“This is about Wyrlings, isn’t it?” Viktor muttered as he adjusted the sword on his hip, readying himself.

“Wyrlings,” Thallan confirmed. “Our order is to eliminate the pack and regroup with the fleet. Collin, stay with the horses. Viktor, Roland—swords drawn. Remember, they’re pack beasts. They’ll try to separate us or spring from the trees. Do not let them flank you. Keep your eyes on the branches and the underbrush.”

He turned to Adius, stepping close. “You want to serve in the vanguard as an archer? Show us what you’re worth. If you see something move, shoot. Don’t wait for confirmation. You see a wyrling bolt, don’t let it escape. Don’t let them carry our scent. Understood?”

“Yes,” Adius replied, voice steady. He dipped his chin and unslung his bow in a fluid, practiced motion.

The forest pressed in, thick with silence. Not even a breeze stirred the canopy. Leaves hung motionless overhead, and the light slanting through the branches looked like it had been caught mid-breath. 

Thallan lifted a closed fist. The men stopped behind him, boots crunching softly on the undergrowth. His gaze swept the treeline—dappled shadows, crooked limbs, and bark so dark it nearly swallowed the eye.

They’re here. He thought to himself, he could feel it, feel their natural affinities shifting around them.

He jerked his chin to Viktor, motioning him right. A nod to Roland—left. He pointed two fingers to the earth behind him, and Adius fell back a pace, bow already strung.

There was a low creak above.

Thallan’s gaze snapped upward. The canopy shivered—not with wind, but weight. Branches swayed gently, almost thoughtfully. Watching.

He parted his lips to call a warning but the twang of a bowstring cut the silence. Adius loosed an arrow. It sliced upward through the leaves—missed. The hiss of its passage faded, swallowed by the forest.

Then came the laugh—a warbled, broken sound, too high to be human. It echoed across the branches, and with it came a rush of motion: more rustling, more weight shifting above them.

“Damn it,” Adius breathed, fumbling for another arrow with shaking fingers. Then—“Thallan!”

Thallan didn’t have time to react as the boy lunged. A hand clamped the back of his armor, yanking him a step back—

A blur of dark, sinewed limbs and snapping joints lunged from the canopy. Its descent was too fast, too jagged—like a corpse flung from the trees rather than something that jumped. It landed in a crouch just feet from Thallan, claws splayed in the moss, its arms too long for its body, knees bent backward, ribs rising and falling like a bellows.

Skin like damp bark, mottled in shadowy greens and browns, clung to its bones. A shimmer of slickness ran down its spine. Its head tilted, jaw unhinging wide with a sharp click, exposing rows of jagged teeth in something that might’ve been a grin—if it weren’t so hungry.

Then came the sound. A soft, echoing cry—high and warbled. A child, lost and calling for help. But the wyrling’s chest never moved. The sound came from inside its ribs, not its throat. It was amplified in those hollow cavities like a war drum’s beat.

Thallan didn’t wait. He slipped from Adius’ grasp and lunged first. Steel met claw in a clash that rang through the trees. The creature hissed, not in pain, but agitation. It scrambled back—not away, but up, clawing up the bark in one fluid sweep. Its limbs moved like rope unwinding—fast, too fast, disappearing into the branches before another blur dropped to take its place.

The second wyrling hit the ground with a snarl, all limbs and sinew, lunging toward Viktor. His sword was already drawn—steel arcing through the air as he parried the strike. Another dropped behind Roland, claws slashing for his side. He turned just in time to meet it with the edge of his blade.

They came like rain—falling, scattering, climbing, a rhythm meant to disorient. Each time one dropped, another vanished into the canopy. The knights fought back in tight formation, backs near each other to avoid being surrounded.

Thallan’s blade cut low and fast, opening a belly of sinew and gray-black ichor. A spray hit his cheek, warm and foul-smelling, but he didn’t flinch.

A third wyrling lunged. He pivoted to meet it—too late.

Claws slid through the vulnerable gap at his side—just beneath the edge of his breastplate, above the beltline—tearing into the flesh of his hip. He grunted, the pain sharp and hot, but stayed standing. His sword caught the creature across the neck in the same breath, sending it tumbling limp to the forest floor.

