The woods were no longer a sanctuary. They were a labyrinth of shadows, every one of which could conceal the new threat Commander Silas had promised. The air itself felt heavy, charged with a predatory anticipation.
Barry moved them out of the crevice within minutes of the Order's retreat. There was no discussion. His word was law, his commands issued in terse, efficient sentences.
"On a single file. Step where I step. No talking. We move for one hour, then find new cover."
He set a brutal pace, a relentless march that ate up the uneven ground. He was a ghost, his footsteps making no sound, his black clothing blending into the gloom. Belinda and Leo struggled to keep up, their city-bred stamina no match for his, but they didn't dare complain. The look on his face—a mask of hyper-focused intensity—silenced any protest.
He was processing. The new variable—"a new asset"—was an equation with too many unknowns. Skill set? Unknown. Tracking methodology? Unknown. Motivation? Presumably, his capture or death. The only known quantity was the Commander's confidence, which suggested a high probability of success.
Hypothesis: The asset is a specialist. Likely possesses unique magical abilities or intimate knowledge of my capabilities. Possibly both.
Conclusion: Standard evasion protocols are insufficient. Require unpredictable movement and misdirection.
After an hour of silent, grueling travel, he stopped by a fast-moving stream. "Five minutes. Drink. Do not touch the water with your hands. Cup them."
While they drank, Barry didn't rest. He gathered several large, flat stones. He placed them in the stream, creating a path leading to the opposite bank. Then, with a focused application of gravity, he pressed the stones deep into the soft mud of the stream bed, making them stable and permanent-looking.
He then turned to Belinda. "I need a sheet of ice. Two meters long, half a meter wide. As thin as you can make it without it breaking."
She was exhausted, but she complied, her hands shaking as she conjured the requested platform. Barry took it and laid it on the water's surface a dozen meters downstream from the stone path. He anchored it with a subtle gravity field just beneath the surface, making it look like a natural, partially submerged log from a distance.
"We cross here," he said, pointing to the ice sheet.
"But the stones—" Leo began.
"Are for them," Barry cut him off. He didn't elaborate.
They crossed carefully on the nearly invisible ice bridge. On the other side, Barry had them walk backward in their own footprints for twenty paces before lifting them both and using a short, controlled burst of reversed gravity to carry them up into the thick branches of a massive, ancient oak tree.
"Stay. Don't move. Don't make a sound," he commanded, his voice a breath of wind. He then dropped back to the ground and erased the signs of their ascent with a sweep of a branch.
He joined them in the tree, perched on a thick limb like a large bird of prey, his eyes scanning the forest below. They waited. Minutes stretched into an hour. The only sounds were the gurgle of the stream and the pounding of their own hearts.
Then, they came.
Two Order scouts emerged from the trees, moving with practiced stealth. They went directly to the stone path Barry had made, examining it. One pointed across the stream. They began to cross, confident they had found the trail.
Barry's trap was flawless. They were following a false lead.
But a moment later, a third figure emerged from the shadows.
He moved differently. There was no stealth, no hesitation. He walked with an easy, confident stride that was somehow more terrifying than any sneak attack. He was tall, clad in the same void-black Order coat, but his was unbuttoned, worn almost casually. The red half-sun tattoo was visible on the back of his left hand.
His hair was a shock of white, stark against the forest gloom.
He didn't even look at the stone path. His gaze was fixed on the stream. He walked to the water's edge, right to the spot where Barry's hidden ice bridge was anchored. He didn't glance down; he just knew.
He smiled. It wasn't a pleasant expression.
"Clever," he said, his voice carrying clearly on the night air. It was a voice that held a faint, haunting similarity to Barry's own, but laced with a mocking, theatrical quality. "A gravity-anchored ice bridge. Two disciplines working in concert. Most wouldn't have sensed the minor spatial distortion."
In the tree, Barry went perfectly still. His analytical mind, for the first time, failed to produce a ready assessment. This man had bypassed all his misdirection instantly. He hadn't tracked them; he had anticipated them.
The white-haired man looked up, not directly at their tree, but in a wide arc, as if savoring the hunt.
"I know you can hear me, brother!" he called out, his tone jovial, taunting. "Oh, don't look so surprised. In a way, aren't we all brothers in the eyes of our glorious Order? United in purpose!"
He chuckled, a low, unpleasant sound.
"But you and I... we're destined for a more personal union. Lord Greimore has promised me a gift. The one thing I've always lacked. The one thing you took for granted."
He began to pace slowly along the bank, his hands clasped behind his back like a lecturer.
"They call you an abomination down there. A monster. They fear your power. They don't understand it." He stopped and looked directly into the forest canopy, his eyes seeming to gleam with an inner light. "But I do. I understand it better than you ever will. It's wasted on you. You hide it. You cage it. You're ashamed of it."
His voice lost its mocking edge, replaced by a seething, genuine bitterness.
"I would cherish it. I would let it sing. All I need... is for you to give it to me."
He raised his hand, the one with the tattoo. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the shadows at his feet began to writhe. But they were wrong. Where Barry's shadows were liquid midnight and blood-red, these were a sickly, void-blackish blue. They coiled around his legs like affectionate serpents, and the tips of his white hair began to darken, shifting to the same unnatural black-blue hue.
He wasn't bleeding. He was somehow channeling a corrupted, mirrored version of Barry's power without the cost.
"The hunter has arrived, brother," he said, his voice dropping to a intimate, sinister whisper that somehow carried perfectly to their perch. "Let's make this fun. You have until the moon reaches its peak to run. Then... the real game begins."
With another soft chuckle, he turned and walked away, his corrupted shadows melting back into the ground. The two scouts, looking chastised, hurried after him.
In the tree, the silence was absolute.
Leo was trembling violently. Belinda looked at Barry, her eyes wide with a new kind of fear.
Barry didn't move. His face was a pale, stony mask in the moonlight. But Belinda, sitting closest to him, saw the minute tremor in his hands where they gripped the tree branch. She saw the way his jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek.
The unshakeable abomination had been shaken.
The Voice in his head, which had been silent since the woods, stirred.
"He smells of her... it whispered, confused and uneasy. "But wrong... like rot on a rose... What is he?"
Barry had no answer. The new variable had a face, a voice, and a power that mocked his own. The equation was no longer just about survival.
It was personal.