They were three miles outside Valewatch when Tyrian's Echo sense screamed a warning.

  Not literally screamed—the sensation was more like a sudden pressure change before a storm, or the way the air felt different right before lightning struck. A disturbance in the ambient harmonic resonance that his training had taught him meant one thing: hostile intent, organized and waiting.

  He'd felt this before. In Draakenwald, right before the corrupted beasts attacked. At Seal II, moments before the Wells pulse that nearly killed them all.

  This time, he didn't ignore it.

  "Stop," Tyrian said, voice sharp enough that everyone froze immediately.

  They'd been walking in loose formation along a dirt road that cut through sparse woodland—Calven and Brayden at point, Tyrian and Camerise in the middle, Varden and Bram behind them, Kaelis ranging ahead as scout. Standard traveling configuration for a group trying to look casual while staying ready for trouble.

  The trouble had found them first.

  Tyrian closed his eyes, focused on the sensation. Let his Echo sense expand outward like ripples from a stone dropped in still water.

  There. And there. And there.

  Figures hidden in the tree line on both sides of the road. At least a dozen—no, more. Twenty? Twenty-five? Hard to tell precisely because they were maintaining discipline, keeping their breathing controlled, their movements minimal.

  Professional.

  Military.

  Waiting.

  "Ambush," Tyrian said quietly. "Both sides of the road. Multiple groups. They're coordinated."

  Calven's hand dropped to his sword immediately, but he didn't draw. Not yet. Drawing would signal that they'd detected the trap, would force the ambushers to spring it before the Fang was ready.

  "How many?" Calven's voice was barely above a whisper.

  "Twenty. Maybe twenty-five. Professional spacing. Military discipline." Tyrian opened his eyes. "And something else. Different resonance pattern. Some of them aren't Avarian."

  Brayden's jaw tightened. "Tiressian?"

  "Probably. But there's another group. Third pattern. Foreign." Tyrian's Echo sense was still feeding him information—not specific details, but broad impressions. Weight distribution. Breathing rhythms. The particular way different combat traditions affected how people moved and positioned themselves. "Heavier armor than standard Tiressian issue. Different stance. Waiting like mountain predators, not plains soldiers."

  Kaelis had circled back at Calven's subtle hand signal, dropping down from a tree branch with barely a sound. "Spotted movement ahead and behind. We're boxed. What's the call?"

  They'd left Valewatch three hours before dawn, moving fast and quiet, taking an inland route that avoided main roads and official checkpoints. The plan had been simple: stay invisible, reach the smaller port where Captain Shiva had promised to meet them in three days, board the Marlinth, and disappear across the sea before Tiressia could organize another intercept.

  The plan had lasted exactly three miles.

  "We could turn back," Bram suggested, voice tight with the kind of fear he was trying unsuccessfully to hide. His hands were shaking slightly as they gripped his medical bag—the one thing he never traveled without, the one thing that made him feel useful when everything else made him feel helpless.

  "They're behind us too," Kaelis said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "Spotted at least six fighters positioned in the rocks about two hundred yards back. Professional placement. Blocking retreat. We're not just boxed—we're in a killing zone."

  Tyrian's mind raced through tactical assessments his training at Temair had drilled into him, enhanced by the hard lessons learned fighting actual combat in Draakenwald and at Seal II.

  They were in open ground—a dirt road cutting through sparse woodland with hills rising on either side. Nowhere to take cover except the trees where their enemies were already positioned and waiting. The undergrowth was thin enough that running would expose them completely. The road itself offered no natural defensive positions.

  Fighting here meant fighting at every possible disadvantage.

  Running meant exposing their backs to professional soldiers with crossbows.

  Surrendering meant capture, interrogation, probably death.

  No good options.

  Just varying degrees of terrible.

  "Varden," Tyrian said, and his voice came out steadier than he expected. Clear. Certain. "Can you create a barrier? Something to buy us time?"

  The runebinder was already assessing angles, calculating runework patterns. "Thirty seconds of solid defense. Maybe a full minute if I burn myself out completely. Won't hold against sustained magical assault, but it'll give us breathing room."

  "That's all we need. Camerise?"

  She met his eyes, all four arms already moving in preparatory patterns. "I can disrupt their coordination. Make them hesitate. Confuse their communication. But Dreamweaving at that scale is exhausting. I can't hold it for more than a few minutes."

  "A few minutes is enough. Kaelis?"

  The Lyfan grinned despite the fear in her eyes. "I can be extremely annoying and very hard to hit. Also I can probably take out their archers before they turn Bram into a pincushion."

