Evening came without any more trouble. The group set up camp in a shallow hollow off the road, where fallen logs broke the wind.
The trophy of a successful hunt was roasting above the fire. Rowan was getting very good at it. He'd learned to skin, to dress, and to hold the meat high enough that it cooked slow without burning. No one praised him, but they ate sooner now, and that was its own kind of thanks.
Still, his hands would not stop shaking. Each time he shifted the harpoon across his knees he felt, again, the bite of it going in—too deep, too easy—and saw the mercenary's eyes flare wide. He could stomach wolves. He could stomach ogres. This had been different. This had been a man.
Brennar dropped onto the log beside him with a grunt, as if he could shake the whole day out of his shoulders. "Better than my first," he said. "At least yours was quick."
Rowan stared into the flames. "How do you say it like that? Like it's nothing?"
Brennar's grin was thin. "Because if I think too hard on it, I'll never lift the axe again."
Ari's voice came from across the fire, flat as a blade. She was restringing her bow, eyes on the cord. "It was either you or him."
Rowan looked at her, waiting for more. She gave him nothing.
His gaze slid to Lyra. She only lifted a shoulder in a small shrug, calm eyes saying what her mouth didn't: she had no better answer.
Rowan's stomach knotted.
"You'll get used to it."
The voice came from beyond the firelight. Smooth. Cold.
Brennar was up in an instant, axe raised. Ari's bow snapped tight. Even Lyra flinched, hand going to her satchel.
Rowan turned, heart hammering. Nyx stepped into the circle of light as if the shadows had carried her forward. Pale eyes. Hood low. Leather that drank the glow. She moved without sound. She looked without fear.
"Put your weapons down," she said, voice even. "If I wanted you dead… I wouldn't have spoken."
Brennar's jaw worked. Slowly, he lowered the axe. Ari eased her string, though her gaze stayed on Nyx's throat. Lyra stood still, watching.
Nyx's eyes went to Rowan and held there. "You'll get used to it," she said again. "If you want to live."
"I don't want to get used to it," Rowan said.
"You will," she said. "Or you won't live long."
Brennar sat again, not taking his eyes off her. "You said you'd walk with us. You didn't say why."
"Because your road is interesting," Nyx said. "Because the men in the trees were paid to take the boy alive. Because I dislike the people who pay for such things." Her mouth curved faintly, though it wasn't a smile. "And it's a good thing you didn't follow the route your guard suggested at the gate."
Brennar's head snapped up. "What?"
"They would have funneled you straight into a kill-box." She tilted her head, as if considering a beetle. "Convenient, isn't it? A helpful man by the gate gives advice, and mercenaries just happen to be waiting along that path."
Rowan's stomach dropped. He remembered the guard's easy grin, the careless point of a hand: East road is clear. His throat tightened.
"So it was them," Ari said flatly. "The council."
"Who else?" Nyx asked.
Silence pressed in. The fire crackled, loud in the quiet.
Lyra spoke at last, voice soft but steady. "Because they're afraid."
All eyes went to her. She stirred the coals with a stick, the glow painting her face gold. "Not of you alone, Rowan. Afraid of the power you bring, and the chaos it carries. Afraid of what happens when gifted ones gather. A war is coming whether they want it or not. Ordinary people don't wish to be caught between."
"Then why try to kill us before it reaches them?" Rowan asked. The words came rough.
Lyra met his gaze. "Or worse," she said. "They tried to sell you to it."
"To who?" Brennar growled.
Lyra didn't look away. Her tone cut clean through the night. "Why do you think the war hasn't already started? Who do you think is orchestrating these attacks? The war has already begun. The only difference is that right now, only one side realises it."
Brennar spat into the dirt. "Then we'll make sure they know we realise it too."
Ari's eyes had gone narrow and far away, the way they did when she weighed a shot. "We keep moving," she said. "No sleeping where the road expects us. No easy paths. We make our own tracks."
Nyx's mouth twitched, the smallest thing. "You're not as unwise as you look."
"Careful," Brennar said. "I might take that for a compliment."
"It wasn't," Nyx said, and somehow it wasn't cruel, just true.
