Dawn brought no respite. The shadows had retreated, but Kael knew they would return—creatures of darkness never truly disappeared; they merely waited.

  Serena emerged from the lean-to first, armor once again in place like the emotional barriers she'd reconstructed. If Thorne noticed the careful distance between his companions as they broke camp, he kept his observations to himself—an unusual restraint that Kael found more unsettling than the rogue's typical irreverence.

  "We should investigate those creatures' origin," Serena said, checking her sword's edge with methodical precision. "Find what's creating them."

  "Absolutely not," Kael replied. "We should report back to Dunwick."

  "After one skirmish?" She scoffed. "We've hardly earned our gold."

  "Those weren't ordinary barbarians," Kael insisted. "Something is fundamentally wrong here."

  Thorne, who'd been unusually quiet while packing their meager supplies, finally spoke. "There's a structure about three miles northeast. Looked abandoned when I scouted earlier."

  Both turned to stare at him.

  "You went scouting? Alone?" Serena demanded.

  "While you two were..." Thorne paused, a knowing glint in his eyes, "...resting."

  Kael felt heat creep up his neck but kept his expression neutral. "What kind of structure?"

  "Stone. Ancient. Overgrown but intact." Thorne shouldered his pack. "And marked with symbols like the one on our dead friend over there."

  Kael's eyes darted to the creature corpses they'd dragged away from camp. The symbol—three interlocking circles bisected by a wavy line—seemed to pulse in the morning light, though he knew that was impossible.

  "You recognize it," Serena said, her voice flat. Not a question.

  Thorne's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I've traveled widely."

  "That's not an answer," she pressed.

  "It's the only one you're getting, Knight." For once, no hint of flirtation colored his words. "Do we investigate or not?"

  Kael's instinct screamed retreat, but the medallion against his chest hummed with anticipation, like a hunting hound catching a scent. The magic wanted to follow this trail, regardless of where it led. And that, more than anything, convinced him they should.

  "We investigate," he decided. "But cautiously. And at the first sign of being overwhelmed, we withdraw. No heroics."

  Serena looked as if she might argue, then nodded once. "Agreed."

  They broke camp quickly, dousing the fire and obscuring signs of their presence. The forest seemed unnaturally quiet as they moved northeast, following Thorne's lead. No birdsong, no rustling undergrowth—just the muffled sound of their footsteps on damp leaves and the occasional creak of Serena's armor.

  The structure appeared suddenly, as if materialized from the mist itself. One moment they were pushing through dense forest; the next, they stood at the edge of a perfect clearing where a temple of dark stone squatted like a malignant growth.

  "Gods," Serena whispered.

  The building wasn't large, perhaps forty paces on each side, but something about its proportions felt wrong—angles that shouldn't exist, heights that didn't match from different perspectives. Vines had claimed much of the exterior, but beneath the greenery, symbols had been carved into every surface: the same three interlocking circles, repeated in endless variation.

  "No one's been here recently," Thorne observed, examining the overgrown path to the entrance.

  "Not on foot," Kael corrected, pointing to the unnatural shadows that pooled around the temple's base, too dark for the morning light, too solid to be mere absence of sun.

  Serena drew her sword. "What do you mean?"

  "Some things don't need doors." He touched the medallion through his robes. "They slip through cracks in reality."

  "More tavern tales?" she asked, but the scorn had been replaced with uncertainty.

  "I wish." Kael took a deep breath. "We should—"

  A sound cut him off—stone grating on stone as the temple entrance, previously sealed, cracked open. No hands pushed it; the massive door simply decided to admit them.

  "—leave immediately," he finished.

  "After coming all this way?" Thorne was already moving toward the entrance, daggers drawn but posture relaxed. "Where's your academic curiosity, wizard?"

  "Buried beneath a healthy sense of self-preservation," Kael muttered, but followed nonetheless.

  The interior was surprisingly intact. A single vast chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow despite the morning light filtering through gaps in the stonework. The walls bore frescoes so ancient their pigments had mostly leached away, leaving ghostly outlines of figures engaged in what appeared to be worship—or sacrifice. At the chamber's center stood an altar of black stone, its surface stained with centuries of offerings.

  "Blood magic," Serena observed, her tone somewhere between accusation and question as she glanced at Kael.

  "Not all blood rituals are the same," he replied defensely. "This is..." He gestured helplessly at the profane imagery. "This is abomination."

  Thorne moved with the confidence of someone revisiting familiar territory, examining the altar with clinical detachment. His fingers traced patterns in the ancient stains. "These aren't random," he said quietly. "They're another form of symbol."

  Kael approached cautiously. The medallion grew warmer with each step toward the altar, a warning he couldn't ignore. "How do you know that?"

  "As I said," Thorne replied without looking up, "I've traveled widely."

