The wind that swept across the marsh smelled of iron and rain. Captain Seren Dahl watched the low valley from her vantage ridge, spyglass pressed to her eye, every muscle trained to stillness. Down below, faint wisps of light rose from the drowned ruins, evidence of spellwork too old for her soldiers to name. And at the center of that fading glow she had glimpsed a figure that did not belong to this world. A man.
Seren lowered the lens and let her breath out slowly. The air trembled in her chest. Months of chasing shadows, false reports, and frightened pilgrims, all ending here. "Form Vanguard Column," she ordered. Her second-in-command, Lieutenant Rhea, barked the echo down the line. The sound of armor and leather moved like a single exhale through the platoon.
They began their descent.
The marsh swallowed noise. Each step sank an inch into black water that smelled of old blood. The only light came from enchanted torches that burned cold and white. Seren moved ahead, hand on the hilt of her curved blade, eyes narrowing against the fog. She had led raids through bandit dens and border wars, but nothing made her feel this hunted. Every sound, the buzz of insects, the drip of water from ruined arches, seemed to watch her back.
Rhea caught up beside her. "Captain, the Seer warned the ruins are unstable. If he's truly here..."
"He's here," Seren said, voice quiet but firm. "I saw him."
Rhea hesitated. "Then we'll take him alive?"
Seren nodded. "Alive. Always alive."
The phrase was doctrine, but it sat uneasily on her tongue. The Progenitor, as the temple called him, was supposed to be salvation incarnate. Yet when Seren had read the first reports, the panic in the capital, the secret orders from Queen Maelis, she'd seen something else: fear disguised as faith.
They reached a collapsed stairway where water shimmered with faint blue motes. The residue of fresh magic. Seren crouched, dipped a finger, and felt the warmth still lingering. "Hours ago," she muttered. "He's running."
Rhea signaled the scouts to spread. One by one, shapes vanished into the reeds.
The deeper they went, the more the ruins changed. Stone gave way to glassy roots and bone-pale statues, their faces eroded into genderless masks. Seren stopped before one half-buried column that bore a relief of a man and woman touching palms across a circle of light. The same symbol appeared on every temple wall from here to the capital, but seeing it here, broken, submerged, stirred something unsteady in her chest.
"Captain?" Rhea's voice pulled her back.
Seren shook her head. "Nothing. Keep moving."
She forced herself to focus on the mission: capture the anomaly, return him to Maelis, restore order. Yet her mind kept wandering to the fragments of rumor she'd gathered. They said he looked ordinary, spoke softly, flinched from attention. Hardly the monster or miracle the Orders preached.
A cry from the left flank snapped her back to the present. "Tracks!"
They hurried to the scout kneeling by the mud. Clear footprints, larger, deeper than any woman's. Fresh.
"He's heading east," the scout said.
"Toward the outer marshes," Rhea added. "If he reaches open ground..."
"He won't," Seren interrupted. "We close the gap before dawn. Move."
Hours passed in a rhythm of pursuit: signal, advance, pause, listen. Rain began to fall, soft and relentless. By midnight, the torches guttered under the weight of it. Seren called a halt beneath the skeletal remains of an old aqueduct. The squad formed a perimeter while she studied the map etched into her vambrace. The terrain ahead turned to mist-choked channels and sunken bridges, a maze.
Rhea approached with a ration flask. "We could wait for daylight."
Seren shook her head. "He won't stop. Neither will we."
Rhea's gaze lingered. "Permission to speak freely?"
"Always."
"You've been chasing this phantom for months. I've seen you go without sleep, without prayer. What happens when you catch him?"
Seren looked away toward the ruins, where faint lights still danced beneath the water. "Then I'll know whether the world still deserves what it's asking for."
Rhea said nothing more. She left the flask beside her and joined the others.
When the storm broke, a different light appeared through the fog, a soft pulse of blue, rhythmic as breathing. Seren rose, sword drawn, and motioned for silence. They advanced in single file until they reached a ridge overlooking a flooded clearing. In the center stood the remnants of an altar, and beside it, footprints leading into the reeds.
Something moved there, a flicker of cloth, a shadow of movement.
Seren signaled. The archers nocked mana-tipped arrows, their glow mirrored in the water. The shape turned; for a heartbeat she saw his face lit by the storm's afterglow. Human. Young. Terrified.
Her heart lurched against the discipline drilled into her bones. "Hold!" she hissed. But the command came a fraction too late; one arrow loosed, streaking through the air.
The figure dove. The arrow struck the stone behind him and exploded in a flash that threw sparks across the clearing. When the smoke cleared, the man was gone, swallowed by the marsh.
Seren swore under her breath. "He's heading for the eastern channels. After him!"
They plunged into the reeds. Mud clutched at their boots, water up to their knees. The night echoed with shouts and the distant thud of retreating footsteps. Seren's pulse hammered with a mixture of rage and something dangerously close to awe. She could still see his eyes in that brief flash, startled, but not cruel.
Rhea caught up, panting. "Captain! He's faster than he looks."
"Then we make him slower."
She drew a flare from her belt and hurled it skyward. The rune exploded, painting the marsh in white fire. For an instant the entire valley blazed and there, not fifty paces ahead, three silhouettes froze: the man, and two women beside him.
Seren's breath caught. So he's not alone.
She hesitated. The light flickered out. Darkness rushed back in like water. When her vision cleared, the figures were gone.
"Report!" she snapped.
"No contact," Rhea said, scanning the reeds. "They vanished."
Seren stared into the dark, heart pounding. The word unity whispered through her thoughts, the same one carved into the temple walls. A prophecy half forgotten: When the Progenitor awakens, he shall not walk alone.
By dawn, the squad had made camp on higher ground. Exhaustion hung over them like smoke. Seren stood apart, watching the sun lift over the marsh. The light turned the mist gold, almost beautiful. She found herself wondering what the man saw when he looked at this world, did he see monsters hunting him, or women desperate to survive?
Rhea joined her quietly. "Orders, Captain?"
Seren slipped the spyglass back into her pouch. "We regroup. Track the river. He'll need clean water and shelter."
Rhea hesitated. "And if we catch him?"
Seren met her gaze. "Then we listen before we chain."
It wasn't the answer her subordinate expected, but Rhea nodded and left to relay it.
When she was alone again, Seren knelt in the mud and traced a small circle over her heart, the old soldier's vow, half prayer, half promise. "By blood and by honor," she whispered, "I will find the truth, even if it ends me."
The wind carried her words across the valley, into the same fog that hid her quarry. Somewhere beyond it, Aiden Rogue was running, unaware that his fiercest hunter had just taken her first step toward doubt.