We traveled the entire day at our normal pace, continuing our routine of switching mounts to keep them all fresh. It wasn't an impossible pace to follow, but it did mean anyone following us would be tired when they caught up.

  When we finally stopped, it was near the remains of an old outpost. No buildings still stood, but the ground remembered where they had been. Low stone walls jutted up at uneven angles, some no higher than my knee, others tall enough to break the wind. Sections had been robbed for years, their better stone carried off to build elsewhere, leaving gaps and jagged edges behind.

  The center had been cleared long ago. A shallow firepit sat where a courtyard might once have been, ringed in blackened stone and half-sunk into the earth. Old ash clung stubbornly to the ground around it, worked into the soil by countless boots and hooves. It was obvious this place saw regular use, not because it was safe, but because it was there.

  We made camp without ceremony, choosing the firepit for warmth and the broken walls for cover. Saddles were stacked near one of the taller sections, packs set close at hand. The horses settled among the ruins as easily as they would have in a stable yard, picking their way around fallen stone and collapsed corners until they found spots that suited them.

  There wasn’t much firewood nearby without an axe, and neither of us felt like ranging far from the ruins so close to dark. Nadine knelt at the old firepit instead, brushing aside ash until she found what she was looking for.

  A little magic followed. Not to create flame, but to encourage it. The embers stirred and caught, heat settling into the stones as if it had never quite left them. We added more rocks around the pit, stacking them carefully to hold the warmth. The fire that resulted was low and steady, more glow than flame, enough to take the bite out of the night without announcing us to the countryside.

  As she settled back in beside me I lifted a wing to rest behind her for the little extra protection and warmth it might provide.

  "I am going to miss these," I said, a little melancholy leaking into my voice.

  "The wings?" When I nodded, she asked, "I thought you were getting used to them? Are they really worth the energy to recall?"

  A gentle laugh escaped me. "Oh, I am getting quite used to them. They are just very inconvenient when I need to walk under low branches. Or through doorways. Or when I don't want to call attention to myself. Or—"

  "Yeah, okay," She interrupted with a light smack to my arm. "I get it. Just seems like a waste. Calling them, recalling them, over and over. The cost is so high. Just thinking of it adding up, however many times from now until forever…"

  I nodded. I knew what she meant. It wasn't the simple cost of magic to cast a spell like she would use.

  "The cost will be less when I am stronger," I said, trying to ease her mind. "My abilities all became much easier to use after I woke up, with less drain. And we do not know if they will cost as much the second time I summon them. It’s possible bringing them into being the first time cost more. Let's not borrow trouble from tomorrow. I expect within the next few hours, we'll have plenty right here."

  Nadine sighed, but didn't argue. "I guess we should get some rest. Best to be prepared if someone shows up, and maybe I'll think of another solution while I sleep."

  "You go ahead," I said. "Better if I'm awake in case they show up sooner than expected."

  She reached down and unclasped her bedroll, rolling it out beside the firepit. "You seem certain they're coming."

  I nodded, "I am, yes. I think they might even be trying to spy on us already. Don't you feel that tingle in the air?"

  She paused, then looked at me in confusion before her eyes widened. "I do, now that you've said something. What is that? It feels like magic."

  "I think they have a mage. It feels like someone trying to scry us. That doesn't usually work around my kind. The reflection in their spell can't focus. I'm sure they think it's you with some kind of protective ward."

  She put her head down, and closed her eyes. "Maybe we'll get lucky and they will keep at it for a while. Then, we can sleep in."

  I laughed. "Maybe."

  The quiet held longer than expected. The night was half gone when I finally felt the air shift.

  It wasn't a scent or sound, the things I expected for a warning. It was a tightening, subtle and silent, like a held breath spreading outward through the ruins. The night grew too quiet and calm, the song of the insects fading away like a tide, leaving tension that settled along the broken stone and pooled in the gaps between the walls.

  Nadine stirred beside me, quickly sitting up, and automatically rolling her bedding up for travel. I stayed still where I was, looking for any sign of the danger and finding nothing.

  A voice carried from the darkness beyond the firelight. Calm and measured. Close enough to reach us without raising it.

  “Step away from her.” The words were directed at Nadine.

  Shapes emerged from the ruins in practiced sequence. Their movements were measured and careful. Whatever magic they'd used to close in on us still clung to them, fading little by little with proximity. One figure took position along a fallen wall to the east, another near the gap between two collapsed sections to the south. Others remained unseen, their presence marked only by the way the night seemed to narrow, sound absent where something should have been.

