sun climbed, and for a moment Madison felt the same sharp disorientation she'd felt on Captain Thorne's cutter leaving Jul. The sense of leaving one life for another, with no certainty the new one would fit.

For the first hour, no one spoke much. The rhythm of walking settled into boots and breathing and the steady creak of the wagon's axle. Mantis walked at the front with Keto. Boro and Vask flanked the wagon. The archers spread in a loose arc behind and to the sides—Puli, Nocta, Merita, Rovan—eyes on the horizon, the hedgerows, the treeline in the distance. Juvar walked near the center, staff clicking softly on the packed dirt.

Madison walked beside the wagon, her hand occasionally touching the Sword of Fury's hilt. The sword sat heavier today than it had during the trials. Or maybe she was just more tired.

Puli broke the silence first. He always did. It was one of the things Madison loved about him—the way he couldn't let a silence stretch past its natural life without doing something about it.

"So," he said, falling into step beside Rovan. "Where are you from? Before all this."

Rovan glanced at him with the mild annoyance of a man who preferred quiet the way some people preferred shade. "East coast. Fishing town called Pellum. You've never heard of it."

"Try me."

"Small. Smells like salt and rotting kelp. Everyone's related to everyone else within two generations." Rovan adjusted the quiver on his back—a practiced motion, unconscious, the way a man touches a scar. "I left when I was seventeen. Joined a merchant guard company—Tessler's Shields, if you've heard of them. Did that for six years. Saw a lot of road. Watched a lot of other people's money change hands."

"Why leave?" Puli asked.

Rovan was quiet for a step or two. The road crunched beneath them. A crow lifted from a fence post and flapped away, black against pale sky.

"The last contract we took was escorting a wine merchant from Varlin to the coast," Rovan said. "We got hit by road bandits two days out. Four of us, six of them. My partner—man named Coll, been with me three years—took an arrow through the throat." His voice didn't change. He might have been describing weather. "After that I decided I was done working for merchants. If I was going to risk dying on a road, I wanted it to mean something more than someone else's profit."

"So you came to Hegal," Puli said.

"So I came to Hegal." Rovan's mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but the shape of one. "Who, as far as I can tell, also wants me to escort someone else's cargo along a road."

Puli laughed. Genuine, unexpected. Even Rovan's expression softened at the edges.

Merita had been listening. She walked with a nervous energy that reminded Madison of a stray cat—alert, tense, ready to run or fight at a moment's notice. Her fingers tapped her bow stave in a pattern that might have been habit or might have been a rhythm only she could hear.

"I'm from Kazordoon," she said when Puli's gaze drifted to her. "Well, near it. A village on the surface above the dwarf tunnels. Karak Bel. My parents ran a supply post—bolts, rations, rope, lantern oil. Everything the miners needed, we sold. I grew up counting inventory and watching caravan guards come and go." She shrugged, the motion pulling at her quiver strap. "When I was old enough I started shooting with the guards for practice. One of them—a dwarf archer named Hilde—told me I had the eye for it. So I kept at it."

"How good?" Rovan asked. The question was stripped clean—no challenge, no competition, just a professional asking another professional for a measurement.

Merita's fingers stopped tapping. She met his eyes. "I hit what I aim at."

Rovan gave a short nod. "That'll do."

Keto, walking point beside Mantis, spoke without turning around. "Varlin. South side." His voice was flat, economical, the kind that gave you facts and nothing else. "My father was a blacksmith. Made horseshoes, gate hinges, farm tools. Honest work. My mother died when I was young—fever took her one winter, and my father just kept working. He made horseshoes the day of her funeral because he didn't know how to stop." He paused. "I learned fighting from a retired knight who ran a training yard in the next district. Paid him in my father's metalwork until I was good enough to hire out as a guard." Another pause. "Then my father died, and there was nothing keeping me in Varlin."

The words fell into the column like stones into still water. Nobody filled the silence that followed.

Puli, who could not leave a silence unfilled forever, eventually said, "I'm from Jul. Same as Madison. Fishing island, beautiful sunrises, terrible career options." He paused for timing. "My father wanted me to be a net-maker."

"And instead you shoot arrows," Boro said from the wagon's far side, his first words of the march. His voice was deep and slightly rusty, as if he didn't use it often enough to keep it polished.

"Badly," Puli said. "But with great enthusiasm."

