Ronavan looked down at his chest. For a frozen heartbeat, his breath caught—he waited for pain, the heat of blood, the sharp bite of incoming death.

  Nothing.

  His fingers fluttered across his leathers just to be sure. No wound. No blood. No bolt. Just the thrum of adrenaline in his ears.

  A ripple of relief passed through his frame—quick, fleeting.

  Then he turned.

  One of his men—his archer—was sprawled across the dirt like a discarded rag doll, limbs twitching. The bolt was embedded deep in his throat, blood spurting in weak, arterial bursts. The boy gurgled once, twice—then went still.

  Ronavan blinked at him, stunned for half a second.

  Then he snapped back to life.

  "KILL THEM!" he roared, voice raw and thunderous. "EVERY LAST ONE!"

  The order exploded across the clearing like a warhorn.

  The shout ignited the remaining bandits like sparks in dry hay. They surged forward with a roar, weapons raised, formation be damned.

  "Fenric, flank!" Arelos barked, already stepping toward the fray.

  Fenric didn't wait. He moved without hesitation, dragging Ardon roughly to the ground as two bandits curved around the edge of the skirmish line.

  "Stay down, old man," he hissed, ignoring the headman's frightened protests.

  The first attacker lunged—too wild, too eager. Fenric sidestepped with a twist of the hip and buried his knife clean into the man's gut. The attacker gasped, trembling, then dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

  "BASTARD!" the second snarled.

  He came in harder, faster—but not smarter. Fenric parried messily, then stepped into the man's swing, driving his smaller blade up beneath the armpit with brutal force. The bandit's mouth opened in a silent scream, then closed as he dropped in a boneless heap.

  Fenric stepped over him without hesitation.

  Not far off, Soren fumbled with his weapon, panic twisting his fingers. His crossbow jammed. He couldn't reload. It was as though his hands had forgotten their purpose.

  "Move, damn it," he muttered, breath ragged, sweat dripping.

  "SOREN!" Arelos shouted, eyes flashing as he turned briefly. "DROP THE BOW! DAGGER—NOW!"

  The command snapped through the fog like a whip.

  Soren obeyed instantly, the crossbow clattering to the ground. He reached to his belt and drew the short blade, knuckles white around the hilt.

  Meanwhile, Mira and Jax had closed ranks with Arelos. The three faced six bandits, each more eager and blood-hungry than the last. Mira blocked a blow that nearly cracked her forearm. Jax took a shallow cut across the shoulder—a hot line of pain.

  "Right side's pushing hard!" Mira shouted, her voice ragged. "We're gonna get pinned!"

  "I see it!" Arelos growled. He tracked the movement around Jax's left, where one of the attackers was just a little too reckless, a little too exposed.

  With swift judgment, Arelos stepped in.

  He ducked low, bypassed a sluggish swing, and drove his dagger deep into the man's side—right between the ribs.

  The bandit howled, staggered, flailed with his sword—but Arelos was already moving, dodging nimbly and falling back as the rest closed in.

  Mira snarled, parrying a strike with her own dagger and jabbing forward, slicing her opponent across the ribs—but not before a second caught her arm with a glancing blow.

  "You good?" Arelos barked to Mira without looking, already raising his blade.

  "I'll live," Mira growled. "Don't take your eyes off them!"

  The battle pressed in, tight and hot and vicious.

  On the edge of it, Viktor stared.

  While chaos exploded ahead, he stood still, paralyzed—watching it like a man outside his own skin. The sounds—the yelling, the crashing of blades—they felt distant.

  Two bandits locked eyes with him.

  "Look at this one," one of them sneered, nudging the other with the flat of his blade. "He's just standing there."

  "Easy meat," the second agreed, grinning.

  They came at him quickly, weapons ready, expecting little resistance.

  With a panicked jolt, Viktor raised his hand. He forced the command outward, desperate to bend the world to his will.

  *Stop*, he thought, *just—stop!*

  For a moment—only a flash—the two men paused. Confused. Their steps faltered.

  But then they shook it off, exchanged puzzled glances, and resumed their advance.

  His legs threatened to give out. His hands dropped. He felt hollow, useless. The same thought spun in his head like a wheel:

  *My powers. They aren't working. Killed. I'm going to get them all—*

  Something hit the ground near his foot with a faint clatter. Viktor blinked.

  A knife.

  He looked up, saw Fenric—not far—brushing a corpse off his blade.

  The dead bandit had dropped the weapon. It glittered faintly in the dirt, smeared with blood and mud.

  Viktor stared at it. His heart skipped a beat. Something flipped inside him. Hope? Desperation? An idea, half-formed but vivid.