  Serena made a circuit of the chamber, sword at the ready. "There are passages leading deeper," she called from the far side. "Recently used, from the looks of it."

  Kael joined her, finding narrow tunnels carved into the stone, descending at steep angles into darkness. Foot traffic had cleared the dust from the steps, and torch brackets showed signs of recent use.

  "Your barbarians, I presume," he said grimly.

  "Not mine," she corrected. "And not really barbarians anymore, from what we saw last night."

  They exchanged a look of shared understanding. Whatever had created those abominations was connected to this place—and still active.

  "We need to see what's down there," Thorne said, appearing silently beside them.

  "No," Kael said firmly. "We need more information before wandering into an ancient temple's depths. I've read enough academic accounts to know how that typically ends."

  Thorne opened his mouth to argue, but froze suddenly, head cocked as if listening. "Someone's coming," he hissed.

  They pressed into the shadows of a crumbling column as voices echoed from one of the tunnels—human voices, speaking common tongue with educated accents.

  "...waste of resources," one was saying. "The specimens from last night's deployment were lost."

  "Not completely," another replied. "They provided valuable data on the subjects' combat capabilities."

  "The Lord Protector will be displeased."

  "The Lord Protector can manage his own disappointment. We need that medallion. The exile knows how to unlock its full potential—we just need to push him harder."

  Kael's blood ran cold. They were talking about him, about the medallion. The Academy had found him.

  Serena's hand closed around his wrist, a silent warning not to react. Her fingers were warm against his pulse, steadying.

  "And the woman?" the first voice asked.

  "Former Knight-Commander Dawnblade is a secondary objective. The Order wants her back for their own purposes."

  A small sound escaped Serena—not quite a gasp, more like the air being punched from her lungs. Her grip on Kael's wrist tightened painfully.

  "And the third one?"

  "Unknown factor. Probably just a mercenary. Dispose of him if convenient."

  Thorne's expression remained neutral, but Kael caught the slight narrowing of his eyes—the first genuine anger he'd seen from the rogue.

  Footsteps approached their hiding place. Three men in the gray robes of Academy researchers emerged from the tunnel, accompanied by two figures in the silver armor of the Order, faces hidden behind ornate helmets.

  "We'll deploy more converted units tonight," one researcher was saying. "More... durable ones this time. The ritual requires at least one of them alive, preferably the wizard."

  They moved toward the altar, oblivious to the three fugitives concealed in the shadows. Kael's mind raced. Five opponents in an enclosed space. The Academy researchers would have defensive spells, and the Silver Order knights were elite fighters. Poor odds, even with surprise on their side.

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  Serena apparently reached the same conclusion. She motioned toward a side exit, indicating they should retreat while unnoticed. Thorne nodded agreement, already sliding toward the opening.

  They might have escaped undetected if the medallion hadn't chosen that moment to pulse with light, responding to Kael's elevated heart rate. A brief blue flash, barely visible through his robes, but enough.

  "There!" shouted one of the researchers. "The heretic!"

  Chaos erupted. The Silver knights charged with supernatural speed, weapons drawn. Serena met the first with a clash of steel that echoed through the chamber. Thorne vanished in a blur of movement, reappearing behind one researcher who collapsed with a dagger in his spine.

  Kael drew power through the medallion, feeling it burn against his skin as he shaped a defensive barrier. Arcane energy crackled around him, deflecting a spell hurled by one of the remaining researchers—a bolt of corrosive green energy that sizzled against stone where it struck.

  "Seize the medallion!" shouted the lead researcher. "Kill the others!"

  One knight engaged Serena in a flurry of blows too fast to follow. Their swords rang like forge hammers, sparks flying with each impact. The second knight circled toward Kael, weapon raised.

  "Heretic," the knight's voice came hollow from behind the helmet. "The Order passes sentence."

  "Tell the Order they taught me well," Serena snarled, driving her opponent back with a vicious combination of strikes. Her blade found a gap in the knight's armor, drawing first blood.

  Thorne dispatched the second researcher with a thrown dagger, then moved to intercept the knight approaching Kael. "Can you collapse the entrance?" he called, ducking beneath a sword strike. "Seal them in?"

  Kael assessed the ancient stonework. With the right application of force... "Keep them busy for ten seconds!"

  He began an incantation, drawing sigils in the air that glowed with cold fire. The medallion's power flowed through him, directed at the keystones supporting the temple entrance. Stone groaned in protest as forces thousands of years dormant stirred to life.

  The lead researcher realized what was happening. "Stop him!"

  Too late. With a final word of power, Kael released the spell. A thunderous crack split the air as the entrance collapsed in a controlled avalanche, bringing down a section of wall and ceiling between them and their attackers.

  "Run!" he gasped, staggering from the expenditure of power.

