The thing that pushed out wasn't a head first. It was a tusk—white, spiraled, too clean, like porcelain that had been fed bones. Then the rest of it shoved through the undergrowth: a bulk on four thick legs under plates of stained bone, ridges of cartilage down its back. No eyes Noah could see, just a split mask of a face full of teeth that didn't match. It smelled like a butcher's bucket.
"Positions," a scout breathed.
The Kindled slid like mercury. Noah held his hands loose, his mouth curved like none of this was new. The Saint lifted one palm and the whole Forest seemed to hold its breath on command.
The beast came on.
The first clash was noise and spray. A Kindled boy flicked a rune-tag; the glow made the beast hesitate. An adult slid in low and sliced tendon; another jabbed a hooked spear under a plate and twisted. Abel didn't move at all until it mattered; then he stepped, precise and fast, and made space for a child to dart past him and stab without dying. The ground flexed and burped. Noah threw a short whip of force at the creature's front foot—not a showy thing, just enough to make it stumble at the wrong moment—then went still again, face blank as a helpful guest.
"Left flank," someone hissed. "Now."
They were good. They were too good. Kids who should've been chasing dogs moved like they were born under a drill-sergeant's fist.
The beast pivoted hard, bone plates grinding. It slammed a tusk into a trunk; the trunk split and sloughed off wet bark. The Kindled sang sharper, the hum turning into a thin, steady line of sound that made Noah's skin pebble.
And then it happened fast.
The creature lunged—not at the front line, not at the adults. It turned toward the brightest heat: the Saint.
For a split second, that perfect posture broke. He hadn't expected the angle. One foreleg of the beast punched into the muck and launched, tusk driving straight at the white of the veil.
Abel's weight shifted. Noah saw his hand twitch on the spear. Noah's fingers warmed—whip ready, cards digging a friendly bite into his ribs.
They looked at each other.
Abel's eyes asked: Do we?
Noah's mouth didn't move. His eyebrows did. No.
He thought, very politely: Hope you trip, you smug candle.
They didn't move.
The tusk hit light.
It wasn't light at first. It was a flick of the Saint's wrist and a line of red across his own pale forearm—so casual it could have been boredom. The cut opened, dark and clean. The scent-lanterns around him flared like they'd been waiting. Heat blew out in a ring that tasted like metal. Blood lifted from the wound as if the gravity in this little patch of world had been told to try harder.
A ribbon of it rose, thin as a vein, and caught fire in the air.
The ribbon snapped forward like a leash. It looped around the tusk, around the beast's face, around bone plates slick with rot. The fire didn't burn like normal fire. It burned like a spell that had learned to bite—hot white at the core, red-gold at the edges, shot through with little threads of darker red that looked too much like veins.
The Saint didn't shout. He didn't chant. He just closed his bloody hand and the ribbons tightened.
The beast screamed—if you could call that sound a scream. It sounded like bone ground through a grinder. It went to its knees hard enough to make the ground cough. The false sun seemed to blink brighter for a heartbeat. Somewhere behind them, a dozen scent-lanterns flared and then steadied like they'd been fed.
Noah's stomach turned. Fuel. Of course it's fuel.
The Saint stepped forward once, blade flashing in his free hand—there was always a blade with him—and drew a quick, neat curve in the air. The flames obeyed like trained hounds, sliding down the beast's face and throat, carving a red collar that smoked and sizzled. The smell got worse—burnt fat and old pennies.
He didn't kill it. Not yet.
"Honor," he said, voice carrying without being loud. "Choir—finish."
A Kindled girl stepped forward. She couldn't be more than ten. Her hands didn't shake. Noah's did, just a finger's worth, invisible in a sleeve.
She drove her sickle up under the soft plate the fire had made. The beast jerked and went stubbornly still like a punched clock. Blood poured black with shine and then the red ribbon caught it and braided it in. The sun above them didn't move, but the world warmed a degree like a breath exhaled against a cheek.
The Saint let the flaming leash go slack. It burned out without smoke.
All that in a single handful of heartbeats. Noah only let out the breath when he was sure his face wasn't going to tell on him.
Abel's jaw was stone. His knuckles had gone pale on the spear and then relaxed.
Noah's head was loud with details and ugly thought: He needs a cut. He needs blood. He can make his own if he has to. He likes to make other people do it. He doesn't need a long chant. He likes a show. The sun bumps when the blood hits the ground. He's stronger near lanterns. He draws with the blade. He doesn't miss.
The clean-up was almost worse. Adults peeled back the plates with practiced movements and pulled out pieces like they were working a puzzle. Little Kindled wiped their blades on grass that wasn't grass. A handler praised the girl and knotted an imaginary ribbon around her wrist as if she'd earned a bracelet; she smiled like someone had handed her a star.
The Saint's veil hadn't shifted, but his shoulders had. He was pleased. Not with the kill. With the order. Noah could feel it like heat off a stove.
"Efficient," the Saint said, turning as if the beast were a detail in the scenery. He looked at Noah with a tilt of curiosity, like a man enjoying a new pet's tricks. "You held back."