Even Mantis smiled at that, though he tried to hide it in his beard.

Nocta had been walking quietly at the party's left flank, his throwing stars secured in the leather holsters across his chest. When the conversation found him, he answered with the careful ease of someone who had told this story before and knew exactly which parts to include and which to leave out.

"Born on the road," he said. "My parents were traders. Moved between cities—Haze, Varlin, Solundria, sometimes further east. I picked up fighting from caravan guards who had nothing better to do during long stretches. Picked up the stars from a performer in Solundria who used to throw knives at a spinning board." He flipped one star between his fingers, the metal catching light—a casual display of dexterity that drew the eye. "She was better than me. But I'm improving."

"How'd you end up at the trials?" Madison asked.

Nocta caught the star and tucked it back into its holster. "Same as everyone. Heard the name Hegal. Thought it sounded better than another year of watching wagons." He met her eyes with a faint, easy smile. "I like having a purpose. Wagon-watching isn't one."

There was nothing in his voice that rang false. He held Madison's gaze the way honest men do—steady, unhurried, nothing to hide. She nodded and looked away.

Something in her gut tightened anyway. She didn't know why.

Juvar spoke last, and only because Merita asked him directly. "Where are you from, druid?"

He repeated the question as if tasting it. "Where am I from." A half-smile. "Lucindel. The deep forest east of Ab'Dendriel, where the elven roads end and the undergrowth decides who passes." He walked with his staff in easy rhythm, robes swaying, each step placing itself with the absent confidence of a man who was comfortable in any terrain. "I trained with a hedge druid for four years—fire magic, earth shaping, herbalism. Most druids in the guild focus on healing and support. I do that too. But fire is what I'm best at."

"Why fire?" Merita asked.

"Because everything burns." Juvar shrugged. "And very few things argue with a fireball."

"Comforting," Keto said.

Mantis, who had been listening to all of this without comment, finally spoke from the front. He didn't turn around. He didn't need to.

"Good," he said. "Now you know each other's names and home towns. That's the easy part. Anyone can swap stories on a road when the sun is up and the belly is full." He let the silence hold for a beat. "The hard part is trusting each other when something goes wrong. When the man next to you is bleeding and the thing in front of you is trying to kill you both, and you have to decide in a heartbeat whether to run or hold. That kind of trust takes time. We'll earn it."

He let that sit.

"Stay sharp. Road gets wooded up ahead."

The farmland gave way to rougher terrain as the afternoon wore on. Low hills rolled beneath them like the spine of something sleeping. The road narrowed. Trees began to appear—first in scattered clusters, then thickening into a proper forest that pressed close on both sides. Oak and ash, their branches meeting overhead to form a canopy that turned the light green and dim. The air cooled. Sounds changed—birdsong faded, replaced by the creak of old wood, the rustle of unseen things in the undergrowth, and the steady drip of moisture from leaves that never fully dried.

The horse slowed without being told. Its ears rotated like small dishes catching signals humans couldn't hear.

"How much further?" Vask asked. His voice was lower than it had been on the open road.

Mantis checked the sky through a gap in the canopy. The sun was a diffuse glow behind the leaves, more a direction than a source. "Two hours. Maybe less. The trade center sits at the forest's north edge." He pointed ahead, where the road curved into deeper shadow. "Through here."

Madison could feel the change in the party. It happened without words, without orders—a collective tightening, the way a muscle contracts before a blow. Conversations died. Hands drifted to weapons. Merita's nervous energy sharpened into something useful—her eyes swept the treeline in steady arcs, her bow already half-raised. Rovan's jaw tightened. His hand found his quiver and stayed there.

Even Puli stopped talking.

Only Mantis and Juvar seemed unchanged. The veteran walked with the same measured pace. The druid's staff clicked the same rhythm.

Madison watched the forest and thought about what Mantis had said. Trust takes time. We'll earn it. She wondered how many parties he had led. How many he had lost. The thought sat in her chest like something cold and hard.

The first sign was the horse.

It stopped. Not gradually—it planted its hooves and refused to move. Its ears flattened. Its nostrils flared wide. A tremor ran through its flanks.

"Easy," Mantis said, reaching for the bridle. "Easy."

The horse snorted and jerked its head, eyes rolling to show the whites. Foam flecked its lips.

