The marks on her throat pulsed once, as if responding to her thoughts. She pressed her hand over them, trying to calm the sensation.
"First watch," Thaine said, already moving to the perimeter. "Karse, you're with me."
The others began settling in, but no one looked comfortable. Sian kept glancing at the tree line, her hands fidgeting with her water skin. Halian rechecked the ward stones twice. Even Arion, usually composed, had his light flickering erratically around his fingers.
Briar leaned against Eliam, feeling the solid presence of him grounding her against the wrongness pressing in from all sides. The warmth in her chest pulsed, agitated and uncomfortable in this place.
She was just beginning to think she might be able to sleep despite everything when the first sound came from the trees.
A crack. Sharp and loud, like something large stepping on dead wood.
Everyone froze.
Another crack, from a different direction. Then a third, and a fourth, surrounding them.
Thaine was on his feet, weapon drawn. "Something's out there."
There were more sounds, whatever it was not trying to be quiet now, crashing through undergrowth, multiple sources, coming from all directions at once.
Karse moved to stand back-to-back with Thaine. "I count at least six. Maybe more."
The fire flickered wildly, throwing shadows that moved wrong, that seemed to reach too far. Briar scrambled to her feet, her hand going to the small knife at her belt even though she had no idea how to use it properly.
Eliam was already in front of her, thorns erupting from the ground at his feet, spreading outward in a defensive barrier.
A shape burst from the trees to their left. Dark and twisted, moving on too many legs, its form shifting in the firelight until Briar couldn't tell if it was animal or something else entirely. It lunged toward Halian with a sound caught between a scream and the sound of the wind rushing through a hollow space.
Halian threw up a ward. The creature hit it and recoiled, but more were coming, erupting from the trees on all sides. Things with wrong proportions, with limbs that bent at impossible angles, with faces that were almost familiar but distorted beyond recognition.
The camp dissolved into chaos.
Thaine moved with lethal efficiency, his blade catching firelight as he engaged the nearest creature. Karse fought beside him, his claws extended, tearing into something that bled dark liquid that steamed when it hit the ground.
Arion's light flared bright enough to hurt, forming weapons of pure starlight that he drove into anything that got close. Sian and Halian worked together, wards and cleansing magic trying to hold back the tide.
And Eliam's thorns spread like a living thing, erupting from the ground in waves to impale, vines snaring limbs to drag creatures down, roots bursting through soil to trip and tangle anything that approached their position.
But something was wrong.
Briar watched Thaine's blade pass through a creature without resistance, watched the thing dissolve into smoke and reform a moment later. Watched Karse's claws tear into flesh that felt like fog, insubstantial.
The sounds were real. The movement was real. But the creatures themselves—
A hand clamped over her mouth from behind.
She tried to scream, but the hand pressed harder, and she felt herself being pulled backward, away from Eliam, away from the fire. She kicked, tried to twist free, but whoever had her was strong.
The chaos of the battle surrounded them, everyone too focused on the attacking creatures to notice her being dragged into the shadows. She caught a glimpse of long, dark hair, felt magic wrap around her like invisible chains.
Ferria.
The creatures fighting the group flickered, their forms becoming less solid. Illusions. All of them illusions.
Briar managed to get her teeth into Ferria's palm and bit down hard. The fae woman hissed but didn't let go, just tightened her grip and pulled Briar further from the fire's light.
She tried to reach for the warmth, to make it manifest, to do something, but panic was making it hard to focus. Her hands clawed at Ferria's arm, trying to break free.
Something hard struck the side of her head. Pain exploded white-hot behind her eyes, and the world tilted sideways. Her knees buckled, but Ferria's grip kept her upright, kept dragging her backward.
