The forest opened slow.

  Five days since Ocean Tide, and still the trees hadn’t changed—thick-trunked, low-canopied, and clustered too tight to see far. The kind of woods that didn’t feel cursed. Just quiet. Old.

  Zafran rode at the front, reins slack in one hand, eyes moving more than his horse did. The trail here wasn’t marked, but it told a story: scuffed bark, overturned stones, pressed dirt. Someone had come through, and not long ago.

  Roland trailed behind, stiff in his saddle. His pack had shifted again, tugging sideways, and he kept glancing between branches like something might leap out. He didn’t ask questions, which meant he had too many.

  Isolde brought up the rear, calm but alert. Her hand rested against the hilt at her thigh, not drawn, not tense. Just ready.

  The clearing came into view by degrees. First the change in light, then the break in trees.

  And then the ruin.

  A stone cottage stood crooked in the middle, one wall broken in like something massive had plowed through it. The roof had mostly caved. The back wall had split outward, like pressure from inside had pushed it apart. Burned timbers. Scattered stone. The edges were too clean to be old.

  Roland pulled up beside him, blinking. “Is this it?”

  Zafran didn’t answer right away. He was already off his horse, crouched beside what had once been a front step. His gloved fingers traced a clean fracture in the stone.

  “This should be the place.”

  Isolde stepped around the side, eyeing the scorched beams. “The witch’s cottage,” she said. “I heard stories growing up. Thought it was just another tale to scare kids.”

  Zafran stood. “Feels real enough.”

  Roland climbed down carefully, picking his way through the rubble. “This doesn’t look abandoned.”

  “It’s not,” Isolde said. “Something hit it. Hard. Recent.”

  Zafran moved toward the far edge of the structure. He crouched again, brushing at a patch of dirt with his hand. A shallow depression. Then another, deeper. Wide.

  Roland came closer. “That’s a big print.”

  “Yeah,” Zafran muttered. “Too big.”

  Roland frowned. “What could even make that? Some kind of forest beast?”

  Isolde shook her head. “Look here—left and right don’t match. And there’s a second set beside them. Whatever it was, it wasn’t just one thing.”

  Zafran stood again and took a few slow steps east. Then he crouched once more.

  “Smaller tracks. Human.”

  Roland leaned in. “You think that’s Ysar?”

  “Two sets. Light, but spaced like they were moving fast.” He looked up at the trail barely visible through the brush. “Could be.”

  Isolde folded her arms. “We’ve been chasing shadows for five days. You really think this is still his trail?”

  Zafran didn’t turn. “No,” he said. “But it’s all we’ve got.”

  He walked back to his horse and mounted.

  Roland gave the ruin one last look before climbing up.

  Isolde paused beside her saddle, eyes lingering on the broken cottage. “I don’t like this,” she muttered.

  Zafran gave a small nudge to his reins. “Neither do I.”

  They rode on.

  The trees thinned.

  Not like the edge of a forest should—not gradual, not gentle. It looked as if something had torn its way through. Roots split. Branches sheared. Stones unearthed, leaving open holes in the ground. Even the canopy had collapsed in places, and for the first time in days, Ysar could see the sky.

  He stood still at the edge, boots planted in cracked soil. The air was warmer here—not sharp, not dry, but used. Like it had passed through fire and come out altered.

  Grimoire stepped up beside him, quiet. Her cloak dragged in the dirt behind her, the edges fraying. She didn’t look tired, but her movement had changed—more measured, more aware. Like something in her was syncing itself against the world.

  Ysar’s gaze turned to the center of the clearing.

  A shallow crater sat there—smoke faintly rising. Not large. But fresh. At the base, a dark bed of charred wood smoldered.

  He stepped forward. Grimoire crouched beside it first, her hand hovering above the rim.

  “Still warm,” she said.

  Ysar crouched beside her. “Why burn this much wood?”

  Around them, the clearing was stripped bare. Trees felled in deliberate patterns. Undergrowth missing. The ring of old roots half-torn from the earth.

  He could feel it—something had drained this place.

  She stood again, scanning the edges. “She’s not experimenting anymore,” Grimoire murmured. “She’s producing. A lot.”

