The attack came at dawn.
No warning. No sound. Just a rush of motion and then screaming.
Something tore through the camp, black and fast and silent. Talon shouted. Calla lit the sky with flame. Nova lunged, twin knives flashing.
It didn't matter.
The thing was already among them.
A Shade Beast.
Twice Kieran's height, but moving like smoke. Its limbs unfurled in all directions. Its face—a mask of shadow, featureless, save for the red tear-shaped mark that glowed where a mouth should be.
Hessa met it first, blade drawn.
The air cracked.
They collided in a blur of motion, steel against void. Hessa moved like a weapon made flesh—every strike calculated, every dodge exact. But even she struggled.
"Scatter!" she barked. "Regroup at the ridge!"
Kieran didn't hesitate. He grabbed Talon and ran.
Behind them, the forest exploded into shrieks and flame.
---
They reached the ridge, lungs burning. The others followed one by one, bleeding, limping, pale.
Except Selene.
She didn't run.
She walked.
Unhurried. Calm.
Her robes unburnt. Her skin untouched.
Kieran stared as she approached, shadows pulling back from her path.
"Where's Hessa?" Calla asked.
Selene turned. "Still fighting."
"We have to go back," Talon said.
"No," Selene said. "She bought us time. We use it."
Nova paced the edge of the ridge. "If it's a Shade Beast, it won't stop. It'll track us until one of us dies."
"Not one," Kieran said. "All."
---
Night fell early in the Forgotten World.
They moved quickly, following old stone trails and half-buried sigils. Selene led now, as if she knew the way. The others didn't question it.
Kieran did.
"How do you know where to go?"
"I remember."
"You've been here before?"
She didn't answer.
But her hand rested on the hilt of the blade she rarely used.
That was answer enough.
---
By midnight, they reached an abandoned temple—half-buried in sand and root, its pillars cracked, its altar scorched.
"This place is warded," Selene said. "We rest here."
They set camp again, this time inside stone walls.
No fire. Just silence.
Kieran sat near the door. His shadow stayed close—tense. Ready. Almost trembling.
He looked at Selene across the room.
"You're not what you seem."
"No one is," she replied.
"But you know what's chasing us."
"Yes."
"What is it?"
Selene met his eyes. For once, her calm faltered.
"It's not just a Shade Beast," she said. "It's marked. Which means something gave it your name."
Kieran went cold.
"Why?"
Selene looked at him like he already knew.
"Because something remembers you."