Nathan dove out of the way of an earth spike. Internally, his mind raced. What is she talking about? Did she want to kill me!?

  A faint whisper brushed against his consciousness: Danger.

  Nathan stiffened and realized he had been standing still for too long. He jumped to the side, but this time he was too late. A section of the spike dug into the back of his calf as he dodged. He fell to the ground but forced himself to stand up quickly. Somehow, the spike had managed to cut through his skin, causing blood to rapidly spill out.

  "Bree!" he shouted. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Stop acting innocent!" she yelled back. "We know what you did."

  "You might want to explain to me what I supposedly did. What is this mysterious thing I've accomplished?"

  "Will you just shut up!? You killed them!"

  The pieces instantly clicked together in Nathan's mind. They were being set up. The Wanderers wanted Nathan to come in here ready to fight… and the same went for Bree. In the chaos, the Wanderers would come out and eliminate whoever was left.

  "Bree, you have to listen to me—this is a trap—"

  "Save it!" She held her hand out, and earthen spikes began to form underground. "I don't want to hear another word out of your mouth."

  Nathan gritted his teeth. She's past the point of discussion. The only thing they could do now is force her to listen.

  Crush her.

  Nathan's eyes flickered down to the flower on his plant arm. He rolled down his sleeve. "I would prefer not to do that, if possible," he muttered.

  "Stop talking to yourself and hurry up and fight me!" Bree said.

  "I wasn't talking to myself—" Nathan shook his head. "Whatever, let's do this."

  Nathan reached into his inventory and pulled out his harpoon. He was going to try to disable her—take her down without killing her. If worse came to worst, he would wear her down slowly until she was completely exhausted. But if he had his way, no blood would be shed this day. At least, not much. Maybe a little bit.

  Bree clenched her open hand into a fist. Immediately, Nathan felt rumblings from beneath the ground. He was about to be hemmed in from all sides. He jumped into the air and activated his wind cultivation. A powerful gust launched him forward toward Bree. Behind him, the earthen spikes erupted at lightning speed and crashed into the spot where he had just been. His body flew forward and slammed into Bree like a wrecking ball, sending them both to the ground.

  Her elbow shot out and snapped into his ribs with the force of a metal pipe. Nathan grunted but resisted the urge to cry out. Instead, he pulled back his fist and drove a punch directly into her solar plexus. It landed with a satisfying crack, and she wheezed out a pained groan.

  "You hit like a brick," she ground out. She slammed her fist against the ground, and the earth opened up behind her. She fell into it, then the hole shut before Nathan could fall in too, leaving Nathan alone at the surface. He stood to his feet and looked around. Where is she?

  A rumble beneath the earth. But he couldn't tell where it was coming from. Left? Right? How did she do that? It's like she disguised her presence!

  Just as much as Nathan had been holding back, it seemed she had been holding back on him too. His instincts roared at him, and he rolled forward. A moment later, a sequence of earthen spikes erupted from where he had been standing, shooting out to his side and behind him. He didn't have a moment to think because another spike shot out. He jumped, but too late—it grazed his ankle. At this rate, he would die a death of a thousand cuts.

  The flower on his arm pulsed, and a simple impression formed in his mind: Below. Find.

  Nathan stiffened. Of course. He placed his hand to the ground.

  Instantly, roots burst forth from the tips of his fingers, through the concrete, and into the ground. He waited patiently—then—

  A faint sensation flowed back through the roots: There.

  "Do it," Nathan said.

  Something shifted below. Nathan felt his energy pour into the roots, causing them to grow and expand. Then, the concrete exploded, and out came Bree with it. She flew out and fell to the ground, hitting it with a hard thud. She looked up and glared at Nathan.

  "Plants, huh? Is there anything you can't do?" she spat.

  Nathan pulled away from the ground, the roots snapping off cleanly.

  "I wouldn't say I was the one who did it. It was more… a friend."

  Somehow, Bree hadn't noticed his hand. He had managed to disguise it—or at least, if she had seen it, she didn't understand what had happened.

  "You tried to suffocate me," Bree said. "You're a monster."

  Nathan winced. A faint feeling of confusion emanated from the flower. He looked down at his arm. "I thought that was supposed to be gentle."

  "Will you stop talking to yourself!" Bree slumped over, her breath coming rapidly. "Of course, you're insane. Only a madman would do what you did."