  Ysar looked around the clearing, trying to picture the scale. “From all this… how many?”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Neither of them said the number. But the silence said enough.

  He moved again, a few paces ahead, where a deep gouge carved through the dirt. Drag marks cut through it, long and heavy—whatever had been made here had been hauled out.

  Grimoire followed a few steps behind, her gaze drifting, not speaking.

  The silence between them wasn’t heavy. It was full.

  Then, from her lips: “We’re at the forest’s edge. I can hear whispers of battle beyond this place.”

  Ysar turned. “Whispers?”

  She didn’t explain.

  The wind shifted. Somewhere far ahead, something echoed. A rhythm. A thud. Distant, like war humming beneath the ground.

  Ysar exhaled, stared at her for a long moment. “I never meant for any of this.”

  Grimoire’s eyes didn’t change.

  “I thought I was… bringing her back,” he said. “But Marelis… it wasn’t theft. I brought her in. I dragged her into Elsha’s body.”

  “You regret it?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Grimoire still didn’t soften. “Then don’t run from it.”

  “I’m not.”

  She looked away, toward the thin trail vanishing into the ash-marked trees. “We’re close now. If you want to stop her, we don’t have much time.”

  He stood again.

  Around them, the clearing felt like the lungs of a machine—emptied, used, and still pulling air.

  They stepped out of the ruined circle, walking into a thinning path carved between splintered trunks and ash-coated moss. Each footstep felt quieter. Not because the forest hushed them, but because the war ahead was already louder than anything they could say.

  The trade path had cracked under less.

  It wasn’t made for armies—just carts, wheels, travelers. But it buckled now under something heavier. Stranger. Alive, but not living.

  Marelis walked at the center.

  Her coat was soot-streaked. Her gloves were stiff with blood and resin. She moved as if the weight of the army behind her didn’t matter—like the thud of hundreds of footsteps wasn’t her concern. Because it wasn’t.

  They marched in waves.

  Six hundred, maybe more. Not in columns, not in lines. There was no uniform shape—only movement. Like a tide that hadn’t yet learned how to crash.

  Some walked on hooves made of fused jawbone. Others dragged split torsos of animals stitched to plated ribcages. Dozens more moved like malformed humans, with braced joints and armored limbs—wood, bone, stone, and something glowing deep in their chests.

  Not violet.

  Not like Lucian’s army.

  Pale green threads curled inside each chest-core—subtle, woven like veins, pulsing softly behind fractured crystal and carbon-black plating. The glow was quiet, eerie. Nothing about it flared. It lingered.

  And they kept coming.

  Some constructs—larger ones—carried parts. Others carried smaller constructs. A few, bent and lurching, bore welded cradles on their backs, from which new constructs were climbing out, half-formed, planar glow still twitching in their chest.

  It wasn’t just an army.

  It was a moving process.

  Creation in motion.

  Replication by design.

  No flags. No signals. No horns or drums. Just the rhythm of limbs and the grind of stone and hide over ground that had no memory of war like this.

  Marelis stopped.

  Before her, the trees thinned—scraped open by the same hands that had made the army behind her. Roots were torn. Soil overturned. The forest had given what it could. The road ahead opened slightly toward the southeast ridgeline. Somewhere beyond: Lucian’s eastern command. The edge of the Narrow Pass.

  She didn’t turn to speak.

  But the constructs reacted.

  One shifted from the front—a tall frame of twisted deer skulls and quartz-veined limbs. It emitted a low chime, barely audible. Others echoed it, in pulses that spread outward like sonar in meat and stone.

  She walked forward.

  And somewhere in her breath, too soft to be a real voice, she said:

  “The world’s been quiet too long.”

  She turned to the horde. “Time to knock on a few doors.”

  No laughter. But the kind of smile that meant she wanted to see what happened next

  The sky over the eastern front was the color of iron—flat, heavy, close.

  Lucian stood atop the siege tower, arms folded behind his back, eyes fixed on the ridgeline where Goldburg’s defenses still held—just barely. Below, the siege was in its twelfth day. Hollowbound formations cycled in six-hour shifts, relentless. The walls were cracking. So were the defenders.

