I woke to the sound of stone trembling.
Not wind.
Not thunder.
The building itself was shaking.
The bells were already ringing—deep, frantic peals that meant only one thing.
Call to arms.
I grabbed my coat and ran.
Fog poured through the streets thicker than it ever should have been, crawling over rooftops and down alleys like it had learned the shape of the city. Roots split the stone as I passed—pale limbs bursting from cracks in the road, twisting around doorways, wrapping themselves around broken carts and fallen bodies.
People were screaming.
Steel rang somewhere ahead.
The air stank of blood and wet bark.
I pushed through the crowd toward the wall, heart hammering so hard it hurt to breathe.
That was when I saw Bell.
She was pinned against the inner battlement by a root thicker than my arm. It had torn through her middle and split her almost in two, lifting her off the stone like she weighed nothing. Her sword lay on the ground below her hand.
"Bell—"
Her eyes were already empty.
Something inside me broke loose.
I don't remember crossing the distance. I only remember swinging until the root snapped and she fell. I caught her without thinking, then set her down because there was nothing left to hold.
More roots were climbing the wall.
More bodies were falling.
I forced myself to keep moving.
I climbed.
Hands slipping on stone slick with mist and blood, I dragged myself up to the battlements and looked out over the fog.
And that's when I saw him.
A man walking through it.
Not running.
Not hiding.
Walking.
The fog shifted around his legs as he moved, thinning where he stepped, thickening again behind him. Roots surged up from the ground ahead of him—bark and bone twisting into bodies shaped like men.
They rushed him.
He didn't slow.
His blade rose once.
Fog followed the motion like it had been waiting for permission.
The first root-creature split from shoulder to waist before it could swing. The second lost its head. A third tried to coil around his legs—and the mist surged outward, tearing it apart before the roots could close.
More poured from the tree line.
Dozens.
They were supposed to hit the wall.
Instead, they turned.
Toward him.
Shouts rose along the battlements.
"They're changing direction!"
"They're moving off the gate!"
That was when I saw her.
A woman stood behind him, bow in hand, dark hair pulled tight against her neck. She wasn't watching the monsters.
She was watching him.
Her arrows flew in clean, silent arcs, striking the root-creatures that tried to slip past him. Every time one broke through his reach, it died with a shaft in its throat or eye.
They moved like they'd done this before.
The roots pressed toward the wall.
He pressed into their backs.
The citadel surged forward.
From above, spears rained down. Fire flared from the ward-torches. Hunters poured through the gate in small squads, cutting into the tangled mass of bark and limbs he had already broken apart.
The roots didn't know which way to turn.
Those that faced the wall were cut down.
Those that turned on him never reached him.
He moved through them like the fog itself—slipping between strikes, cutting where the roots hardened into flesh. Every step he took carved a path through the horde, and the mist followed him, closing around his shape like it was trying to remember where he'd been.
I couldn't just stand there.
Not after Bell.
Not after the scouts.
I vaulted down from the wall and ran.
The fog swallowed my legs as soon as I hit the ground. Roots lunged from the soil. I pushed essence into my arms and cut where I could, hacking through thinner limbs, stumbling over bodies that were more bark than bone.
One grabbed my ankle.
I fell hard.
A shadow passed over me.
Steel flashed.
The root split apart above my chest before it could tighten.
I scrambled back to my feet and kept moving, chasing the path of broken roots and thinning mist.
Toward him.
By the time the last of the creatures pulled back into the trees, the field was quiet.
Not peaceful.
Empty.
He stood alone in the fog, blade lowered, mist drifting from his skin like breath in winter. The woman with the bow was already moving toward the wall, checking the wounded.
I reached him before I realized my legs were still shaking.
Up close, his eyes were white.
Not glowing.
Not empty.
Changed.
I swallowed and forced the words out.
"You're… you're so powerful," I said.
"How do I get like you?"
He looked at me.
For a long moment, he didn't answer.
The fog curled closer around his legs.
And for the first time since the bells had rung, I felt afraid of the road I had chosen.
(Next chapter: The Road Outside)