Then Madison heard it. A low sound, barely there—not a growl, not a bark. More like breathing that belonged to something too large and too close. It came from everywhere and nowhere, muffled by the canopy, distorted by the trees.

"Eyes up," Mantis said quietly. His voice didn't change. It stayed exactly where it had been all day—calm, measured, carrying authority without volume. "Formation around the wagon. Archers, you have treeline. Knights, take the road."

They moved without argument. Three weeks of training and one morning of marching together wasn't much, but it was enough. Bodies slotted into positions they had drilled—shields coming up, bows drawn half-taut, everyone finding their angle. It wasn't smooth. It wasn't perfect. But it was fast.

Yellow eyes blinked in the undergrowth.

One pair. Low to the ground, the color of old amber.

Then four.

Then seven.

The wolves came out of the forest like grey water pouring between rocks.

They were not the rangy, starving things Madison had imagined from stories—gaunt creatures with visible ribs, desperate and weak. These were forest wolves—heavy in the shoulder, thick-furred, coordinated. They fanned out across the road in a rough crescent, blocking the path ahead and flanking the wagon's left side. The pack leader stood at the center, head low, ears flat, teeth bared in a silent grimace that was worse than any snarl because it was patient.

No howl. No warning charge. Just steady, predatory pressure. The kind that said: We've done this before.

"Nobody panic," Mantis said. "They're testing us. Probing for weakness—whether we break formation, whether we run, whether we leave something unguarded. We give them nothing."

"Testing what exactly?" Merita whispered. Her bow was up, arrow nocked, but her fingers were trembling.

"Whether we're prey," Rovan said. He didn't whisper. He said it the way he said everything—flat, practical, without decoration. His own bow was drawn steady. "We show them we're not."

The pack leader took a step forward. Its claws clicked on the packed dirt of the road.

Mantis drew his sword. The sound of steel on leather was clean and sharp, and it seemed to cut the air in half. The wolves shifted—not retreating, but recalculating. Several of the younger ones exchanged glances, the way dogs do when the situation changes.

"Juvar," Mantis said. "Low fire. Between us and them. Don't burn the forest down."

Juvar planted his staff and murmured a word. His hand traced a quick sigil in the air—three lines, a circle, a word Madison didn't recognize—and a line of flame erupted across the road, knee-high, crackling and spitting sparks. The heat washed over them. The wolves on the right recoiled, ears flat, lips peeling back. Two younger ones broke and vanished into the brush with panicked yelps, crashing through undergrowth.

The horse screamed and lurched forward; Boro grabbed the bridle and held, his boots sliding on dirt.

The pack leader did not retreat.

It circled left, away from the fire, and two flankers came with it—older wolves, heavier, with the scars and missing patches of fur that marked survivors. They were driving for the wagon's unguarded side.

"Left! Left!" Puli shouted, and loosed an arrow.

It struck the lead flanker in the haunch. The wolf yelped—a sharp, high sound that cut through everything—and stumbled. The second wolf surged past it, eyes locked on Vask, jaws already opening.

Vask caught it on his shield with a grunt that shook his whole frame. The wolf's jaws snapped shut on the shield rim, teeth scraping metal with a sound like a knife on glass. He drove his blade downward and the wolf went limp with a wet, final sound.

The pack leader leapt.

It came over the fire line in a single bound, clearing the flame by a hand's breadth. The jump was savage and beautiful in the way that all predatory things are beautiful—pure function, no waste, every muscle doing exactly one thing.

It hit Keto in the chest.

Keto went down. His shield took the first bite—leather tearing, metal buckling under jaw pressure that was designed to crack bone. He shoved upward with his arm and punched the wolf in the jaw with his gauntleted fist. Bone cracked. The wolf snarled and bit again, this time catching the edge of his gorget.

Madison was there in two steps. The Sword of Fury came up in a tight arc—her father's blade, cutting through forest air the way it had cut through dragon fire fifteen years ago—and caught the wolf across the ribs. The impact jarred through her arms. The wolf twisted away, bleeding, snarling—and Nocta's throwing star buried itself in its shoulder from ten meters out, the steel sinking between muscle and bone with a sound like a hammer hitting wet clay.

The wolf staggered.

Rovan put an arrow through its throat.

It dropped. The great body hit the road with a heavy thud, legs twitching, eyes glazing. Blood pooled dark on the packed earth.

