They moved in silence for a time, the wind rustling the long grass in low, whispering waves. The path angled gently down into familiar territory now—broken fences marking the edges of Joel’s land, scrubby trees thinning out as they neared the open fields. For a moment just enjoying the subdued stillness of a cloudy afternoon.

  Del flexed his fingers on hilt of his sword. His limbs ached, and the tension behind his eyes throbbed with the dull rhythm of fatigue. He was looking forward to stopping. Not just pausing—but stopping. Sitting at a real table, washing the grime from his skin, maybe even finishing a meal without looking over his shoulder.

  “Mara’s probably got something on the stove by now,” he said aloud, voice carrying just enough to reach Elara and Misty.

  Elara’s lips twitched faintly. “Assuming she hasn’t run out of patience with Joel’s ‘rain-catcher upgrade’ and thrown the whole pot at him.”

  Del smirked. “Wouldn’t blame her. Last time we were here, she told us how he nearly flooded the smokehouse.”

  ‘If she’s cooked, I’m eating all of it,’ Misty said, tail swishing behind her as she padded ahead. ‘They owe us at least three meals, minimum. Preferably ones that don’t taste of dried shoe leather and regret.’

  Del chuckled under his breath. “We’ll see if Wren saved you any.”

  Misty’s ears flicked back. ‘If she didn’t, I’ll eat her.’

  Elara gave a small snort of amusement, but her gaze stayed fixed on the path ahead. “We’ll have to fill them in. The Blight… what we saw down there. It changes everything.”

  “First, we make sure they’re all right,” Del said. “Then we talk rot and tunnels and how deep this mess goes.”

  They passed a row of overgrown posts, once meant to mark boundaries, now half-collapsed and overtaken by wildflowers. The normalcy of it was almost jarring. After the visions, after the mural and the whispers in the dark, the quiet surface of the world felt too still. Like a stage set waiting for its actors to return.

  Del didn’t realise he’d slowed until Misty stopped ahead of them, her fur bristling slightly.

  ‘Smell that?’ she asked, ears pricked.

  He caught it a moment later. Not the scent of stew or woodsmoke. Something sharper. Something wrong.

  The breeze shifted again. Elara’s hand moved to her bow.

  And then, in that quiet, came the first real sign: a fence line broken and sagging where it hadn’t been yesterday. Grass flattened by heavy boots. A scattering of feathers near the hedgerow.

  Del stopped completely.

  “What is it?” Elara asked.

  He didn’t answer at first. He just stared ahead.

  And the weight that had followed them out of the tunnels… settled fully on his shoulders once more.

  The silence as they approached the farm wasn’t natural. It pressed against Del’s ears like a weighted cloth, muffling even the ambient stir of wind in the grass. He slowed his steps, gaze narrowing as a deep, instinctive unease took hold. The air hung thick, tainted by something unspoken—wrongness made tangible.

  Fences had been broken down, timber splintered and paths of trampled grass lay flattened in haphazard runs towards the farm. This wasn’t weather or wandering livestock. It was an intrusion. It was violence. Del scanned the ground, mapping chaos in the disrupted patterns.

  Misty crept beside him, her fur bristling along her spine, tail low and twitching. A guttural growl vibrated in her throat, barely audible but full of promise. She looked up at him, golden eyes glowing faintly with restrained fury.

  Del drew his sword with practised ease, his voice low and clipped. “Stay sharp. Something’s off.”

  With a flick of her tail, Misty slinked ahead, dissolving into shadow as if the twilight had swallowed her whole. Del shifted his stance and strained every sense—sight, sound, even scent—for signs of movement. The hilt in his grip grounded him, its smooth, worn leather a familiar reassurance in a world that never played by familiar rules.

  Then came Misty’s voice in his mind, crisp and tense. ‘Movement near the farmhouse. Four, maybe five men. Armed.’

  His heart squeezed. Naomi… Joel… please, gods, be safe.