  No one addressed me.

  Symbols traced themselves faintly along the ground near Nadine’s boots, pale lines catching the fire’s glow as they settled into place. The magic wrapped inward, shaping a space meant to hold something smaller than the camp itself. I felt it brush against me and slide past, uninterested. Nadine shifted her weight, eyes flicking toward me before returning to the figures ahead.

  “Step away from her,” the voice repeated.

  Another presence moved behind her, quick and quiet. I felt the displacement before I saw him, a shadow slipping through shadow with an ease that mirrored my own. He watched Nadine with focused attention, head tilted slightly as if listening for something beneath her breath. They were measuring her.

  The embers popped softly. Sparks rose and died.

  A censer clinked against stone as it was set down near the edge of the ruins. Powder hissed as it met the heat, releasing a thin, silvery haze that drifted low to the ground. It curled around Nadine’s boots and climbed slowly, tasting the air.

  I reached out and closed my fingers around it.

  The haze recoiled, thinning where my hand passed through. The reaction rippled outward, subtle but unmistakable. The pressure in the air shifted again, becoming more focused.

  Chains whispered as they were drawn free, the links of a metallic whip sliding into place with practiced familiarity. The figure lowered his stance, weight settling forward, eyes fixed not on me, but on the space beside me.

  “How fascinating,” someone murmured, curiosity edging their voice.

  I rose to my feet. Every gaze snapped to me then. They weren't alarmed, just assessing. I could practically see the lines of intent redraw themselves across the ruins. They didn't even speak before adjusting angles. One figure shifted to block the gap behind Nadine while another widened his stance to account for my wings. A woman in pale vestments inclined her head slightly, studying the halo above me with a careful, reverent attention.

  “The Saint,” she said softly. It wasn't a question.

  Her focus shifted past me again, settling on Nadine with renewed certainty.

  “The vampire is clever,” she continued. “Hiding close to sanctity. Using it as cover.”

  I saw it then, the way their attention curved around me instead of settling. The pressure they were building had a direction, but it wasn’t aimed where it should have been. It took me a moment longer than I liked to understand why.

  I frowned, glancing between them and Nadine, then back again.

  “Wait,” I said, and couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of my voice. “You’re not here to kill me.”

  That earned me their full attention at last.

  “You think there’s a vampire hiding nearby,” I continued slowly, working it out as I spoke. “Close enough that you followed us all this way… No. You’re too fresh for that. You followed rumors. You were waiting for us.”

  No one corrected me.

  I tilted my head, studying the way they stood, the careful distance they kept from me, the way their tools and wards angled past my shoulders instead of toward my chest.

  “Oh,” I said again, my voice sinking. “You think it’s her.”

  As if my words were a cue, the ground near her feet brightened. The air around her suddenly thickened with pressure, magic pushing in against her. Even from outside the circle, I could feel the effect, crushing inward to stop all movement. Only, it didn't. Nadine slowly raised her hand to look at it, unaffected by magic meant to ensnare undeath.

  "What is this?" she asked, almost curious, but before the words had finished leaving her mouth a second effect layered in. Heat bled from the stones near her boots as sigils flared and sank, their glow dull and hungry. The magic reached for blood, searching for resonance in a pattern that it recognized.

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  I felt the way the spell anchored on her presence with sudden certainty, as if it had finally found what it was looking for.

  The haze from the censer thickened, silver fog curling higher, drifting toward Nadine in deliberate spirals. It reacted distinctly to her movement, tightening when she lowered her hand, thinning when she stilled it. The behavior was precise and predatory.

  The woman on the far side of the ruins made a satisfied sound.

  “There,” the curious voice said. “You see it, too.”

  I did. And it was wrong.

  Nadine’s fingers brushed the edge of the ward, just enough to confirm what it was doing. Her expression didn’t change. She straightened her stance, grounding herself, and spoke a single word under her breath.

  The magic staggered. The spell wasn't broken, but it was interrupted. A brief stutter in the rhythm that made the sigils flicker out of sync.

  Our visitors reacted immediately. Chains clinked, silver plating glinting in the firelight as their length uncoiled, and a tall figure stepped forward into clearer view. He moved carefully, but didn’t raise his weapon. He simply adjusted his position, putting himself between Nadine and the nearest gap in the wall.