The rest of the pack scattered. One heartbeat they were there—grey shapes, yellow eyes, teeth—and the next they were shadows melting into the undergrowth, carrying their wounded, their retreat as coordinated as their attack.

Juvar let the fire die. The road smoked. The air smelled of burned grass and iron and something animal.

Keto got to his feet slowly, one hand braced on his knee. Blood on his gauntlet—not his own. His shield had two deep gouges in the leather facing. He stared at them for a moment, then looked up at Madison.

"Thanks," he said.

"Don't mention it."

"I won't," he said. "Easier to pretend it didn't happen."

Mantis checked the party. "Everyone good?"

Nods. Heavy breathing. Merita was pale but steady, her bow still half-drawn, her trembling gone—burned away by the fight the way morning fog burns away in sun. Puli retrieved his arrow from the brush, wiping it on his trousers. Boro patted the horse's neck, murmuring something soft and steady.

Mantis looked at the dead wolves—two on the road, one in the ditch—and then at his party.

"First blood together," he said. "Not bad. We held formation, we covered each other, and nobody panicked." He paused. "That matters more than the kill count."

They moved on. The forest thinned gradually around them, and the light returned in stages—first the green dimness brightening, then actual shafts of sun cutting through gaps in the canopy, then the trees pulling apart like curtains opening.

The trade center emerged from the tree line like a small town that had been built in a single season and never quite decided whether to stay.

Canvas pavilions and wooden stalls spread across a wide clearing at the forest's northern edge. Torches burned in iron brackets along the main paths, their flames unnecessary in the remaining daylight but already lit in anticipation of dusk. Wagons clustered in groups—some loaded, some empty, some being repaired by lamplight while their owners argued prices under awnings. Merchants hawked wares in competing voices. Guards in mixed livery patrolled the perimeter in lazy, practiced loops. Cook fires sent thin columns of smoke into the darkening sky, carrying the smell of roasted meat and bread and something spiced that made Madison's stomach clench with sudden, fierce hunger.

"Trade center," Mantis said. "We deliver, we report, we rest."

They rolled the wagon through the entrance where a bored official checked Mantis's guild insignia and waved them through without looking up from his ledger. The delivery point was a large canvas warehouse near the center, staffed by a heavyset woman with a ledger of her own and a complete lack of patience.

"Alderan's?" she said, glancing at the manifest. "You're late."

"We're on time," Mantis said.

"My clock says late." She stamped the manifest, tore off a receipt, and thrust it at him. "Unload at bay three. Don't touch anything in bays one or two. Those belong to the crown."

They unloaded. It took the better part of an hour—crates heavy with rune stones, sealed boxes that hummed faintly, containers of fluid packed in straw. Madison's arms burned by the end of it. When the last crate hit the warehouse floor and the receiving clerk signed off, she felt the tension in her shoulders release for the first time since dawn.

They made camp at the trade center's eastern edge, where guild parties were allowed to pitch tents. The ground was packed dirt, level enough, and other groups were already settled nearby—tents in tidy rows, gear hung on stakes, the low hum of conversation and the scrape of whetstones on steel.

Boro got a fire going with practiced ease—kindling first, then small branches, then a steady flame that threw warm light across the camp circle. Merita and Vask set up the tents—four shelters in a tight arrangement with the wagon at center. Keto collected water from the communal well, filling skins with the methodical patience of a man who understood that water was more valuable than gold on a march. Rovan found food—a stall near the main pavilion selling bowls of stew thick with root vegetables and shredded pork, its broth dark and rich with pepper and rosemary. Fresh bread with a crust so dark it was nearly black, still warm from the oven. Dried fruit wrapped in cloth—figs and apricots, their sweetness concentrated by the sun.

They ate together for the first time without urgency.

The stew was hot and good and the kind of food that filled you from the inside out. The bread was better—dense, chewy, tasting of hearth and grain. Madison sat on a crate with her bowl in her hands, the warmth seeping through her fingers, and watched the fire throw shadows across the faces around her.

Puli sat cross-legged in the dirt, eating with the single-minded focus of someone who hadn't realized how hungry he was until the first bite told him. Keto ate slowly, methodically, as if the meal were another task to complete correctly. Merita had her quiver beside her, one hand on the bread and the other resting on the leather as if it might wander off. Boro ate in large, deliberate spoonfuls, his face blank with concentration. Vask held his bowl in both hands and drank the broth straight, then went back for seconds without asking.