  "I still have no idea what you're talking about," Nathan said.

  "Are you seriously going to pretend—" Bree straightened up and glared at him. "I'm talking about you killing all of my lieutenants!"

  Oh… That explained a lot.

  "I know you're mad right now," Nathan said. "But think about this for a second. Why on earth would I do that? Hell, where did you even get this information from?"

  "My right-hand man—"

  Nathan's mind flickered back to the encounter in the forest. What was going on…?

  "Bree, we've both been played for fools," Nathan said. "I think someone with the ability to disguise themselves set this up so that we would kill each other."

  "That's absurd. I verified their deaths myself—and why would my right-hand man lie to me?"

  "I don't think they're your men!"

  Bree froze.

  "What are you saying?" she asked.

  "When I was in the forest, I had a weird encounter. Your right-hand man was telling me that he believed I was a member of the Harrowed Hand. Not only that, but he claimed to have killed my sister. When I got to the body's location, I realized something was wrong. It wasn't my sister. It was a look-alike—I don't know how or why, but they got one of the details wrong. Her eye color."

  Her knuckles lowered slightly. "That's a ridiculous story."

  "It's true. Think about it—how does this make any sense for me to do? If I were really trying to kill all of you, I would've done it in the dungeon or somewhere else, a place where it would've been much easier to hide any evidence."

  Bree's knuckle dusters lowered completely to her sides.

  "That doesn't… But—" She furrowed her eyebrows and looked at her hands. "If it wasn't you… Then who…?"

  Her jaw locked up.

  "Look, if I'm a liar, then why haven't I killed you already?" Nathan said. "Does this really seem like the behavior of someone who's out to get you?"

  Bree's hands shook. "But why?" she said. "Why would someone go to all this trouble?"

  Nathan's thoughts flashed toward Derek. "I don't know. Maybe someone wanted you ousted from your leadership position. I'm guessing it's the Wanderers, though—"

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  "The who?"

  "You know, the forest people?"

  "What?"

  Nathan grimaced. He'd forgotten that he hadn't told her about them.

  "They're connected with the forest, I'm not sure about the details," he said.

  "What do you mean?" Her eyes sharpened. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

  …

  Nathan considered telling her about Silas for a split second before he bit his lip and stayed quiet. Bree scoffed.

  "Typical. Even while defending your innocence, you still keep secrets."

  "Can we please go check in on your supposedly dead lieutenants?"

  Her nose twitched. "Fine. But if I find out you're tricking me, I'll end you."

  "Sounds like a deal."

  They headed into a tent that was dripping with decay. Nathan could smell the blood and rot everywhere. It was no wonder, because the entirety of the tent was filled with nothing but dead bodies.

  When they arrived, someone was there to meet them.

  "B–Bree!?"

  Nathan's eyes wandered toward the source of the voice. It was a familiar person—Bree's right-hand man. Someone whose name Nathan had never bothered to learn.

  Nathan glared at him. The man gulped and stepped back.

  He has to be a Wanderer, like my ‘sister’ in the alleyway.

  "What is he doing here!?" the man shouted. "He should be dead!"

  "He told me an interesting story, one I want to verify first," Bree said.

  The man froze. "What?"

  Bree pushed past him and approached the right side of the tent, where a few people Nathan recognized were lying. She knelt down and examined them.

  "You said eye color, right?" Bree asked.

  "That's what it was for my sister—but there's no guarantee it couldn't be something else."

  Bree grunted and reached out. She opened one of their eyes and shook her head. She moved to the next one, repeating the process for every single body, verifying their eye colors.

  "This isn't looking good for you," Bree said.

  "Do they have any scars?" Nathan asked.

  "All of them do."

  "Check."

  Bree froze for a moment before nodding. She reached out and rolled up the man's sleeve. There was a long, thin line, indicating a slice from a sword.

  "Orc attack," Bree said. "I remember it like it was yesterday."

  Systematically, she went through the others before stopping. "Nathaniel, I'm not finding anything."

  "Keep going."

  Bree grumbled but did as he said. By the time she reached the final body, she turned around and marched up to Nathan.

  "It looks like your story didn't pan out," she said.

  Nathan frowned.

  It seemed that his sister was a one-off. If there were disguises going on, they were normally immaculate, and Nathan just happened to be lucky enough to have an imperfection. Or maybe these were just the real bodies.