  I glanced at his weapon, then up at him.

  “You've been reading too many of the wrong kind of book.”

  His eyes flicked to me, close enough for concealment not to hide them for the first time. They were a beautiful gray, focused and unamused. He said nothing. Whoever these people were, they didn't want to talk.

  The ward around Nadine tightened again, firmer as its controller fought to rebalance it against her magic.

  I watched the adjustment finish settling, noting the care the woman took with it. Her attention stayed fixed on Nadine, concentration written across her face. Something about her expression made me think of a fanatic. I was confident that whatever that spell was, it wasn't meant to harm the living, and I had faith in Nadine's ability to protect herself against magic, but that woman's attitude was beginning to make me uncomfortable.

  “That’s enough,” I said, turning my attention to the man in front of us. He'd been giving orders. He hadn’t raised his voice once, but everything about the way they moved said he was in charge. “Who are you?”

  No one responded. They didn’t even look at me. Everything about them said they’d already made up their minds. That decided it for me.

  I reached out, took Nadine by the wrist, and pulled her back a step. She stumbled to a stop beside me without the wards hindering her at all, and looked more frustrated about not having more time to study the runes than the apparent danger.

  The ward didn't react until after she was clear. A brief tightening brushed along my forearm, tension closing and releasing in the same instant, like a hand that reached too late and too uncertain to grasp. The sigils near the firepit flared unevenly, their lines warping before settling again with Nadine no longer inside them. I felt the magic adjust like a hound unsure of a scent.

  Someone drew in a sharp breath.

  The woman who had been shaping the ward lifted her head. Her attention followed my arm from wrist to shoulder, then paused.

  The man with the chain shifted his attention, the shadow behind us moved closer, and I loosened my blade in its scabbard.

  The woman’s gaze lingered on me as possibilities spun behind her eyes. She glanced down at the ward, then back to my hand, her brow creasing as she traced the failure backward. Her fingers moved without thought, the sigils nearest the firepit adjusting to her will. I could see from her expression that they didn’t respond the way they should have. She stopped, and then tried something else.

  A different ward stirred. I felt it settle across the ruins in a wide sweep, less focused than the others. It brushed against my boots and climbed, slow and searching. I felt the pull of it, and understood as the reverberation passed through me. It was looking for blood that would answer when called. Not in the way it responded when I used magic, but in the way a sire might summon their progeny.

  It lingered, probing and seeking, pressing deeper where it expected a response that never came. The sensation prickled along my skin, uncomfortable in a way that had nothing to do with pain.

  Energy pulsed through the ward again, stronger and pulling harder without finding anything to lock onto. But it had tried, and they'd seen it.

  Several of them reacted at once.

  “Hold,” their leader said, a moment too late.

  I stepped sideways, out of the ward’s center, and the pressure slid after me before thinning, confused by the movement. The sigils flared brighter, lines crossing where they hadn’t been drawn to cross.

  “That’s not possible,” the woman said quietly.

  The man with the chain brought it up properly at last, the links settling into a ready curve. The shadow behind us stopped pretending it was just shadow.

  That was enough.

  My hand settled on the hilt of my sword, easing it free as I moved. I didn’t wait for the chain to come up or the ward to finish recalibrating. I stepped into the shadow cast by the broken wall beside the firepit and let the space between heartbeats stretch.

  The world slipped. I emerged behind them, blade already moving, steel ringing as it caught a raised weapon and knocked it wide. The strike wasn’t meant to kill. It was meant to announce where the fight would be—here, among them, and away from Nadine.

  Shouts broke out immediately.

  “Costain!” someone barked. “Shadow-capable—watch the flanks!”

  The formation shifted, attention snapping hard toward me. The pressure around Nadine eased as their focus reoriented, wards pulling loose from where they’d been anchored. I felt it happen and didn’t slow. That was the mistake they needed to make.

  “Costin,” I said, irritation edging my voice as my blade came back up. “Not Costain.”

  The correction landed. It didn’t stop them, but it put a small smile on my face. Still, I didn't like how well informed they seemed, calling out Father's bloodline from a single action.

  “Bind her,” the man with the chain ordered. His voice carried without strain. “Do not let her disappear again!”

  Something snapped into place around me. Light caught on a pattern I hadn’t noticed a moment ago, fine lines set into the stone and dust of the ruins. The air thickened along the edges of shadow, turning every dark corner into something heavy and reluctant.

