The report arrived at dawn.
A guard tower stationed along the eastern forest had sent word: livestock mutilated, trees blackened from within, something large moving beneath the canopy after nightfall.
"Residual corruption," the commander had written.
Lucien read the parchment once.
Then handed it to Rowan.
"You will handle it."
Rowan scanned the report. "How many casualties?"
"Three hunters missing. One guard injured."
Rowan folded the parchment. "I'll take a unit."
"You will take Dravenholt." replied Lucien.
The words were calm.
But not a suggestion.
Rowan looked up slowly "He is restrained."
"But useful." said Lucien.
Rowan's jaw tightened. "I don't need him."
Lucien's expression did not change.
"This is not about need. It is about efficiency."
Silence stretched.
"He understands the structure of corrupted magic," Lucien said. "If the forest destabilizes further, it spreads. We cannot afford that uncertainty."
Rowan held his brother's gaze.
Lucien's eyes were steady.
"You will oversee him," he finished.
Rowan held silence, then inclined his head.
"As you command."
The lower courtyard was already alive when Rowan descended the eastern stair.
Armor rang against armor. Leather straps were tightened. Horses stamped against stone, breath fogging faintly in the early air. Sunlight spilled clean and pale over the fortress walls, catching on steel and making everything look sharper than it felt.
The unit assigned to him stood in two loose rows near the gate, twelve men, seasoned, alert. No one spoke loudly. The mood was not tense.
But it was focused.
Rowan's gaze moved past them.
To the center of the courtyard.
Lysander stood beneath open sky.
Two royal enforcers fastened the final suppressor band at his wrist. The metal clicked into place with a muted lock, sigils flaring once in faint blue before settling dull.
There were no chains.
No kneeling.
No spectacle.
Just restraint.
Lysander's hands remained at his sides as the enforcers stepped back. Dark clothing, simple, unadorned. His hair fell loose against his pale face, catching light too easily.
He did not look diminished, but at peace.
That irritated Rowan faintly.
Rowan approached without announcing himself.
"You ride east," he said.
Lysander inclined his head once.
"Yes."
No question.
No request for explanation.
Rowan studied him for a moment.
"You will speak when addressed."
"Yes."
"You will not cast."
"I will not."
The suppressor bands hummed faintly, almost in agreement.
Rowan's eyes flicked to them.
Then back to Lysander's face.
"You know why you're being taken."
Not a question.
Lysander did not immediately answer.
His gaze shifted slightly, not towards Rowan.
But towards the eastern horizon beyond the walls.
Just for a fraction of a breath.
Then back.
"The air changed," he said.
Rowan stilled.
"Changed how?"
"It is louder."
The answer was quiet.
Not dramatic.
Not ominous.
Just factual.
Rowan's jaw tightened slightly.
"You're restrained."
"Yes."
"And yet you feel it."
"It does not require proximity." answered Lysander.
That unsettled him.
Just a little.
Rowan stepped closer, lowering his voice.
"If this is some attempt at performance—"
"It is not."
No interruption.
No rise in tone.
Just certainty.
Rowan held his gaze.
Searching.
There was no sign of defiance there.
No pride.
No fear.
Just awareness.
Behind them, one of the soldiers cleared his throat, adjusting the strap of his shield.
The moment broke.
Rowan stepped back.
"You stay where I can see you."
"I will."
"Mount." said Rowan pointing towards a horse.
Lysander moved without hesitation.
Not hurried.
Not slow.
He took the horse prepared for him, reins already held by one of the enforcers and mounted in one clean motion.
Controlled.
Balanced.
Rowan watched the soldiers watching him.
There was wariness there.
But not panic.
Lucien had made sure of that.
Rowan turned to his unit.
"Formation holds until I break it," he said. "No heroics. No splitting."
"Yes, Your Highness."
He mounted his own horse.
For a brief moment, as the gate began to open, Rowan felt it again —
That faint, strange stillness in the air.
Not wind.
Not temperature.
Pressure.
He glanced once at Lysander.
The man's posture was straight.
Eyes forward.
But something in the set of his shoulders had tightened.
Just slightly.
"Move," Rowan ordered.
The gates opened.
And they rode east.
The eastern forest did not welcome them.
It received them.
There was a difference.
The forest thickened as they approached the guard tower's last marker. The air grew heavier beneath the canopy, not foul, not yet— but wrong. Birds were absent. Wind moved strangely through leaves.
Rowan rode first.
Behind him, the twelve soldiers moved in disciplined silence.
Six soldiers behind Rowan and a few paces back six soldiers with Lysander.
Lysander rode at the center of the four soldiers.
The glow of the suppressor bands etched with fine counter-sigils around his wrists and collar, had dulled to near invisibility in daylight.
Rowan did not look back at him.
He did not need to.
He could feel the awareness at his spine.
"Spread," Rowan said quietly. "Three-man spacing. Watch upper branches."
The men obeyed instantly.
The forest floor was disturbed.
Not chaotically.
Deliberately.
Claw marks ran along tree bark — not deep enough for hunting, but repeated. A message.
Rowan crouched near a torn patch of moss.
The earth beneath was darker than it should have been.
He touched it.
Cold.
Not temperature cold.
Absence cold.
Lysander stepped closer.
"Do not touch the center of the distortion," he said calmly.
Rowan rose slowly.
"You could have said that before."
"You did not ask."
Rowan's jaw tightened.
He signaled forward.
They continued.
Ten paces later, they found the first corpse.
Not human.
A stag.
Its rib cage had split outward like blooming iron. Bone shards pierced through its hide at unnatural angles. Blackened veins pulsed faintly beneath its skin.
One of the younger soldiers swallowed audibly.
"That's not rot," he whispered.
Rowan stepped closer.
The flesh near the sternum had been carved.