  A faint bark cut through the silence—a high-pitched, desperate yelping, distant but distinct. Del turned sharply toward the sound, just in time to spot a thin wisp of smoke curling upward from the barn. Another tendril snaked skyward near the crossroads—a silent flare, ominous and precise.

  “Wren.” His breath hitched. “That’s Wren. And if she’s barking like that…”

  He didn’t finish the thought. Elara moved up beside him, her expression taut, worry written in every line of her face.

  “This isn’t good,” he said, eyes scanning the perimeter. “Misty’s counting four, possibly five, scattered around the farm.”

  A sick dread twisted his stomach. He bit it back. Charging in blind was a fool’s play, and he knew better. But every second felt like a countdown, a breath closer to whatever was already underway. He couldn’t stop imagining Naomi—what she might be facing. Alone. Scared. Or worse.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Elara stiffened beside him, her gaze locking on something in the trees.

  “Del,” she said sharply, pointing.

  He followed her line of sight. A figure was emerging from the treeline, walking with the easy, unhurried confidence of someone who wasn’t worried about being seen. The glint of metal at their hip caught the last of the sunlight, and the chill that followed sank into Del’s bones.

  “A lookout,” he muttered. “Which means the rest are already in position. If we can drop him without raising alarm…”

  Misty’s presence pulsed through his mind, sharp and savage. ‘Leave that one to me.’

  Without another word, she melted into the undergrowth, a ghost with claws. Del’s fingers tightened on the sword-hilt. He drew a slow, measured breath, tamping down the swirl of panic that threatened to rise.

  ‘We’ve faced worse,’ he reminded himself. ‘But not with stakes like this.’

  ‘Hold on, Naomi. We’re coming.’

  He crouched low beside Elara, their backs pressed to the thick, rough bark of an ancient oak. The elf’s brow furrowed in concentration as she reached inward, following the unseen threads of mana that might indicate where Naomi was.

  Del watched her with quiet intensity. “Can you feel her?” he whispered. “Anything?”

  Elara’s eyes flew open, and for the briefest moment, Del saw something unguarded flicker there—fear, sharp and raw.

  “I… I can’t find her,” she breathed. “It’s like… it’s like she’s been swallowed whole. There’s nothing.”

  Del’s blood turned to ice. Naomi’s dream-walking had always been a tether, a constant hum in the back of Elara’s mind. When she stopped giving them messages and warnings in the tunnels, they had assumed she had tired herself out. But now it took on more ominous connotations. For that connection to vanish without warning—

  “Could she be unconscious?” he asked, his voice cracking around the question. “Or…”

  He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

  Elara reached for him, her hand slipping into his. Her fingers were cool and trembling slightly against the calloused warmth of his own.

  “We can’t assume the worst,” she said, her voice low but firm. “She’s strong. She’s survived a lot in such a short time. And the Goddess watches over her.”

  Del nodded, but the reassurance barely reached him. The silence between their bonds wasn’t just absence—it felt like a void, a sucking blackness that threatened to pull everything else down with it.

  Still, he held on. To Elara’s hand. To the hope that Naomi was still out there, still alright. Because the alternative was unthinkable.

  A rustle stirred in the underbrush, sharp enough to snap both Del and Elara into alert stillness. Misty emerged a heartbeat later, her sleek form slipping through the shadows like smoke. Her tail lashed from side to side, a visible manifestation of her agitation.

  ‘Lookout’s down. Quietly. But move fast—there’s more near the farmhouse. Movement, maybe a shift in guard.’

  Del gave a sharp nod, pushing down the apprehension knotting in his stomach. There was no time for dread. Only action. “Let’s get closer. Stay low and eyes open.”

  They moved together through the tall grass, the whisper of stalks brushing against their legs a deceptively peaceful counterpoint to the storm mounting inside him. As they neared the edge of the property, the devastation came into focus—ugly and brutal in its honesty.