  “Well, that's annoying,” I murmured.

  Powder scattered in a practiced arc, pale light crawling across the ground and climbing the broken walls. Sigils flared where it touched, stitching together into a lattice that swallowed shadow and held it flat. The darker corners of the ruins dulled, depth collapsing out of them until there was nowhere left to step through. I felt the change like a door slammed shut.

  “That’s better,” someone said, relief edging their voice.

  The pressure shifted again as a second layer settled in, like the fog after too little sleep. The world pressed in on our minds, the weight of a binding meant to smother a mental attack I didn’t possess. Whatever they thought I could do, they’d decided not to let me try it.

  I didn’t bother testing any of it. I was already busy parrying weapons as our attackers closed in. I knew there were at least seven now.

  As I flowed through their retaliation in a blur of celerity, Nadine moved. She raised her hand and spoke with calm precision, the way she did when she was working a new enchantment into her gear. The nearest hunter hesitated mid-step, expression blanking for half a beat as his intent slipped out of alignment with his body.

  A second hunter followed him, then a third, the hesitation spreading through the line in quiet succession. Nadine didn’t waste the opening. She took two steps to her left, putting broken wall between herself and the censer, and lifted her focus again. The runes that had been built to hold her flickered as her magic brushed them from the outside, probing for seams.

  My blade met the chain as it came, steel ringing as I turned it aside.

  “Stay behind cover,” I called to Nadine. “Study later.”

  “I am studying,” she answered, and there was heat in it. “I’m studying how to break it.”

  One of them finally took notice of her, turning to close on her flank. I didn't wait to see if her defenses would hold. I just charged. The distance closed in a heartbeat. I planted a foot against the stone and jumped, wings snapping open with a single hard beat that carried me up and forward at once. The force of it drove straight through my frame, clean and powerful, the way it always did.

  The hunter in my path raised his weapon too late. I hit him mid-motion, sword already coming down. The impact knocked him off his feet and into the ground hard enough that the sound carried. He didn’t get back up.

  "The wings are real," someone snapped. "Do somethi—"

  I landed and was airborne again before the sentence finished. Another wingbeat, another burst of speed. A second hunter went down under the blow, armor failing where steel and momentum met.

  More wards meant to hold mist and shadow flared uselessly as I passed through open air. Anti-necromancy sigils burned bright and found nothing to bite into. The doctrine they trusted slid past me, irrelevant.

  Alarm crept into their movements. They didn't panic, but their careful planning turned to calculation under strain.

  “She’s stronger than expected,” the woman said, no longer quiet. “Third generation, at least.”

  No one answered her, but I could feel a change in the cadence of the battle. The woman's voice rose as she began singing new magic into being. I heard Nadine's voice rise in a chant to answer, but I had no time to watch. Steel rang as someone in heavy armor brought up a shield. Chains slashed. Commands overlapped as they tried to reframe the fight and I moved between them in a blur.

  I slid behind the armored man, forcing the chains to pull away, then kicked him toward his partner just as the rogue leapt at my back. I heard him coming. My wings snapped up, catching his legs and launching him over my head. I took that moment to glance back toward Nadine. She was struggling to counter the pale woman's spell, but it wasn't nearly enough. Their contest ended abruptly and the magic flared out, carrying a wave of mist that filled the ruins.

  It felt like the winter snow landing all at once across my entire form. It caught on my exposed wings first, clinging to the feathers, then worked its way inward, seeping through cloth and skin alike. Lethargy followed as the cold spread, and I nearly slumped under it. The familiar thread of power in my blood dulled, then went quiet, like a limb gone numb. A sharp pang of hunger surged in its place.

  I tried to recover my balance, and my steps landed harder than I meant to, boots scraping stone as I absorbed the impact with far less strength. My next step felt wrong, slower, balance shifted just enough to matter. I recognized this feeling. I felt human. It wasn't like the poison, but I was cut from the essence in my blood all the same. Another vampire might have fallen to the ground, too weak to move. A powerful effect, but I could feel its edges, and the magic was already beginning to strain.

  “She’s helpless,” the woman said, uncertainty creeping into her voice. “Finish…No—wait.”

  I cut toward the nearest opening and felt none of my abilities answer me. Just space and muscle and breath. I adjusted automatically, blade coming up as the rogue lunged. Steel met steel and the shock rang up my arm.

