(Lysara POV)

  The camp settled into something quieter by the third morning.

  Not calm. Just organized enough to breathe.

  Eight had died, but there was no time to mourn.

  Alchemy tents stayed up. Hale remained in rotation, his presence no longer an anomaly but a constant—notes accumulating faster than conclusions, instruments appearing and disappearing as if the camp itself had learned to make space for him.

  Caldrien arrived before dawn, bringing a new team with him. These were not students. They came from the palace.

  Just a brief interruption in the flow—voices lowering, movements adjusting as the Head of Alchemy stepped through the tents and took in the work already underway. He spoke to Hale first, then to the instruments, then—only after—his attention settled on Lysara.

  She didn’t stop working.

  That, more than anything, seemed to decide it.

  By midday, access markers shifted. Her table moved closer to the core tents. Runners checked with her before relaying requests. And when a knight and mage were reassigned to her detail, no one questioned it.

  She wasn’t questioned about the field. Not yet. Hale asked for observations, measurements, locations. He accepted her answers without comment, recording them in his precise hand before moving on.

  When the work slowed, Lysara slipped beyond the outer ring with a satchel and her notebook, collecting what the forest still offered willingly. Bark that peeled clean. Leaves that responded as expected when crushed between her fingers. Familiar scents. Familiar reactions.

  It steadied her.

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  She didn’t notice Kayden until he matched her pace.

  “You’re drifting,” he said mildly, eyes scanning the treeline rather than her face.

  “I always do,” she replied.

  He hummed, accepting that.

  Tessa joined them moments later, lightning residue long gone, posture relaxed in a way Lysara hadn’t seen since before the hunt. She didn’t comment on the satchel or the notebook.

  Instead, she crouched beside Lysara and plucked a leaf from the ground.

  “Tastes bitter,” she said after a moment.

  Lysara smiled despite herself.

  They moved together for a while after that—no formation, no purpose beyond motion. The forest here felt different. Quieter. Less watched.

  That was when Hale’s runner found them.

  “Professor Hale requests you,” he said, eyes flicking briefly to Kayden and Tessa before returning to Lysara.

  She nodded once and closed her notebook.

  Hale didn’t look up when she entered the tent.

  “For the remaining two weeks you are to remain in rotation,” he said, as if continuing a thought she’d already heard. “Until we understand what we’re dealing with.”

  Lysara didn’t argue.

  She waited.

  “If you leave camp I want you under consistent protection,” Hale added. “Not rotating. Familiar.”

  Lysara felt the shape of it settle before he finished speaking.

  “Choose,” Hale said.

  She didn’t hesitate.

  “Kayden and Tessa,” she said.

  Hale inclined his head once. “Approved.”

  She exhaled slowly.

  Outside, Kayden raised a brow when she told them. Tessa crossed her arms, studying Lysara with a look that was sharp but not unkind.

  “Bodyguards,” Tessa said. “That’s what this is?”

  “Yes,” Lysara replied. Then, after a beat, “And witnesses.”

  That got their attention.

  They didn’t interrupt as she spoke.

  She didn’t explain everything. She didn’t try to convince. She told them what she had seen. Where. How it behaved. What changed when they fought it.

  Theories.

  Patterns.

  Kayden listened without moving, expression unreadable. Tessa’s jaw tightened gradually, lightning flickering once before settling again.

  When Lysara finished, neither of them spoke immediately.

  Tessa exhaled through her nose. “Yeah. Okay. That explains some things.”

  Finally, Kayden nodded once. “Alright, I will request clearance.”

  Kayden glanced back toward the command tents, then returned his attention to Lysara.

  Lysara felt something ease in her chest that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  They turned back toward camp together.

  Not as a unit.

  Not as a formation.

  Just as three people who trusted each other enough to stand close—

  and patient enough to wait until they were allowed to move.