Rovan finished first and leaned back against his pack. "First mission. Complete. Nobody dead. That's better than my last company."

"Your last company must have been terrible," Puli said through a mouthful of bread.

"They were." Rovan's voice held no humor this time. The firelight caught the scar on his jaw and deepened it. "Two of them are buried outside Varlin. Another one drinks himself to sleep in a room above a tavern in Haze. He sees the arrow that killed Coll every time he closes his eyes." He looked at the fire. "We were four men responsible for a wine merchant's profit. When the bandits came, nobody in the empire cared enough to send help."

The fire crackled. Night pressed in around the camp like something waiting to be acknowledged. Nobody filled the silence for a while.

Nocta spoke from the edge of the firelight, where he sat with his back against the wagon wheel, idly cleaning a throwing star with a rag. "Wolves are one thing," he said. "The missions won't stay this simple."

Mantis, who had been writing something on the mission receipt—his handwriting small and precise, tilted left—looked up. "No. They won't. Enjoy simple while it lasts." He set down his pen and regarded his party in the firelight. "Today worked because the threat was manageable and nobody froze. Remember that feeling—the way you moved without thinking, the way you covered each other. Build on it. Because the next threat won't be wolves, and it won't give you time to remember what you're supposed to do."

He rolled a small scroll, sealed it with wax from the fire, and pressed his guild ring into the stamp. Then he whistled—a short, sharp note that cut through the camp noise—and held out his arm.

A messenger bird dropped from somewhere overhead and landed on his forearm. Small, dark-feathered, eyes bright. It cocked its head and watched Mantis with the focused intelligence of a creature bred for a single purpose.

Mantis tied the scroll to its leg with a strip of leather. "Hegal's Guild, Haze operations post," he told it. "Completion report and request for next assignment."

He lifted his arm. The bird launched itself into the dark, wings beating hard, and vanished above the torchlight like a thrown stone.

"Now we wait," Mantis said.

Madison finished her stew and set the bowl aside. The camp had grown quieter around them. Other parties were settling in—lanterns dimmed, voices dropping to murmurs. Somewhere a minstrel played a reed pipe, the melody thin and sweet and lonely in the cooling air, carried on wind that smelled of pine and distance and the faint, electric residue of the runes they'd delivered.

Puli appeared beside her with two cups—water, not ale.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Yeah." She took the cup. The water was cold from the well, sharp on her teeth. "You?"

"Honest answer? I'm terrified." He grinned—the same grin he'd had since they were children on Jul, the one that said he knew the situation was bad and had decided to find it funny anyway. "But in a good way. If there's a good way."

"There isn't."

"Then I'm terrified in the normal way." He sat down beside her, their shoulders touching. "Tyba would have liked this. The camp. The fire. The part where nobody tried to kill us. Well—the wolves tried, but that almost doesn't count."

Madison looked at the stars. They were thick and bright here, away from the city lights—a field of cold silver pinned to a sky so dark it looked like velvet.

"He's out there somewhere," she said. "Different party. Different road."

"Yeah." Puli was quiet for a moment. "We'll see him at Solundria. That's where everyone reports."

"If."

Puli looked at her. "When," he said firmly. "When we see him at Solundria."

Mantis's voice drifted from the fire. "Get some sleep. When the bird comes back, we move."

Madison lay down on her bedroll, the Sword of Fury within arm's reach, and watched the fire shrink as the embers glowed orange and deep. She could hear the camp settling around her—Boro's slow, steady breathing; Merita turning restlessly on her mat; the distant sound of the horse cropping grass. Somewhere an owl called, the sound round and hollow, and was answered by silence.

She thought about Mantis's words. Trust takes time. She thought about Keto's hand reaching up from the ground, and the wolf's weight, and the sound the Sword of Fury made when it hit bone. She thought about Nocta's easy smile and the tightness in her gut that accompanied it.

She thought about her father's statue standing in Jul's square, watching over cobblestones that were probably wet with morning dew right now. She wondered if Elane was awake. If Xot was sleeping. If the fishing boats were already heading out, their lanterns cutting lines of gold across the dark water.

The team was starting to feel like something.

Not a unit. Not yet.

But the beginning of one.

She closed her eyes and slept better than she had since leaving Jul.