  His eyes flickered toward the right-hand man. There were two options now: either these men had been killed by someone pretending to be Nathan or the right-hand man was a liar. But Nathan didn’t think that the Wanderers would take the risk of their plan going wrong. No, they’d want close control over the situation.

  "So, are we gonna finish what we started?" Bree asked.

  "Hold on. One final request, and then we can finish it," Nathan said.

  "What?" Bree snapped, her tone sharp.

  "Check your right-hand man."

  Bree furrowed her eyebrows. Almost imperceptibly, the right-hand man stiffened.

  "You don't think…?" she asked.

  "Just check. Please."

  The right-hand man chuckled. "Check what? Clearly, this guy is trying to get inside your head, Bree."

  Bree rolled the thought around for a bit before nodding. She turned to the man.

  “Remember the first circle?" she asked.

  "What about it?"

  "Remember the time Thomas got into that weird honey sap? Remember how it messed with his head?"

  "Yeah, I remember."

  Bree shut her eyes.

  "That wasn't Thomas. That was James. And it didn't mess with his head—it gave him temporary invulnerability. It was the only reason we survived that circle."

  The right-hand man froze.

  Bree's knuckle dusters flew toward the right-hand man's jaw. There was a loud, thunderous crack that echoed through the tent when they made contact. The right-hand man flopped to the ground, unconscious.

  Nathan took a single step toward the body when he froze. Bree did the same.

  There had been a soft, quiet click.

  Both of them stared at each other, then jumped away from the body as fast as they could.

  A split second later, they heard a loud boom. Flames licked Nathan's cheeks as he was blasted away by the force of the explosion. He crashed into the ground with a loud grunt.

  He groaned. Behind him, the tent was completely decimated, scraps of fabric flying in the wind and aflame.

  "Well, that didn't work how I was hoping it would," he muttered.

  Anand hefted another length of treated wood and climbed the makeshift ladder. A werewolf hauled stone while a mushroom man mixed mortar, and a dozen other creatures all did work. All citizens of Nathan's soulbound town. All obstacles between Anand and his target.

  "Pass it here," Bricks said,.

  Anand handed over the beam with a heave.

  ”You know, you're stronger than you look," Bricks noted, positioning the beam. "Where'd you work before?"

  "Courier service," Anand said. "Lots of packages."

  Bricks grunted. "Hand me those spikes." He turned. “Trem! Get those crossbeams up here!" Bricks shouted.

  Across the site, the slender mushroom man nodded and began climbing the tallest scaffolding.

  Anand returned his attention to Bricks. "How long until this structure is complete?"

  "Eager to move on?" Bricks asked.

  "Just curious about the next job." And how long he'd be stuck playing this role.

  A sharp crack cut through the site's ambient noise.

  Anand's head snapped toward the sound—pure reflex. His eyes found the source immediately: the upper joint of Trem's scaffolding had split, the wood splintering under pressure. Three stories up, the mushroom man froze.

  The entire structure tilted.

  In that instant, Anand processed everything. Distance to the scaffolding: fifteen meters. Estimated collapse time: under four seconds. Falling trajectory: Trem would hit the stone foundation below.

  While mushroom people were hardy and healed quickly, there were still limits—even with magic involved.

  And Trem was high enough for that to be a concern.

  Anand was already moving before the last calculation finished.

  He dropped the hammer, vaulted over the half-built wall, and hit the ground running. The scaffolding groaned as more joints began to fail. Trem clung to the swaying structure.

  "TREM!" Someone shouted.

  Anand reached the base of the scaffolding just as the main support beam gave way. His eyes tracked Trem's falling trajectory, calculating the intercept point. Three steps left, position at a slight angle to absorb impact.

  Trem fell, arms flailing.

  Anand caught him.

  The momentum drove Anand to one knee, but he controlled the absorption of energy to minimize harm to the both of them.

  The scaffolding crashed behind them in a deafening tangle of wood and metal.

  For a moment, silence fell over the construction site.

  The mushroom man stared up at him, trembling slightly.

  "You... you caught me," Trem finally whispered.

  Anand set him down carefully, already forming explanations for his unusually quick reaction time. "Lucky timing."

  Workers converged on them. Garro arrived first, his wolfish features twisted with concern. "By the Nine, Trem! Are you alright?"