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  One more try.

  Hand trembling, he extended his fingers toward the weapon, just barely—

  At first, nothing.

  Then, the air shimmered.

  The knife twitched. It began to rise.

  The two bandits didn't notice. They were too close now, maybe ten feet, still laughing like fools.

  "What're you trying to do?"

  "He's not even armed—"

  The knife flashed across the gap like a summoned hawk.

  Thunk.

  Steel buried itself in the man's chest.

  The man didn't even have time to scream. He fell, a shocked exhale trailing after him like smoke.

  The second bandit skittered to a halt.

  "What the hell—fuck?" He stumbled backward, wild-eyed, glancing around as if the sky might fall on him next.

  Viktor stared. His head screamed in pain. His pulse thundered in his ears.

  He raised both arms.

  More weapons—discarded, forgotten—rose from the battlefield. One sword. Two daggers. An axe. A spear shaft still stained.

  Seven in all floated into the air around him, orbiting in slow, eerie patterns like stars around a dying sun.

  The fighting stilled.

  Even the sounds of clashing steel fell quiet.

  One by one, heads turned.

  A bandit near Mira dropped his cudgel, mouth ajar.

  "What the…?"

  "The f-fuck is happening?" another stammered.

  "Mage," murmured another. "They've got a bloody mage…"

  "THE FUCK YOU MEAN ‘MAGE'?!" one cried. "What's happening?"

  "It's him—he's doing it!" someone shouted, pointing at Viktor. "THE BLADES—LOOK AT 'EM—!"

  "RUN! RUN!"

  The shouting turned to panic.

  Several bandits turned and bolted without hesitation, dropping weapons as they went.

  Ronavan threw up his hands, stepping forward with sudden urgency.

  "Now just h-hold on!" he stammered. "No need to escalate things any further, alright? We'll leave—right now. Right this fucking moment! The village is all yours."

  Viktor blinked, swaying slightly. Blood leaked from his nose in steady drops. His eyes were glazed, sweat matting his hair to his forehead.

  But his voice—when it came—was steel.

  "No."

  Viktor's fingers snapped open, sharp and final.

  The blades obeyed.

  They split the air with deadly precision—flashes of silver, harbingers of death.

  Bandits screamed in staggered harmony. Blades lodged themselves in throats, guts, backs, eyes. Men fell mid-run, mid-plea, mid-thought.

  And then… silence.

  Somewhere in the distance, a crow called once. Then again.

  Viktor stood amid the wreckage, swaying.

  His legs gave out, finally, and he stumbled back until his shoulders hit the old stone edge of the village well. He slid down, collapsing into a slump of bone and fury spent.

  Mira was already moving toward him, calling his name.

  But Viktor's eyes were fluttering closed. His voice a whisper.

  "Sorry. Just… gimme a minute…"

  Ardon stood motionless beside the well, his boots rooted to the blood-soaked earth. His voice came out as a strained rasp. "They're all… dead."

  He didn't sound relieved. Not exactly. More like someone who'd just woken from one nightmare only to find himself standing in another. His eyes drifted slowly over the dozen or so bodies scattered around the clearing—limbs askew, some grotesquely twisted, their final poses as random as falling leaves.

  He wiped a shaking hand down the front of his vest, though it only smeared dirt and spattered blood. "Gods…" he whispered again. "What did I just witness?"

  No one answered immediately. Off to the side, the strangers who had caused the sudden storm of violence moved among their wounded. They were young—alarmingly so—and yet they worked with a quiet precision that unsettled him more than the carnage itself. There was discipline in the way they moved. Familiarity. As though this wasn't the first time they'd fought for their lives.

  Ardon's mouth went dry.

  The girl sat on a low stone, her sleeve rolled up to the elbow, blood streaking her forearm. The leader crouched beside her, focused, unhurried despite the tilt of battle still lingering in the air. He unrolled a wrap of cloth, revealing a neat bundle of herbs and salve, then began carefully binding her arm.

  "That's gonna bruise up plenty," he said, voice low and even. "But the cut's clean. It'll heal fast."

  The girl let out a breathless laugh through gritted teeth. "Next time I'll go for someone less eager to kill me."

  "Try not to pick the largest bastard next time," The man replied dryly, dabbing salve over the wound.

  "He looked slow!" she shot back, squeezing her eyes shut against the sting.

  "Slow and homicidal," He muttered with a faint smirk. "Dangerous combination."

  The exchange carried a threadbare humor, but it was enough to ease the girl's tension. They had the rapport of people used to carrying wounds and laughing anyway.

  Ardon watched, arms crossed tightly over his chest. The notch of suspicion in his brow deepened.