"Thought I'd let the professionals handle it," Noah said, sunny. "Didn't want to show off."
"Mm," the Saint said. "You're very modest."
"Painfully," Noah said. "Ow."
The Saint's attention slid to Abel. "And you?"
"Orders," Abel said, tone flat as a blade. "Hold. We held."
The Saint's head tipped like he appreciated the answer even while cataloging it. "Wise."
Noah swallowed down the taste of burnt iron and smiled. "And educational," he added, airy. "Always nice to see the boss in action."
"Is it?" There was a smile under that veil now; Noah could hear it. "What did you learn?"
"That I should never get between you and a good bonfire," Noah said, and watched that land exactly where it should: as a joke that did not deny the truth.
They moved on. The ground oozed and tugged. A Kindled boy slipped and laughed like kids do in mud, except this wasn't mud and the sound landed wrong. An adult steadied him with a brief squeeze to the shoulder and no words at all. Above them, trapped light kept pretending to be day.
There was a second beast.
Smaller, meaner, faster—less tusk and more legs, with plates that overlapped like a bad roof and a mouth that opened sideways. It went for the middle where the Kindled hummed. One of the kids froze just a fraction too long.
Noah didn't think. He flung a short, sharp lash—not bright, not showy, a trip at ankle height that pulled the beast half a step off the kid and into Abel's reach. Abel moved like a door slamming and drove the spear up under a plate seam. Clean. Fast. Down.
He pulled the spear free with a twist. The beast flopped twice and went quiet. The Saint watched, interested, like this was a play with good actors and he was enjoying the lead.
"Good," the Saint said.
"Lucky," Abel said.
"Helpful," Noah said, faintly breathless. "I'm big on that."
The Saint didn't answer. He was looking at the new spill of blood, thoughtful. The lanterns near him burned a little higher for no good reason.
"Choir," he said, almost absent, "sing."
They did. Not the low hum now, but a quiet, simple line of sound—no words and no beauty, just a shape cut in air. It made the hair on Noah's arms try to stand even though the world was hot. The Saint listened to it like a man listening to his favorite song.
Noah wanted to put his hands over his ears. He didn't. He stood with a helpful guest smile and counted the ways he could break a man who drank children's songs like wine.
On the walk back, the Forest felt worse. The smell crawled up out of the ground and filled your mouth until your tongue went numb. The trees leaned in like eavesdroppers. Noah breathed through his nose and told himself Cassian was in a room with clean sheets and not on a floor with his memories unspooling. The Saint drifted alongside them like a calm storm, veil untouched, gloves clean. The only sign of what he'd done was a thin dark line on his forearm where he'd cut himself and the way the air around him still felt a degree warmer.
"Same time tonight," he said lightly, which was a test and a knife and a habit.
"If I remember," Noah said, equally light.
"Oh, you will," the Saint said, and for the first time that day, something colder than the Forest slid thin and careful under Noah's ribs.
Not if I anchor it first, he told himself. Not if I get there before you do.
They crossed back under the bone arch where the ground went hard again. The stink thinned to resin and smoke. People came out of doorways to look, to count, to settle their faces into the right shapes when the Kindled passed. The sun didn't move.
The Saint turned his veiled head toward Noah and Abel one last time. "Thank you," he said, like a politeness from a host who had no idea the guests were measuring the windows.
"Anytime," Noah said, meaning never.
He and Abel peeled off at the first polite opportunity.
They didn't speak until the scent-lanterns were behind them and their own door's bone charm clicked. Only then did Noah let his smile fall off his face and the shiver out of his shoulders.
"Well," he said, voice too bright because if it wasn't bright it would break, "good news. He bleeds to cast. He needs a source. The lanterns spike when he drinks. He likes to make it a show. And—bonus—he almost ate tusk-first."
Abel set the spear against the wall and finally, finally let out the breath he'd been filing away. "We didn't save him."
"Yeah," Noah said. "Shame." He glanced at Abel's hands. "You wanted to."
"Yes."
"Me too." He scrubbed his face. "Hated not doing it. Hated doing it more."
Abel nodded. They stood there in the thin quiet, the false sun painting bars across the floor like a cell that wasn't there.
"Tonight?" Abel asked.
"Tonight," Noah said. "He wants to talk. I'll pretend I'm new to the idea. You make sure I remember being old."
Abel's mouth almost smiled. "Always."
Noah swallowed. "And Cassian?"
"We can't reach him today."
"I know." He leaned his head back against the door. "I just—" He cut it off before it turned into something useless. "Okay. Dinner. Planning. Pretending we don't smell like a butcher's apron."
Abel pushed off the wall. "I'll wash the spear."
"I'll wash my trauma," Noah said. "Cold water, long soak."
Abel's look said idiot and mine in one clean line.
Noah managed a lopsided grin. "What? I cope."
He did. Barely. But he also planned. And now, finally, he knew what the Saint did when the knife went in and the fire came out.
Next time, Noah promised himself, would be different.