Rowan poked the fire to busy his hands. Sparks rose and died. "You saved us," he said. "That counts."
Nyx didn't smile. She never did. "I saved my own ears from listening to you die," she said. "Screaming is loud."
"Charming," Brennar muttered.
Ari leaned forward, elbows on knees. "If you're staying, you follow our rules."
Nyx tilted her head. "You have rules?"
"We don't turn on each other," Ari said. "We don't steal from each other. We don't run when the line breaks."
Nyx's pale eyes flicked to Rowan, then to Brennar, then back to Ari. "I don't steal. I don't run. As for turning—" She let the word hang, then shrugged. "Don't give me a reason."
"Good enough," Brennar said, though the words tasted wrong. "For tonight."
Lyra moved around the fire, checked the roast, and cut thin strips with a small knife. She handed one to Rowan without a word, then one to Brennar, then Ari. When she reached Nyx she held the slice out, steady.
Nyx looked at the meat, then at Lyra, then took it with a small nod. "Healer," she said, as if naming a bird by its call.
Lyra said nothing. She went back to her satchel, crushed dry leaves in her palm, and tipped a pinch into a tin cup. The steam smelled like mint and smoke. She set the cup by Rowan's boot and tapped the rim. He didn't argue.
They ate. The fire whispered and popped. Fat hissed where it hit the coals. When the food was gone, Brennar cleaned his knife on his boot and leaned back, eyes never fully leaving Nyx.
"So," he said at last. "Where does a shadow like you come from?"
"Nowhere you've been," Nyx said.
Rowan didn't know if that meant a place or a promise.
They set the watches. Brennar took first, because he always did. Ari claimed the last, when the night is thinnest and the mind plays tricks. Lyra meant to take the middle, but Nyx spoke before anyone asked.
"I'll wake you," she said. "You'd sleep through a deer if I let you, and I dislike surprises."
Brennar bristled. "You'll wake me, shadow, or I'll—"
Nyx vanished.
Not a step back. Not a turn. One blink she sat on her flat stone, leather and pale eyes and easy stillness. The next blink the stone was empty and the dark beyond the logs felt thicker.
Rowan's skin crawled. He turned in a slow circle, listening.
Her voice came from the trees, close and far all at once. "Sleep. If anything comes, you won't hear it. I will."
Lyra's hand brushed Rowan's sleeve as she passed behind him to bank the fire lower. He looked back, and she gave him that same small shrug as before—no comfort, but steady, as if to say the world was still the world.
Brennar grumbled and settled with his back to a log, axe across his lap. Ari lay on her side with her bow within reach and her eyes open a while longer than needed. Rowan spread his blanket, but sleep did not come quick. When he closed his eyes he saw a man's face. When he opened them he saw only the slow pulse of the coals.
He tried the breathing Lyra had drilled into him. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. He didn't ask the water for anything. He didn't want it tonight. He only wanted the shaking to stop.
It did not, not at first. But the tremor softened, the way a hard rain softens at the edges. The forest's sounds took shape again—the soft stir of leaves, the distant creek's run, a fox's careful step. Somewhere in that quiet, a branch creaked where no wind moved.
Rowan didn't sit up. He didn't reach for the harpoon. He only watched the dark beyond the fire and saw, for a breath, a thinner patch of shadow shift and settle like a cat finding a new place to rest.
Nyx on watch.
He let the air leave his chest and did not pull it back too fast. Brennar's slow breathing found its rhythm. Ari finally closed her eyes. Lyra, still as stone, sat with her back to a log and her hands folded, head tilted as if listening to something only she could hear.
Rowan rolled onto his side and faced the coals. He thought of the man in the trees, and of the arrow that never landed, and of the simple, sharp truth of Ari's words: it was either you or him. He hated that truth. He knew it would not change.
Sleep took him by degrees.
Before it did, he made himself a promise that felt small and heavy at once: if he had to get used to killing, he would get used to saving more. Enough that the scales would tilt, even if only by a finger's weight.
The fire sank lower. The night held. And somewhere just beyond the line where the light ended, a shadow did not move for a very long time.