  Then his gaze fell to the mage, who was still slumped at the base of the well like a rag doll tossed aside. His face had gone a sickly gray beneath streaks of blood and sweat, but his chest rose, just barely.

  Thea leader finished with the girl's bandage, gave her a brief nod, then pushed to his feet and crossed the small space to kneel beside the mage.

  "How're we doing?" he asked quietly.

  The mage exhaled hard. "Still breathing."

  His voice was thin, dragged from the bottom of an empty well. He barely had the strength to hold his own head up.

  Ardon took a step closer, cautiously, as though proximity alone might trigger something unnatural. He looked from the mage to the leader and back again.

  "That young man," Ardon said, squinting as if unsure his own memory could be trusted. "He really did that?"

  The leader didn't look away from the mage. He gently tilted the man's chin, checking his pupils. "He did."

  Ardon hesitated, jaw tight. "Is he not... dangerous?"

  This time, the man did glance up. There wasn't even a flicker of defensiveness in his eyes.

  "Not to you," he said simply.

  Ardon's expression soured. "Forgive me if I don't take that on faith."

  "No one's asking you to," The man replied calmly, rising to his feet. The dried blood on his sleeves cracked as he moved. "But you're still breathing, aren't you?"

  Ardon grunted. His hard gaze lingered a few heartbeats longer on the mage, then slid back to the rest of the group.

  The man who had called out at the start of the fight was sitting slouched beside a barrel, cradling his bandaged side with a half-smile despite the sweat beading down his temple. The boy who had fired the crossbow, was pacing in slow, limping arcs nearby with a haunted look splashed across his face. The other boy who had held a knife against Ardon's throat was busy rifling through the pockets of the fallen bandits.

  Ardon shook his head slowly, disbelief still sunk deep into his bones.

  "I hope we didn't just trade one nightmare for another," he muttered, half to himself.

  "You didn't," came the reply from the leader.

  "Why did you help us?" Ardon pressed, voice tightening. "You got your own problems. I can see that." He gestured vaguely toward the mage. "So why didn't you just move on when you had the chance?"

  The man hesitated for a mere heartbeat—as though weighing how much of the truth Ardon was ready to hear.

  "Because," he said finally, nodding toward the mage, "he insisted. You were there."

  Ardon looked between them again. "Yes. But, why did listen to him?"

  "He didn't leave us much choice, now did he? We couldn't just leave him to fight it out on his own. Besides, you saw what he did."

  "That's what concerns me."

  "We have no interest in your village," The man said, and to his credit, he looked tired saying it. Not annoyed. Just worn. "We had the strength to help. So we did. ill-advised though it may have been."

  Ardon folded his arms, resisting the idea with a scowl. "Nobody does something like that without wanting something in return."

  "Then let me surprise you," the man replied, tone flat but not unkind. "We're not here to take anything that isn't freely given."

  Ardon was quiet for a moment.

  "That's easy to say," he muttered. "But I've seen men smile and lie, and worse in the same breath."

  The man nodded slowly. "So have I."

  He let the silence rest there for a beat, then added, "All we want is somewhere dry to sleep tonight. If there's food, great. And some supplies for the road. Then we're gone."

  "That's it?"

  "That's it."

  Ardon rubbed the back of his neck, frowning toward the ruined barn and splintered fencing. No caravan. No gear. No sign they meant to stay.

  They had the power to take, sure. And yet—they hadn't. Not even after the blood was spilled.

  "Just one night?" Ardon asked, tone neutral.

  "Just until our man here can walk again without collapsing," Arelos said. "We'll clear out in the morning."

  Next to them, the mage muttered something incomprehensible and slumped sideways. The girl moved and caught his shoulder automatically before he toppled.

  Ardon huffed once through his nose—possibly a laugh, possibly a resignation. The tension hadn't left him entirely, but its claws had loosened. Just a little.

  "…Fine," he said at last. "We'll find you a room—shouldn't be hard now that half the houses no longer have occupants."

  "Appreciated," The man replied with a nod. "No tricks. No debts."

  Ardon gave him one last, lingering stare, visible suspicion still swimming in his eyes—but behind it, a flicker of human gratitude too.

  "Alright," he said. Then, more to himself: "Gods help me if I regret this."

  "The name's Arelos by the way." The leader reached out and offered his hand.

  Ardon hesitated for a moment before grabbing it. "Ardon, though I think I already told you that?"

  "You did." Arelos turned and started to point at each member of his group one by one. "Viktor. Mira. Jax. Soren. And the one currently busy over there looting—Fenric."

  Ardon nodded. "Please wait here while I go check on my people," he turned and began walking toward the house he had come from.