  The farmhouse stood wounded. Windows shattered, their jagged remnants catching the last red smear of daylight like broken teeth. The door hung crooked on one hinge, and deep scars marred the paintwork, as though someone had tried to batter their way inside. Rows of crops, once orderly, had been torn apart—trampled and churned until the soil wept with blackness. And through the soil, Del glimpsed a darker stain, dried to a sick rust.

  ‘Please, don’t let that be blood.’

  Misty slinked beside him, fur rippling with tension. Her voice reached into his mind, low and bitter. ‘They put up a fight. Barricaded the doors and windows best they could. But it’s not going to hold much longer.’

  Del’s jaw clenched. He could see it in his mind: Joel and his family, panicked but resolute, piling furniture against doorframes, grabbing what meagre weapons they had, trying to defend their home. He thought of Naomi, small and fierce, probably doing something foolishly brave. He bit down on the heat rising in his throat.

  “They’ll pay,” he muttered, voice low and dark. “Every last one of them.”

  Elara’s hand found his arm, her touch a calm tether anchoring him to the moment. Her eyes, though worried, were clear and steady. “Justice, Del. Not vengeance. We can’t become what we fight.”

  He let out a slow breath through his nose, the rage retreating just enough to think. His pulse still hammered in his ears, but her words gave it rhythm.

  ‘She’s right,’ Misty added dryly. ‘Losing your head won’t help them. Focus, not fury.’

  ‘Fine,’ Del replied, grinding the word between clenched teeth. ‘But if any of ours are hurt… no promises.’

  ‘Seems fair, Del. Seems fair.’

  He turned to Elara. “We need a plan. If we circle round the back—”

  A scream shattered the air, slicing through the dusk like a blade. High. Sharp. Full of raw, unfiltered terror.

  Del felt it like a jolt to the spine. His whole body stiffened. “Naomi?”

  Before he could move, smoke billowed upward from the direction of the barn. Thick. Acrid. The unmistakable tang of burning hay mixed with oil and scorched wood. Flames licked at the edges of the roof, hungry and wild.

  “They’re trying to force them out,” Elara said, her voice low and shaking with fury. “Drive them into the open. Smoke them like rats.”

  Del’s grip on his sword tightened until the wood groaned. His body begged to charge, to crash through the chaos and tear into the bastards responsible. But that wouldn’t save anyone.

  Think. Move smart. Don’t die today.

  ‘Misty,’ he sent, keeping his tone level, ‘scout the perimeter. Look for tracks. Escape paths. Anything that gives us numbers or positions.’

  A flick of her ears, and she was gone again, melting into the gloom without a sound.

  Del turned to Elara, heart hammering. “Can you feel her? Naomi. Anything at all?”

  The elf closed her eyes, hands curling into fists at her sides. Her brow furrowed, breath slow and deliberate as she reached inward toward the thread that bound them.

  Long seconds passed. Then she gasped softly.

  “She’s alive,” Elara whispered. “I can feel that much. But faint. Like she’s… distant. Or dulled.”

  Del didn’t need her to say it. He could read it in the way her lip trembled, the sudden damp sheen in her eyes. Naomi was either hurt… or close to something worse.

  A soft rustle signalled Misty’s return. Her green eyes caught the last of the failing light, feral and bright.

  ‘Found their camp. About a dozen of them in the woods past the crossroads. Sloppy. Loud. They’re laughing, counting what they’ve stolen like it’s a game.’

  The fire inside Del flared again, sharp and unforgiving. But he forced it down. There’d be time for fury later. Right now, they needed precision.

  “Right,” he said, tightening his belt and checking his weapons were secure. “Here’s what we’re going to do…”

  He began to lay out the plan, voice steady, even as unease clawed beneath his words. He couldn’t shake the sense that everything was hanging by a single fraying thread—the family trapped inside, Naomi possibly wounded or worse.

  The odds were steep. But they'd come too far, survived too much, to falter now.

  And whatever waited ahead, gods help the bastards who tried to stand in their way.