He staggered once, weight shifting and adapting. Then he turned, voice sharp, “Adius! Focus on their affinities—use it to track them!”

The boy’s hand froze on his bowstring. His eyes locked with Thallan’s for just a second, and in that second, something passed between them—something knowing and unspoken.

Adius turned upward. The canopy was alive with movement—branches rattling, shadows dancing. But through it all, a pattern emerged. He loosed an arrow. It found its mark. A wyrling shrieked as it tumbled from the trees, the shaft buried in its throat. It writhed on the forest floor for only a moment before Roland’s blade came down, severing its head in a clean strike.

Another arrow.

Adius’s breathing steadied, even as sweat clung to his brow. His fingers moved without thought now, guided by instinct and affinity rather than sight.

Below, steel rang and bodies fell. A wyrling dropped onto Viktor’s back—Thallan surged forward, sword slicing the creature from hip to collarbone before it could sink teeth into armor. His side burned, blood trickling down into the rest of his gear, but he didn’t let up.

Shrieking, laughing, crawling down like spiders they continued to come. But for every one that landed, another bled. The knights held their line. Adius’s arrows kept finding their necks and skulls in flashes of silver and instinct.

The pack was thinning. And the forest, for the first time in minutes, began to go quiet.

For a moment, the knights were silent—still, listening. Then came the clean swipe of Thallan’s blade, a final motion that sent thick, black droplets spattering across the forest floor. Only once the sword was sheathed did the others seem to exhale, their postures easing.

“Return to Collin,” Thallan said plainly, crouching beside the twisted body of a fallen Wyrling. “I’ll be along shortly. Adius, remain.” He didn’t look back as he spoke, gaze fixed on the corpse, listening for the sound of rustling—any sign that one might still be hiding.

“You did good, archer,” Roland offered as he passed Adius, clasping a gauntleted hand over his shoulder. Then he and Viktor turned, pushing back through the underbrush.

Thallan waited until their footsteps faded. “I understand not wanting to be caught,” he said, standing and turning toward Adius. His voice was quieter now, but not unkind. “But out here, you use what you have. Do not shy away from what gives you an advantage. Sometimes it’s the only reason you or your men make it home. Do you understand?” 

It wasn’t quite a scolding. It was something heavier. A quiet acknowledgment layered beneath the words—I know what you are. 

Adius swallowed. “I understand,” he said, softer than intended.

He took a step, ready to join the others, but then stopped. His eyes dropped slowly to the dark blot blooming along Thallan’s side, where armor no longer fully hid the damage. “Shall we talk about the other unspoken thing,” he said, tone measured. “You told me not to waste what I have. That goes both ways.” His gaze lifted again. “You have a siphon,” he continued. “Which means you have a healer. We’re not safe if you bleed out trying to prove something.” He stepped forward. “Lean against the tree.”

There was a brief moment of silence between them. Then, wordless, Thallan shifted and pressed his back to the tree, the motion controlled but edged with pain.

Adius slung his bow across his back, crouching without a word. His fingers moved with surprising gentleness as he peeled back the fabric and assessed the wound. “How’d you figure it out?” he asked, voice casual as if they weren’t in the middle of a bloodied forest, one of them healing the other.

“Affinity,” Thallan replied. “At the tourney—you were using it. Strong. Too easy for my senses to ignore.” He clenched his jaw as the magic pulled his skin taut, nerves singing beneath the surface. “How did you catch the injury?”

Adius let out a soft huff, not quite a laugh. “Affinity,” he echoed, then glanced up. Hazel eyes met blue. “Yours flares with your emotions,” he said. “As a siphon, that kind of thing is hard to miss. Makes you too readable, sometimes.” He paused, a smile tugging at his lips. “Not a bad thing, though. Means the big, scary walking wall actually has emotions.”

Thallan made no reply, but the quiet was companionable. The tension had shifted—lighter, if only slightly.

Adius turned his attention back to the wound. The skin had knitted back together cleanly, no scar left behind—just tan, untouched flesh where torn muscle had once been. 

“There we go,” he said, rising to his feet. “Good as new.”