  When his edge bit my shoulder, it burned and then bled, bright and ordinary. The sight of it froze him for half a heartbeat.

  “That’s—” he started.

  I took advantage of the pause and drove him back, forcing distance with footwork instead of force. My wings folded tight without thinking, balance correcting as I moved like I had weeks ago.

  I saw the woman closing with Nadine, and I snapped a hand up, reaching for that well of power, and casting out for the first time with Blessing of Light. The protective shield rose around her in a brilliant flash, and the woman stumbled back.

  My grip tightened on my sword, but the pressure didn't ease at all. If anything, it pressed harder, testing for a collapse that didn't come.

  “She shouldn’t be moving,” the woman said, confusion and fear edging her voice. “That should have locked her down.”

  I heard it distantly. My focus narrowed to spacing and timing, to angles and breath. This wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d fought through worse. The poison had been worse. This was cleaner, and somehow more honest.

  But there were too many of them. The truth was clear and unavoidable. It was simple math. There were four of them left, any of them far higher level than us. I could still fight. I just couldn't win like this.

  That didn't mean I could stop, so I fought on in the only way I could. As a Human Saint.

  The change was jarring. My body remembered the rhythms, but not the reach. Each strike had to be placed. Each step measured. The paladin pressed from the front, keeping his shield high and sword strokes relentless, while the rogue circled wide, waiting for the moment my balance slipped. I did my best to put the two of them between me and their leader, keeping the whip out of play.

  I felt the cut along my shoulder burn and bleed again and snapped a hand to it, calling the light without ceremony. Warmth flared, pain receding as flesh knit beneath my fingers. The relief was brief. This magic was not limitless.

  Another blow from the chain came in low. I brought my blade down to meet it and released a burst of radiance at the same time. Light flooded the space between us, sudden and blinding. The rogue cried out and stumbled back, hands raised too late to shield his eyes, and into the path of their leader.

  I turned the light outward next, just enough to break their timing, then threw a shield around myself and Nadine both. The impact of the paladin’s next strike rang through it, force bleeding off in a wash of sparks and light.

  My head throbbed. The pressure behind my eyes matched the distant thunder I could feel through the ground, a steady pounding that refused to fade.

  The woman in pale vestments raised her voice again, the spell she wove subtler than the last, and one I knew well enough. My eyes felt heavy and I stumbled as I fought back sleep.

  Then something tore through it.

  The magic unraveled in a single, brutal sweep, threads snapping and falling away as if a blade had passed through the construct itself. The pressure lifted just enough to breathe.

  A rider burst through the ruins at a full gallop. I knew him the instant I saw his face.

  He didn’t slow as he rode straight through the edge of the spell, voice cutting across the chaos. “Saintess! Flee!”

  His hand came up and twisted, not casting so much as breaking, fingers hooking into the structure of the magic and ripping out the piece that held it together. The suppression sagged, then collapsed in on itself.

  The woman staggered and cried out as her spell failed, and the leader spun toward her at the sound.

  I felt the release immediately. Magic flooded my system and I growled.

  He rode past without looking back. “Move,” he said, without meeting my eyes. “You’ve got seconds!”

  I could do a lot with seconds, and I wasn't thinking clearly. I stepped forward, ready to finish it.

  Altivo hit the paladin first.

  The impact lifted the man off his feet and sent him flying, armor clattering as he struck stone and didn’t rise again. Altivo didn’t stop with the collision, turning to join me. He skidded through the dust and came to my side, breathing hard, eyes wild, blanket still flapping against his flanks.

  The other horses followed, crashing into the ruins with no regard for spacing or bodies. A hunter went down under hooves, another barely scrambling clear as the ground turned into chaos.

  I looked once toward Nadine.

  She was already moving, exhausted and shaking, but present of mind enough to snatch her pack before grabbing at a mane and hauling herself onto a waiting back. The fog began to drift in again, slower and unfocused, but inevitable.

  That was enough to snap me back to myself. I swung up behind Altivo, the motion clumsy and almost human, and leaned low as he surged forward. A spell lashed out behind us. One of the horses screamed, stumbled, then kept running. I kept my eyes on the animal to make sure she didn't fall behind, but no one slowed.

  We rode hard into the dark, the sound of pursuit breaking apart behind us, hooves pounding until even the pressure in my head began to fade.