The forest had its prize.
Ezra's scream still echoed in Eliakim's skull — sharp, defiant, and then snuffed out in the violet blaze of the teleportation circle. The four dark elves who had conjured it didn't even look at the rest of them. They rose, their ritual complete, and stepped into the shimmering tear that folded shut like an eye.
The moment it vanished, the forest changed.
What had been a tense stillness turned into fury. Roots twisted upward, trying to snare ankles. Bark groaned and split, revealing thorned tendrils beneath. The dome overhead pulsed with violet sigils — like the heartbeat of something ancient and watching.
"West!" Caleb barked. "Run!"
They moved.
Eliakim's bracelet flared to life, chains uncoiling with a hiss of molten silver. The links didn't just shine — they burned with purpose. Every skill, every fragment of instinct the artifact had stolen from his past battles surged through him. His breath steadied, eyes sharpened, and movement became second nature. The chains lashed ahead, hooking a low branch and whipping him forward into the run.
Behind him, Gideon's twin axe caught the dim light — one half deep, molten crimson like a predator's fang; the other icy silver, inlaid with a crystalline starburst. The crimson edge tore through vines with brutal force, while the silver sliced the smaller thorns with surgical precision. Every swing was the clash of two worlds made one.
Caleb's bow — the Verdant Whisper — gleamed with warm golden-brown wood, its green-veined carvings shifting in the flicker of witchlight. He loosed an arrow without breaking stride. It flew true, guided by something more than his hands, and struck a vine before it could coil around Eliakim's leg. The forest itself seemed to shudder at the touch of the bowstring's will.
Malachi's Saphir Maul swung low, its sapphire head humming faintly with each strike. He smashed a root construct, the blow sending shards of bark and moss scattering. The weapon's blessing made each hit heavier than it should have been, cracking the ground with blunt precision.
The path narrowed, the trees bending inward until the branches tangled overhead. A figure waited at the far end — masked, tall, a sword of midnight resting casually on their shoulder. The mask tilted, unreadable, and then the figure stepped into the trunk of a tree, dissolving into shadow.
"Talon," Caleb spat.
"What's a Talon?" Eliakim asked, ducking under a swinging root.
"You'll know when one decides you're worth the trouble."
The corridor bent, spitting them into a shallow basin. A teleportation circle burned faintly on the root-lattice floor. Above it, a massive black hand pushed through the empty air, its too-many joints bending wrong. Where its fingers touched, the wood hissed and smoked.
"…She is mine now…"
The voice vibrated in the bone.
Caleb didn't slow. "We're too close. Keep moving!"
The hand withdrew. The forest screamed.
They pounded westward. The shadows thickened on their left flank — another Talon pacing them, twin blades glinting before the figure melted into the trees.
"They're closing the net," Malachi warned, shifting his grip on the maul.
"Then we break it," Gideon growled.
The ground dropped sharply. The smell of stagnant water hit them before the hunters appeared — root-and-moss constructs with burning violet eyes.
The first lunged. Eliakim's chain snapped out, wrapping the thing's neck. He pulled hard, the molten links searing through bark until the head tore free. Before the body hit the ground, Gideon split it down the center — crimson edge for raw power, silver edge to finish.
Caleb's bow sang again. The arrow punched clean through a second construct, green light flaring where it struck. Malachi followed with a crushing overhead swing, the Saphir Maul pulping its core in one blow.
They didn't linger. The constructs were already knitting back together.
The climb was brutal. Caleb's pace didn't falter. The air grew hotter, heavier. When they finally reached a narrow ridge, the castle spires rose far in the dome's haze.
"From here," Caleb said, "it's kill or be killed."
Two Talons barred the path. One bore a glaive longer than Gideon, the other traced burning sigils into the soil — the ground trembling with each mark.
"Ward-breakers," Caleb said. "They're shutting the west gate."
The fight was a blur. Gideon's crimson-silver axe met the enemy's weapon in a storm of sparks. Caleb loosed three arrows in rapid succession, each one striking a sigil mid-formation. Malachi's maul broke a summoned thorn wall in a single hit. Eliakim's chains found the sigilist's wrist, yanking him forward into Gideon's reach.
The sigilist melted into shadow. The glaive-bearer staggered but retreated, vanishing between trees.
They didn't pause. West was the only direction left.
Ezra was alive.She was with him.And each step west made the air heavier with the Dark Elf King's reach.