  "Hey," Bram protested weakly.

  "Brayden?"

  "I hold the rear," the veteran said simply. "Nothing gets past me. I don't care if it's one soldier or twenty."

  Tyrian looked at Calven last.

  The captain's face was grim, jaw clenched. His eyes had that particular sharpness that meant the proto-Varkuun was already stirring—hyperawareness bleeding through, senses sharpening, predatory instincts waking.

  "Can you hold it together?" Tyrian asked quietly.

  Calven's hands trembled slightly. Not from fear. From the effort of keeping something massive and terrible locked down inside a body not built to contain it.

  "I'll have to," Calven said, voice rougher than normal. Almost a growl. "If I lose control out here, we all die. So I won't lose control."

  It wasn't reassuring. But it was honest.

  A voice called out from the trees—amplified by magic:

  "WHITE FANG! You are surrounded by authorized agents of the Tiressian Empire and allied mercenary forces. Surrender immediately and you will be taken alive for questioning. Resist and we are authorized to use lethal force."

  Tiressian accent. Officer's cadence. Someone who commanded professionals, not thugs.

  "Allied mercenary forces?" Varden muttered. "Since when does Tiressia hire local mercenaries?"

  "Cheaper than deploying full military units," Brayden said. "Gives them plausible deniability. Standard imperial tactics."

  "Also," Camerise added softly, "it means some of the people about to try killing us are Avarians. Our own countrymen."

  That landed hard.

  The voice called again: "You have thirty seconds to comply. Lay down your weapons. Kneel with your hands visible."

  "Thoughts?" Calven asked.

  Tyrian took a breath. This was it. The moment where theoretical leadership became actual command.

  He could surrender. Hope Tiressia wanted them alive.

  Or he could fight. Commit them all to violence and the real possibility some wouldn't survive.

  Neither option was good.

  But one meant keeping control of their fate.

  "We fight," Tyrian said, voice unwavering. "We break through the line ahead. North into rougher terrain where they can't coordinate as easily. Lose them in the hills."

  "That's insane," Bram whispered.

  "That's the plan," Tyrian confirmed. He looked at each of them. "Calven takes point. Breaks their formation. Kaelis provides aerial harassment, keeps their archers occupied. Varden and I protect the center. Camerise disrupts coordination. Brayden covers our rear. Bram stays between Varden and Brayden where it's safest."

  It was the first time Tyrian had ever given tactical orders to the entire group.

  Not suggestions. Orders.

  No one questioned them.

  Calven's smile was sharp and cold and absolutely terrifying. "Good plan. Simple. Probably going to get us all killed. I love it."

  The thirty seconds expired.

  "FINAL WARNING. SURRENDER OR—"

  Calven charged.

  Not toward the voice calling the warnings. Not toward the obvious center of their formation where the Tiressian officer was almost certainly positioned. Toward the weakest point in their encirclement—a gap Tyrian's Echo sense had detected between two groups where the trees thinned and the undergrowth was sparse enough that running wouldn't mean tripping over roots every third step.

  His shield came up first—battered steel that had saved his life a hundred times, scarred with dents from weapons that should have killed him. His sword cleared its sheath with a sound like silver bells and winter wind. And the proto-Varkuun surged.

  Not completely. Not the full transformation that would turn Calven into something halfway between human and ancient predator. Just enough to make him more. Faster than any human had a right to be. Stronger than physics should allow. More aware, more focused, more dangerous.

  His eyes flashed pale gold for half a heartbeat.

  Then he was across twenty yards of open ground and slamming into the ambush line like an avalanche given human form.

  The ambush broke from cover.

  Tyrian's earlier assessment had been optimistic. Not twenty enemies. Not twenty-five. Closer to thirty. Maybe more hiding in reserve.

  Tiressian soldiers in imperial colors—ten of them at least, armored in the kind of quality steel that cost more than most mercenaries earned in a year, moving with the disciplined precision that came from drilling together until coordination became instinct. Professional. Deadly. Exactly the kind of soldiers who didn't panic when plans went wrong.

  Local Avarian mercenaries—another twelve or thirteen, lighter armor, more varied weapons, less coordinated but still dangerous because desperate men with blades were always dangerous. They'd been hired for coin and wouldn't hesitate to earn it with Fang blood.

  And five others.

  The five made Tyrian's breath catch and his Echo sense scream warnings he didn't fully understand.

  They were dressed differently from everyone else. Heavier furs over leather and mail. Weapons that looked designed for mountain warfare—short swords built for close quarters, throwing axes balanced for distance, war hammers meant to crack bones through armor. Their gear was marked with symbols Tyrian didn't recognize—geometric patterns that might have been clan marks or territorial identifiers or something else entirely.