  They fled into the forest as dust billowed from the temple. Behind them, muffled shouts and the sound of shifting rubble suggested their pursuers were already working to clear the obstruction.

  They ran until their lungs burned, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the temple. When they finally stopped in a dense thicket to catch their breath, the realization of what they'd discovered settled over them like a shroud.

  "They're hunting us," Serena said, wiping blood from a cut on her cheek. "Specifically us."

  "Academy and Silver Order, working together," Kael added. "Using that temple for some kind of ritual involving those... corrupted creatures."

  "And the Lord Protector is involved," Thorne finished. "The same man who offered five hundred gold pieces for this 'barbarian' problem to be solved."

  The implications were clear: they'd been set up. The quest was never about clearing raiders from the northern roads—it was a trap to capture them.

  "Why?" Serena demanded, rounding on Kael. "What's so special about your medallion that they'd go to these lengths?"

  Kael touched the brass disc beneath his robes. "It's old. Older than the Academy itself. It contains spells that can... thin the barriers between worlds. Allow things to cross over. I stole it when I escaped, to keep it from them."

  "And you've been wearing it around your neck?" Her incredulity was palpable. "Using it?"

  "Better than letting them have it," he snapped. "You heard them—they need me alive to unlock its potential. That means I've kept some secrets successfully."

  "Knight-Commander," Thorne interrupted, looking at Serena with new speculation. "That's considerably more prestigious than a common Silver Order knight."

  Her expression hardened. "Former Knight-Commander. And my past is not relevant to our current situation."

  "It's entirely relevant if the Silver Order is hunting you specifically," Thorne countered. "And working with Academy researchers to corrupt innocent people into monsters."

  "I left the Order when I discovered corruption in the ranks," she admitted stiffly. "I did not expect it to extend to... this."

  Kael saw the pain behind her rigid posture. Whatever she'd discovered had shattered her world as thoroughly as his own revelation about the Academy.

  "We need to keep moving," he said, offering her an escape from Thorne's scrutiny. "They'll clear that collapse soon, and they know these woods."

  "Where?" Thorne asked. "Dunwick is compromised if the Lord Protector is involved."

  Serena studied the position of the sun through the canopy. "North. Deeper into the contested territory. If we can reach the border settlements, we might find passage to Northaven. It's independent of Eldrath's authority."

  "Three days' hard travel," Kael calculated. "Through territory increasingly likely to contain these corrupted barbarians."

  "Unless you'd prefer to go back and surrender your magical necklace?" Thorne suggested with forced lightness.

  "Three days north," Kael agreed grimly.

  They gathered their remaining supplies and set off, each lost in private thoughts. Kael felt the weight of revelation settling on his shoulders. The Academy wasn't just hunting him—they were actively creating abominations, working with the Silver Order and the Lord Protector himself in some grand conspiracy.

  And somehow, he, Serena, and Thorne stood at the center of it all. Three strangers who'd met by chance in a tavern.

  Except... had it been chance? Kael glanced at Thorne, who moved with the silent grace of a predator through the underbrush. The rogue knew too much about the temple symbols, had "happened" to scout it while they were distracted.

  And Serena—a Knight-Commander in hiding, possessing combat skills that seemed almost supernatural.

  Everyone had secrets, it seemed. The question was which ones would get them killed first.

  As they pushed deeper into the wilderness, the forest around them changed subtly. Vegetation grew more twisted, fungi in unnatural colors sprouting from decaying logs. The air felt thicker, as if reality itself was becoming more dense and difficult to traverse.

  "We're heading toward something," Kael said quietly to Serena as they paused to refill water skins at a stream. "Something that's affecting the natural world."

  "More of your blood magic?" she asked, but without her earlier hostility.

  "No. Something older." He hesitated. "When we... when the medallion reacted to us last night. Did you feel anything unusual?"

  Color touched her cheekbones, but her voice remained steady. "Besides the obvious?"

  "Besides that," he confirmed, feeling his own face warm. "A sense of... expansion? As if for a moment, you existed in more places than just your body?"

  She grew very still. "Yes," she admitted. "Like I could see through the trees, into the spaces between them. Like I was everywhere and nowhere." Her eyes met his, concern evident. "What does it mean?"

  "I don't know," he said honestly. "But I think it's connected to what's happening here. The corruption, the temple, all of it."

  "The barriers between worlds," she recalled his earlier words. "They're thinning."

  "And someone is helping them collapse." He looked ahead to where Thorne waited, pretending not to listen. "Someone who knows exactly what they're doing."

  Night was approaching, and with it, the certainty of another attack. But this time, they'd be ready. This time, they understood what they faced—not just monsters, but a conspiracy reaching to the highest levels of power in Eldrath.

  And perhaps most dangerous of all: the growing suspicion that their roguish companion knew far more than he was telling.