  "I'm fine," Trem said. "Thanks to the human."

  Anand brushed dust from his pants.” Anyone would have done the same."

  "Anyone wouldn't have moved that fast," Bricks said. "That was impressive."

  "Former courier, remember?" Anand deflected. "Had to be quick on my feet."

  Bricks nodded slowly. "Right. Courier."

  "The whole section was rotten," someone called from the wreckage. "Trem's lucky to be alive."

  Lucky, huh?

  "Thank you," Trem said.” I owe you."

  Anand grimaced. He nodded curtly and stepped back.

  "Back to work!" Bricks shouted to the crowd. "We've lost enough time. Garro, help Trem to the medical tent. The rest of you, clear this debris."

  As the workers dispersed, Bricks approached Anand again. "Quick thinking there."

  "It was nothing."

  "Wasn't nothing to Trem."

  "I acted on instinct."

  "Good instincts, then." Bricks clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's get back to it. These buildings won't raise themselves."

  As they returned to their section, Anand noticed several workers regarding him differently—with nods of respect or curious glances.

  He'd drawn too much attention, compromised his anonymity.

  The discomfort in his chest persisted.

  He’d made a mistake.

  Morning light filtered through the small window of the workers' dormitory. Most of Anand’s bunkmates had already left, giving him a moment of privacy to check his hidden blade's edge before tucking it into his boot.

  He stepped outside into the communal yard where several workers gathered before heading to their assignments. Bricks stood near the water barrel, distributing the day's tasks to a small group.

  "Anand!" Bricks shouted. "Got someone here to see you."

  As Anand approached, he noticed a tiny mushroom child partially hidden behind Bricks' sturdy frame. Her cap was pale pink with white spots.

  "Go on," Bricks encouraged, nudging the child forward.

  She stepped out. "Are you the fast human who caught my papa?"

  Anand glanced at Bricks, who offered only an amused shrug.

  "Your father is Trem?" Anand asked, crouching down to the child's level.

  The child nodded. ”I’m Sprig. I'm almost five cycles old." She thrust a piece of rough-hewn paper toward him. "I made this for you."

  Anand took it reflexively, studying the crude drawing rendered in what appeared to be colored sap and crushed minerals.

  Stick figures populated the page. A tall, thin one stood next to a smaller one with a pink cap. Nearby was another figure falling from a tall, jagged structure, while the tall stick figure stood with outstretched arms.

  "That's you," she said, pointing to the tall rescuer. "And that's my papa. And that's the bad scaffolding." Her tiny finger jabbed at each figure in turn.

  Anand stared at the drawing, momentarily speechless.

  "You saved him," she continued. "Now he can still tell me bedtime stories."

  "Trem's been telling that rescue story to anyone who'll listen," Bricks explained. "Made quite an impression on his little one."

  In his entire career, before the Harrowed Hand or during, no one had ever created a memorial to Anand's actions. Targets didn't leave appreciative artwork.

  "Thank you," he said.

  Sprig's cap brightened considerably. "Papa says you moved faster than a lightning bolt! Can you show me how?"

  "I don't think—" Anand began.

  "Sprig," Bricks interrupted gently. "Remember what we discussed about personal questions?"

  The child's cap dimmed slightly. "Sorry. Papa says I ask too many questions."

  "It's... fine," Anand found himself saying. He carefully folded the drawing and slipped it into his pocket. "Perhaps another time."

  Sprig beamed again. "Promise?"

  Promises were liabilities in Anand's line of work. Commitments that could compromise efficiency or judgment. Yet he found himself nodding.

  "Good!" Sprig declared, apparently satisfied. "Papa says we should bring you dinner tonight as a proper thank-you. Do you like spore bread? I helped make the last batch. Only dropped it once!"

  A few nearby workers chuckled.

  "Sprig," Bricks said, "the workers need to get to their assignments. And you need to get to your lessons."

  "Fine," she said. "See you later, Mr. Fast Human!"

  She scampered off, cap bobbing with each step.

  Bricks handed Anand a work assignment slate. "East section today. Supporting beams need reinforcement."

  As Anand took the slate, Bricks added more quietly, "Kids, huh? See the world differently than the rest of us."

  Anand said nothing, fingers unconsciously touching the pocket where he'd stored the drawing.

  His mind returned to the stick figure with outstretched arms.

  That's you.