  But the style was unmistakable.

  Foreign. Not Av

  arian. Not Tiressian.

  Embiad.

  From across the Estwarin Sea, from a continent Tyrian had never visited, these warriors had come.

  To hunt the White Fang specifically.

  To hunt him specifically.

  The Tiressian officer—a woman with lieutenant's insignia and the kind of scarred face that said she'd earned her rank through combat, not politics—shouted orders in clipped imperial cadence. Her soldiers responded instantly, forming a spear-wall to block Calven's charge while archers took position on the flanks and began drawing back bowstrings.

  Calven hit the spear-wall like a force of nature given physical form.

  His shield caught the first spear thrust, deflected it high and outside. His sword cut low in the same motion, found the gap between a soldier's breastplate and tasset, bit deep. The man went down screaming, clutching a wound that was bleeding too fast to survive.

  Calven's momentum carried him into the second rank before they could properly brace. His shield slammed into a soldier's face hard enough to break bone. His sword found another gap—this time between helmet and gorget, the kind of precise strike that only came from years of practice and instinct sharpened to razor edge.

  The proto-Varkuun was fully awake now, riding just beneath Calven's skin like lightning barely contained by flesh. Tyrian could see it in the way the captain moved—too fast, too fluid, predatory grace that shouldn't exist in human muscle and bone. His teeth were bared in something halfway between a grin and a snarl. His eyes had that pale golden sheen that meant the transformation was pushing closer to the surface.

  But he was still Calven. Still fighting with discipline and purpose and tactical awareness. Still calling warnings to his teammates—"Archers left!" and "Second wave incoming!"—still adjusting his position to protect them, still human enough to stay controlled.

  Barely.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Tyrian could see the effort it cost him. Could see the way Calven's hands shook between strikes, the way his breathing came harder than it should, the way he had to actively force himself not to drop his weapon and just tear into enemies with bare hands and manifesting claws.

  Staying human was becoming harder every time.

  But he was managing it. For now.

  Kaelis launched herself skyward—literally, using wind-magic to vault fifteen feet straight up and catch a low tree branch that bent alarmingly under her weight but held. She swung once, building momentum, released at the perfect moment, and spiraled through the air like a leaf on a storm wind.

  She came down behind the Tiressian archers like vengeance made flesh.

  Both daggers were drawn—curved blades designed for quick, precise cuts rather than heavy strikes. She landed in a crouch that absorbed impact, rolled forward, came up inside the archers' formation before they could properly track her movement.

  Three archers went down in the first three seconds.

  Not killed—Kaelis was vicious but not unnecessarily cruel, and live enemies who fled spread more fear than dead ones who became martyrs. But they went down hard. Hamstrings cut. Bow hands slashed. Weapon arms disabled with strikes that were surgical in their precision.

  The remaining archers tried to turn, tried to bring their bows to bear on a target that was already moving again, already somewhere else, already behind them or beside them or above them on another branch.

  Kaelis fought like wind given solid form—never where you expected, never moving in predictable patterns, always three steps ahead of anyone trying to track her.

  A Tiressian archer managed to loose an arrow at point-blank range.

  Kaelis twisted mid-air, let the arrow pass so close it cut a line across her jacket, and drove her knee into the archer's solar plexus hard enough to lift him off his feet.

  Another archer swung a short sword at her—backup weapon, probably never expected to use it.

  Kaelis ducked under the swing, swept his legs, and was gone before he hit the ground.

  Within thirty seconds, the entire archer formation was neutralized.

  The Avarian mercenaries charged the center position where Tyrian, Varden, and Camerise stood.

  This was where the real test came.

  Varden's runes flared to life—complex geometric patterns traced in the air with movements so fast his fingers blurred, each symbol snapping into place with audible crystalline chimes. Defensive wards materialized as transparent barriers that shimmered like heat haze, deflecting the first volley of crossbow bolts that would have turned Bram and Camerise into pincushions.

  Then offensive sigils—Varden's specialty, the kind of combat runework that had made him legendary in certain circles before he joined the Fang.

  The ground beneath three charging mercenaries suddenly became liquid. Not water—something worse. Frictionless, unstable, impossible to run on. They went down in a tangle of limbs and dropped weapons.

  A fourth mercenary managed to stay on solid ground but ran straight into an invisible wall of compressed air that Varden had erected between one heartbeat and the next. The impact was like running face-first into a stone wall. The mercenary dropped, probably concussed.