  Commander Selenne leaned toward the map. “Minimal pushback this morning. They’re spent.”

  Lucian said nothing.

  Commander Rethas added, “If we maintain pressure another day—”

  A sound cut through the air.

  Not metal. Not siege. Something older.

  A howl—low, stretched, and wide enough to press on every bone.

  Lucian’s head lifted.

  “What was that?” Selenne asked.

  It came again. Louder. Closer. Not one voice. Many. Then came the thudding. Uneven. Deep. It shook the wood beneath their boots.

  From behind.

  Lucian turned sharply. “Check the rear line.”

  A scout was already sprinting down the stairs. From the edge of the tower, smoke could be seen—low, crawling from the southern treeline. Then a roar. Not mechanical.

  Bestial.

  Short horn blasts followed. Emergency signal. Officers scrambled.

  Lucian’s voice sharpened. “Report!”

  Another scout burst into view. “Something’s coming from the south! Hundreds—maybe more!”

  “Goldburg reinforcements?”

  “No sir! Not human! I— It’s not human!”

  Lucian stepped closer to the edge.

  He saw it now—movement across the southern rise. Misshapen shapes. Lurching limbs. The pale green shimmer of planar cores where there should’ve been none. They moved without uniform. Without coordination. But with purpose.

  Selenne gasped beside him. “What are they?”

  Rethas paled. “They’re… constructs. But not ours.”

  Lucian’s jaw tensed. “Pull back the second Hollowbound flank. Secure the rear.”

  Before the order echoed, another scout arrived, breath ragged. “The rear camp’s breached, Your Majesty! They’ve hit the wagons—supply line’s gone!”

  Screams followed. Not shouts of defense—panic.

  The base of the tower burned. Tents collapsed. Officers stumbled over their own men. The ground shook as one of the massive constructs tore through a ballista post. It moved like a nightmare—fused bone, carved obsidian, planar glow deep inside.

  A groan echoed across the ridge. More shapes emerged.

  Hundreds.

  Twisted. Crawling. Creating more as they moved. Some bore cradles on their backs. Others dragged pieces of new constructs behind them, already glowing green from still-forming cores.

  Lucian exhaled. “Collapse the front. Pull everyone back to the tower.”

  Selenne blinked. “Sir—if we pull now, we lose the pass.”

  “We’ve already lost it!” Lucian snapped. “Now move.”

  The horns changed rhythm—no longer advance. Collapse. Reorient.

  But the Hollowbound were too slow to pivot. Built for force, not flexibility. Their cores pulsed violet as they twisted to face a threat they hadn’t been designed to meet. The humans at the rear—the engineers, the repair crews, the core harvesters—were already caught. Crushed. Trampled. Screaming.

  Lucian’s cloak snapped in the rising wind as he stared down into the mess. His army, split. His precision unraveling.

  And across the plain—Goldburg moved.

  The shield wall, once locked, started to roll forward. Slowly. Heavily. Commander Caldrienne stood at the tip like a prow.

  At first, no one believed it.

  Then a cry rang out: “They’re advancing!”

  One of her captains shouted, “The Hollowbound turned back!”

  “Why? Is it a trick?”

  “I don’t know—but this is our chance!”

  She hesitated.

  Then nodded. “Push with the second wave. Advance on their tail.”

  The Goldburg formation rumbled forward like a hammer behind a falling clock.

  Lucian didn’t move.

  Not yet.

  Not even when the largest construct—towering above the rest, horns like iron trees, spine split into three sculpted limbs—smashed through a planar tank, spraying violet light into the air like blood.

  This wasn’t a counterstrike.

  It was a birth.

  Lucian turned toward the rack beside the map table. His armor stood waiting—dark silver, runes carved deep into the plating, five purple cores humming like organs.

  Rethas glanced at him. “Sire?”

  Lucian stared at the weapon resting beside it—a spear taller than a man, planar veins pulsing inside its shaft.

  He muttered, almost to himself.

  “…I might need to use this before its appointed time.”

  He stepped forward, gauntlets clicking softly.

  Selenne and Rethas could only watch as Lucian reached for the armor—quiet, calm, and suddenly very alone in the tower above a battlefield that no longer belonged to him.