The campfire had burned to embers, faintly glowing in the cold, misty air. Shadows stretched long across the rocky gorge as the Crown Prince’s generals clustered around him, voices sharp but hushed. Metal clinked as maps were rolled and secured, and boots scuffed the uneven ground. The order came with a strained calm, though it hung heavy as an executioner’s axe.

  “Pull them back,” the prince said, his gaze flicking toward the narrowing cliffs beyond. “We’ll regroup at the gorge’s end. Hold them off here for long enough, and their numbers will mean nothing.”

  A ripple of unease passed through the gathered soldiers. The terrain ahead was treacherous, sharp-edged stone and thick underbrush, but it offered no guarantee of escape. With no more than a shallow stream and crumbling paths leading upward, they would be exposed once the enemy caught up.

  “Leave me to cover it,” she said, stepping forward. Her voice, steady and sharp, cut through the murmurs.

  All eyes turned toward her, though she didn’t meet them. She kept her focus on the Crown Prince, reading his indecision in the tightness of his jaw.

  “Someone else can—”

  “No,” she said, her tone clipped. “I can buy you the time you need.”

  His gaze lingered, searching her face. He nodded once. “Don’t linger longer than you must.”

  A sharp exhalation broke the tension as she turned on her heel and left the circle. The slope back toward the treeline felt like descending into a pit. Each step brought the forest closer, its shadows pooling like spilled ink.

  The forest breathed around her, slow and heavy. Wind rustled through brittle leaves, but the ground beneath her boots remained deathly still. Low fog crept in patches, masking jagged roots and twisted paths.

  She crouched near the base of a gnarled oak and unrolled the worn leather bundle she had carried for years. Traps, crude but deadly, gleamed faintly in the pale moonlight. Snares, tripwires, barbed spikes. The implements of desperation. Her fingers worked without hesitation, looping wire around bark, embedding sharp steel into the earth.

  Birdsong erupted, sharp and frantic, breaking the silence. She froze, hand on the last knot, listening. No birds followed.

  A branch snapped somewhere behind her.

  Her pulse quickened, but she moved slow, deliberate. She set the final trap and rose silently, pressing her back against the tree. Fingers tightened around the hilt of her blade.

  A shadow flickered between the trunks. Then another.

  They were close.

  Her first strike was brutal. A flick of the wrist loosed the dagger hidden at her side. It embedded itself in the throat of the first figure, a lean man who dropped with a gurgled cry.

  The others rushed in, no longer caring for stealth. The forest erupted into chaos as she lunged, twisting her body to avoid a crude axe swing. She drove her blade into the gap between a man’s breastplate and neck, the impact jarring her wrist.

  Two down. Three now, circling her.

  The traps fired. There were whistles, thuds, and screams. A snare lifted one off the ground, his legs flailing as he choked on the wire at his throat. Another stumbled onto the spike bed, crumpling with a sickening crunch.

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  Her breath came in sharp gasps as she pivoted, dodging the wild strikes of the last man standing. His broadsword swung wide, cleaving into the bark of a nearby tree. She darted forward, her dagger flashing once, twice, across his exposed arm and then his stomach. He staggered and fell, choking on his blood.

  The woods fell silent once more.

  Blood dripped from her fingertips, staining the frosted moss beneath her. She pressed a hand against her side, only now registering the deep gash in her abdomen. Warm liquid seeped between her fingers.

  The trees swayed, blurred in her vision, but she forced herself to move. Another wave would come. It always did. The gorge loomed ahead, jagged and unforgiving. She staggered into the clearing, scanning for the others, but they were long gone, the retreat well underway.

  The ground trembled faintly. At first, she thought it was the blood loss making her legs unsteady. Then came the sound: deep, guttural snarls that made the air seem to thicken.

  She turned, hand tightening on her blade as the beast lumbered into view.

  Its hulking frame was even more grotesque than she remembered, patches of its matted fur glistening with unnatural seams. Eyes burned with a feral intelligence, and its jaws opened wide to reveal serrated fangs.

  This was no wild animal. It was a weapon, a living machine bred for destruction.

  The creature charged, its weight shaking the ground. She sidestepped, barely avoiding the swipe of its massive paw. Her blade slashed across its flank, drawing thick, dark ichor, but it seemed unfazed.

  Pain lanced through her as she rolled, narrowly avoiding another blow. Each movement drained her further, but she couldn’t stop. The beast was relentless, and its attacks forced her back, step by step, toward the cliff’s edge.

  Her heel caught on loose gravel. She stumbled, nearly falling, but her hand shot out, gripping a jagged outcrop for balance. The beast advanced, a low growl reverberating through the air.

  The creature lunged, its massive claws raking the ground as she threw herself to the side. Pain lanced through her ribs, but she forced herself to move, to strike. Her blade slashed across the beast’s flank, tearing through muscle and sinew. It bellowed, a sound of rage and pain that made the very air vibrate.

  Before she could recover, a new figure stepped into view, his silhouette framed by the waning light. Clad in dark armor that reflected none of the dying sun, the man moved with a deliberate, lethal grace.

  He was unlike any humans she had ever faced before. There was no wasted movement, no hesitation, only a terrifying certainty in each step. A predator, honed and sharpened to perfection.

  His presence reminded her of a Precursor commander. And that meant her fate was uncertain. The outcome of their encounters varied wildly, depending on their faction. The Precursors of the Blast Furnace, at least, had the decency to spare those who surrendered. There was no such mercy in this man's cold, amber eyes.

  “I wondered who would be foolish enough to stay behind,” he said, his voice smooth and edged with amusement. He drew his blade; a long, slender weapon that seemed to hum with a faint, unnatural energy. “To think it's you, out of all people.”

  Her bloodied hand tightened around the hilt of her dagger, though her grip felt weaker now.

  He tilted their head slightly. “You’ve done well to survive this long. But a job is a job. Nothing personal, kid.”

  He lunged, his blade moving in impossible arcs, as if time itself bent around him. Each strike seemed to blur, a half-second faster than her mind could process. She stumbled, disoriented, the forest spinning around her.

  He slowed, his stance shifting from lethal precision to a strange stillness. “You and I are not so different,” he said, his voice a cold thread in the air. “Tools, both of us. Sharpened, wielded, discarded. It’s a shame, really, that we stand on opposite sides. But in the end, it has to be this way.”

  Her breath rasped, every movement a struggle. His weapon hummed with that unnatural energy, and he turned it in his hand, watching the dark ichor on its edge. “Komodo dragon's venom destroys the ability of the blood to form clots. If you have the will to live, perhaps you’ll fight through it. But even the strongest blades rust when left to fate. If you'd just listened to your father and played the obedient little girl, this wouldn't be happening.”

  He stepped back, the shadows swallowing his form. “Goodbye, Cassiopeia, daughter of Clovis. Don't mistake my inaction for mercy.”

  Cassie’s breath caught. A spike of confusion cut through the haze of pain.

  Who the hell is Cassiopeia?

  Then, darkness took her.