  A fifth and sixth came at different angles—smart, trying to flank, trying to get past Varden's defenses through sheer numbers.

  That's where Tyrian stepped in.

  His Echo Blade training took over—muscle memory refined through endless hours of practice, instincts sharpened by actual combat in Draakenwald and at Seal II. He didn't think. Didn't hesitate. Just moved.

  His sword was a blur. Parry. Riposte. Sidestep. Counter. He wasn't trying to kill—wasn't trying to match them strength for strength. He was trying to control space, to keep them off-balance, to create openings for Varden's magic and Brayden's sword.

  An Avarian mercenary swung an axe at Tyrian's head. Tyrian ducked under it, felt the wind of its passage ruffle his hair, came up inside the man's guard and slammed his pommel into the mercenary's jaw. The man dropped.

  Another came from the side—sword high, telegraphing the strike. Tyrian shifted weight, let the blade pass inches from his chest, and swept his opponent's legs. The mercenary went down hard.

  Behind him, Brayden fought with the mechanical precision of a career soldier. No wasted movement. No unnecessary flourishes. Just efficient, brutal effectiveness that kept the rear clear and Bram alive.

  Camerise stood in the center, all four arms weaving Dreamweaver magic.

  Her power wasn't offensive. Wasn't destructive. But it was devastatingly effective.

  Tiressian soldiers suddenly hesitated mid-strike, confused by phantom voices calling retreat orders that weren't real. Avarian mercenaries turned on each other for half a second before realizing their mistake. The lieutenant's shouted commands became garbled, lost in a fog of dreamstuff that made communication impossible.

  The ambush's coordination collapsed.

  And that's when the Embiad warriors entered the fight.

  They moved differently from the Tiressians or Avarians. Lower stance. More cautious. They didn't charge blindly—they flanked, they waited for openings, they struck with the kind of patient brutality that came from fighting in harsh environments where mistakes meant death.

  One of them—a massive man with a war hammer and scars that suggested he'd survived more fights than most soldiers ever saw—went straight for Calven.

  The hammer swung in a vertical arc meant to crush Calven's skull.

  Calven caught it on his shield. The impact drove him back three steps, boots carving furrows in the dirt. The proto-Varkuun roared inside him and he shoved back with inhuman strength.

  The Embiad warrior stumbled but didn't fall. Grinned like this was exactly the kind of fight he'd been hoping for.

  "Edhegoth sends its regards, Whitefang," he growled. His accent was thick, unfamiliar. "You're wanted on both continents now."

  He swung again.

  Calven blocked. Countered. The fight became a brutal exchange of strength against strength, shield against hammer, human discipline fighting to stay ahead of proto-Varkuun instinct.

  Tyrian saw Calven's control slipping. Saw the moment the captain's eyes went fully golden. Saw fangs start to extend.

  "Calven!" Tyrian shouted. "Stay with us!"

  For a heartbeat, nothing changed.

  Then Calven's eyes flickered back to winter-blue. The fangs retracted. He was still fighting like something halfway to predator, but he was present.

  Human.

  The Embiad warrior overextended on a downward strike. Calven sidestepped, slammed his shield edge into the man's knee, and followed with a sword thrust that punched through leather armor into the warrior's shoulder.

  The Embiad fighter went down.

  But there were four more. And they were closing on Tyrian's position.

  "Varden!" Tyrian called. "I need a barrier on the left flank!"

  "Working on it!" Varden's hands were moving in complex patterns, sweat pouring down his face. "Give me ten seconds!"

  They didn't have ten seconds.

  Two Embiad warriors charged Tyrian simultaneously—coordinated, professional, deadly. One high, one low, giving him no good defensive option.

  Tyrian did something he'd only done once before, back in Draakenwald when desperation had unlocked instinct.

  He used Echo Step.

  The world blurred. Reality stuttered. Tyrian existed in two places at once for a fraction of a second—here and three feet to the left—and then snapped back into single existence in a position that let both strikes miss completely.

  The Embiad warriors stumbled, confused.

  Tyrian's sword found the first one's exposed side. Not a killing blow—just enough to make him back off clutching a bleeding wound.

  The second warrior recovered faster, came at Tyrian with a short sword that moved like silver lightning.

  Tyrian barely blocked the first strike. The second grazed his shoulder, cutting through his jacket and drawing blood. The third would have opened his throat if Brayden hadn't appeared from nowhere and intercepted with his buckler.

  "Focus!" Brayden snapped. "You're thinking too much!"

  He was right. Tyrian was fighting like a student again—analyzing, hesitating, second-guessing instinct.