Not by claw.
By tool.
Crude sigils burned into skin.
Incomplete.
Messy.
"Someone touched this," Rowan muttered.
"Yes," Lysander replied.
Rowan shot him a look.
"Clarify."
"It was directed. Poorly."
Rowan stared at the marks again.
They weren't precise.
They were desperate.
The forest answered before he could question further.
A low growl rippled from somewhere to the left.
Another to the right.
And one behind.
Rowan straightened.
"Blades." he commanded.
Steel slid free in a unified whisper.
Leaves trembled.
Branches shifted.
Then one emerged.
A wolf.
Its size slightly larger than natural. Fur darkened along spine. Veins faintly luminous beneath skin like dull silver cracks. Its eyes did not blink.
It stepped into the clearing without haste.
Watching.
Rowan stepped forward to meet it.
The wolf's head lowered slightly.
The soldiers held position.
No one breathed.
The wolf lunged.
Rowan pivoted and cut across its shoulder. The blade bit, but not cleanly. Crystal-like resistance beneath fur deflected part of the strike. The creature twisted mid-air unnaturally, jaws snapping inches from Rowan's throat.
He slammed his shoulder into it, forcing it off-balance, then drove steel through its ribcage.
It collapsed.
Silence followed.
Too clean.
Too simple.
Rowan didn't relax.
He listened.
A branch snapped to his right.
Another wolf burst through underbrush.
Then another.
Then a third.
They did not charge wildly.
They fanned out.
Spacing evenly.
Rowan's mind shifted from reaction to pattern.
"It's a pack," he said quietly.
A fourth appeared.
Then a fifth.
The clearing narrowed in perception.
The wolves moved in arcs, testing distance.
When Rowan stepped forward, two shifted back.
When a soldier moved left, one mirrored him.
This was not hunger.
This was coordination.
One wolf darted low at a soldier's leg.
The man cried out as teeth tore into leather.
Rowan closed the distance in two strides and severed the wolf's spine.
But the damage was done.
The pack did not retreat.
They adjusted.
One circled behind.
Rowan pivoted and threw a dagger without looking.
It buried in the creature's eye.
The wolf fell.
Three remained visible.
But he could hear more.
Movement deeper in the trees.
"Hold formation!" he barked.
A wolf leapt high, far higher than natural physics allowed. It crashed onto a shield, knocking the soldier backward. Another lunged simultaneously at the fallen man's exposed side.
The pack was dividing them.
Rowan drove forward, carving space with brute efficiency. He fought cleanly, economically, without wasted movement.
Steel met bone.
Claws met armor.
Blackened blood sprayed across leaves.
The wolves did not howl.
They did not retreat.
They withdrew two steps.
Then advanced again in sync.
Rowan exhaled through his teeth.
They were being tested.
He glanced briefly towards Lysander.
The man stood at the edge of the formation.
Not idle.
Observing.
Eyes moving not between wolves — but across them.
Tracking.
"Say it," Rowan snapped.
Lysander's gaze flicked to him.
"They are not attacking randomly."
"I see that."
"They are driving us."
Rowan's eyes sharpened.
"Where?"
Lysander didn't answer immediately.
He shifted his gaze past Rowan's shoulder.
Into the deeper forest.
Another growl rolled through the trees.
Lower.
Heavier.
The wolves closest to Rowan took two synchronized steps backward.
Opening space.
Not retreating.
Making room.
Branches parted.
And something larger stepped into view.
The Alpha Wolf.
Its frame broader, heavier, muscle visible beneath taut skin stretched around embedded crystal growths. Jagged shards erupted from shoulders and along spine. One eye glowed faint silver.
The other—
Black.
Not blind.
Not injured.
Empty.
The remaining wolves immediately tightened their arc around it.
Rowan felt it before he understood it.
Authority.
The air itself seemed to bend subtly around the creature.
It did not rush.
It observed.
Then it moved one step.
The pack mirrored.
Rowan swallowed the spike of adrenaline.
"Focus on the larger one!" he commanded.
But the Alpha did not react.
Two wolves attacked simultaneously from opposing angles.
Rowan blocked one strike, twisted, and drove his blade into the second's throat.
The giant wolf remained still, watching, testing.
A soldier screamed behind him.
Rowan didn't turn.
He couldn't.
If he broke focus, the Alpha would surely exploit it.
The pack pressed again.
Claws scraped across armor.
One soldier went down.
Another dragged him upright.
They were losing cohesion.
Rowan made a decision.
He advanced.
The Alpha shifted backward instantly.
Not retreating.
Luring.
Rowan understood too late.
They were not defending territory.
They were herding.
Herding him.
Deeper.
Towards something.
"Fall back!" a soldier shouted.
Rowan ignored it.
If they retreated, the pack would pursue into thinner formation.
They had to break the center.
He charged.
The giant wolf lunged to meet him.
Impact.
Steel collided against crystal.
The force drove Rowan back three full strides.
The beast's weight bore down.
Its jaws snapped inches from his face.
He rolled sideways just as claws tore through the ground where he'd been.
He rose, cutting across its flank.
The blade struck crystal again, sparks flashing.
It did not flinch.
It recalculated.
The pack surged in response.
A wolf tore into Rowan's calf armor.
He kicked it free, stabbing it with one of his daggers.
The alpha stepped back again.
Deliberate.
Drawing him further into the clearing.
Rowan's breath came harder now.
Sweat slid down his spine.
The forest around them felt charged.
And he was right.
He caught sight of scorched lines etched into the soil beneath the giant wolf's paws.
A circle.
Broken.
Ritual markings.
Someone had worked here before them.
And whatever they had done—
Had not held.
The Alpha's black eye fixed on him.
Aware.
The pack tightened again.
Rowan lifted his blade.
"End it," he muttered to himself.