Hurled out of the portal like stones from a sling, their momentum carried them into the packed dirt of a courtyard. Rynna hit first, rolling onto one shoulder as Kaelith landed beside her, staggering on impact, one hand braced against the ground. His face was pale, and his lips thin as he swallowed hard. Fenn landed cleanly behind them, boots thudding once before he straightened, already scanning the perimeter.
The air here felt wrong, thin and sour, as if the trip had carried the taste of rot with it.
“Elements forbid you from using the gates like a normal person, Rynna.” Kaelith exhaled and then spat to his side.
“Whatever.” She pushed herself upright, ignoring the blooming headache as she extended a hand. It was nothing compared to the orb.
He met her gaze with a scowl, wiping the back of his sleeve across his mouth before finally reaching for her.
“We’re lucky it didn’t spit us out over the ocean.” She glanced around as she hauled him up. “Whatever happened back on the other continent broke the gate, too.”
Behind them, a fortification loomed, its heavy doors hanging half-open, one sagging on splintered hinges. Dark wooden walls and slanted tiled roofs rose against the night sky, while lantern hooks jutted from the beams, their paper shades long since burned away. Rynna’s stomach tightened at the tang of blood clinging to the air. Dark arcs stained the stone underfoot, but no bodies remained. Anyone who had died here would have joined the horde.
“This way,” Fenn murmured, already moving.
He crossed the courtyard in swift strides, heading for a shadowed corner where a narrow staircase hugged the wall. The steps were slick with age, darkened and bowed from centuries of weather. Climbing, his claws glided over the railing, leaving faint grooves in the aged wood as his feet landed clean and sure on each tread, shoulders rolling.
Rynna’s gaze snagged on the unthinking grace of it—the way strength and control threaded through every movement—before she dragged her eyes forward and followed after him, each movement sending a dull ache through her bandaged arm.
“Great Phoenix.” Kaelith sighed behind her as they reached the top.
From the ramparts, the forest spread out in every direction in a dark sea of interlocking canopies, rippling under a restless wind. Her eyes swept over the treetops, drawn not to their quiet sway but to the shadows weaving between them. Shapes moved below—uneven, halting, and wrong—threading through the undergrowth in a slow, relentless press toward Pulse Reach’s distant walls.
Even at this distance, their shapes were wrong—spines bent, limbs jerking with disjointed persistence. Hundreds. Maybe thousands walking with a dull, relentless rustling, like the forest itself had learned to moan.
“They must already be there,” Rynna said. Her fingers dug into the railing as she leaned forward, staring over the shifting tide of corpses. “If this many are this close…”
“Fang Unit and the Wardens will be protecting what remains.” Fenn adjusted the bracers on his forearms. “That’s where we go. We’ll need the Great Phoenix for whatever lies past the barrier.”
Below them, several of the dead drifted along the base of the wall, heads lolling as if scenting the air. One slowed, its empty eyes lifting toward the ramparts where the three of them stood. Another followed, then a third, faces tilting upward in eerie unison. Fingers wiped absently at the stone, scraping, before they stumbled on, taken along by the mindless tide.
Rynna forced her grip to ease on the railing. Behind them, the broken Waygate still pulsed weakly, casting fractured light over the abandoned courtyard. Ahead lay Pulse Reach. And after that, the enemy.
“It looks like they can sense us.” Kaelith leaned over the ledge. “We’ll need to move through the trees, and fast, before we get bogged down.”
“Agreed.” Fenn nodded, looking at the other man. Silver eyes caught the moonlight, searching Kaelith’s face. “I’m glad to have you back in the fold. Ember Reach lost something the day you left.”
Kaelith’s ears reddened before he cleared his throat—once, twice as Rynna’s eyes widened. She’d known him for years and had never seen the man blush. Twice in one day felt like spotting a unicorn.
“I’m sure that’s just the magic sex with Rynna talking, wolf,” Kaelith muttered, turning away. “You’ll be back to plotting my execution in no time.”
Below, a low, collective groan interrupted from the forest as the dead milled beneath the wall, heads craning toward them as if sniffing the air.
“Perhaps,” Fenn said at last. He exhaled slowly, then reached for Rynna’s good hand, giving it a brief squeeze. “Are you ready?”
“So long as I’m with you.” She squeezed back, then shifted her weight and extended her injured arm toward Kaelith. It still hurt, a dull ache singing beneath the bandages, but she could move it now without the blinding shock from before.
Kaelith hesitated only a heartbeat before clasping her hand gently. Something passed between the three of them in that moment—a shared recognition of what they were walking into, of everything they’d already survived together. No one spoke. They didn’t need to.
Fenn vaulted first, dropping from the wall and catching a thick branch halfway down, his body flowing through the motion like a creature born for it. Kaelith followed, a blur of motion, his boots barely touching bark as he landed beside the other man. Rynna leapt after them, wind rushing past her face as she grabbed for a branch, her muscles screaming in protest but holding.
And they were off, moving like ghosts through the canopy.
Fenn led, never pausing. He hit the branches hard, shirt snapping behind him like a banner, then launching himself forward with bursts of power over and over again. Kaelith trailed just behind, his body moving with an eerie smoothness that seemed tobend around every branch before landing soundlessly on the next. His weight never left a mark, just impact and lift, momentum and silence. Even the trees seemed to part for him.
Rynna kept pace the best she could, almost feeling like an actual Novice compared to them. Her boots thudded against bark slick with dew, arms pumping to keep balance as she hurled herself forward, branch to trunk, trunk to limb. Her shoulder throbbed with every jolt, the ache spreading down her bandaged arm like wildfire, but she didn’t slow.
She didn’t dare.