  He needed to fight like a leader.

  The next exchange was different. Tyrian stopped thinking and just moved. Parry became riposte became sidestep became counter. His Echo sense fed him information about his opponent's balance, his weight distribution, the micro-tells that preceded each attack.

  The Embiad warrior was skilled. Experienced. Dangerous.

  But Tyrian was faster.

  His blade found the warrior's wrist. The short sword dropped. Tyrian's follow-up strike—pommel to temple—sent the man to the ground unconscious.

  Around him, the fight was turning.

  Calven had broken the Tiressian spear-wall completely and was now fighting three soldiers at once while somehow staying just controlled enough not to tear them apart with bare hands.

  Kaelis had taken out all the archers and was now harassing the Tiressian lieutenant with aerial attacks that gave the officer no chance to reorganize her troops.

  Varden's barriers were holding, protecting Bram and giving Camerise the space to keep her Dreamweaver disruption active.

  Brayden was fighting like a one-man defensive wall, his sword everywhere it needed to be.

  The ambush was failing.

  The Tiressian lieutenant saw it too. Shouted something about withdrawal. Her remaining soldiers began backing toward the tree line, dragging wounded with them.

  The Avarian mercenaries fled entirely. Scattered into the woods without even pretending to maintain discipline.

  But the last two Embiad warriors didn't retreat.

  They stood their ground, bloodied but defiant, war axes raised.

  "Blackwood!" one of them called. Male voice, accent so thick Tyrian could barely understand. "You think only Avaria cares about your forest wounds?"

  He spat blood. Grinned through split lips.

  "Something moves under Edhegoth. We feel it in the stone. Hear it in dreams. Our shamans speak of old things waking." He pointed at Tyrian with his axe. "We were told the Blackwood line can hear the Seals. Can feel them breaking. Is that true, Echo-boy?"

  Tyrian froze.

  They knew. Specifically. Not just "the White Fang is dangerous" but "the Blackwood bloodline has abilities tied to the Seals."

  How?

  Who told them?

  "Answer me!" the warrior demanded. "Can you hear them? Can you stop what's waking beneath our mountains?"

  "I—" Tyrian started.

  The warrior's companion grabbed his arm. "We go. Now. Mission failed. We tell the clans what we learned."

  They backed toward the trees, weapons still raised, eyes locked on Tyrian.

  "Seal III is waking," the first warrior said. "When it breaks, Edhegoth bleeds. If you can stop it, Bridge-blood, then cross the sea. We will not hunt you there. But if you stay here while our home dies..."

  He didn't finish the threat.

  Didn't need to.

  They disappeared into the forest.

  The Fang stood in the aftermath, breathing hard, bleeding from a dozen minor wounds, surrounded by bodies and broken weapons.

  They'd won.

  Barely.

  They didn't stop to celebrate or even to properly tend their wounds. Just grabbed what supplies they could carry and moved—fast, pushing north into rougher terrain where pursuit would be harder.

  Two hours later, when Calven was satisfied they'd lost any trailing forces, they collapsed in a small clearing surrounded by dense undergrowth.

  Bram immediately went to work on injuries. Nothing life-threatening—cuts, bruises, one of Varden's fingers broken from blocking a blade. But enough blood had been spilled that they looked like they'd been through a war.

  Tyrian sat against a tree, breathing hard, trying to process what the Embiad warrior had said.

  We were told the Blackwood line can hear the Seals.

  Told by whom? Shamans? Intelligence networks? Someone in Tiressia spreading information deliberately?

  And more importantly: if Embiad knew about the Blackwood bloodline's connection to the Seals, who else did?

  "That was too close," Kaelis said, cleaning blood off her daggers. "Way too close. They had our position. Knew our route. Almost like someone told them exactly where we'd be."

  "Possible," Brayden said grimly. "Valewatch has Tiressian informants. Could have reported which road we took. Tiressia has the resources to set up ambushes on multiple routes."

  "But the Embiad warriors," Tyrian said. "They weren't there for the bounty. They were there for information. About me specifically. About what I can do."

  Varden was examining his broken finger, wincing as Bram splinted it. "The warrior said 'we were told the Blackwood line can hear the Seals.' Past tense. Someone briefed them before they ever left Embiad. Someone knows exactly what you are, Tyrian. And they're sharing that intelligence across continents."

  "The question is why," Camerise said softly. She was sitting very still, all four arms folded, expression distant. "If someone wants you dead, hiring assassins makes sense. But hiring people to ask questions? To confirm your abilities? That suggests they want you for something."

  "Or want to know if I'm actually dangerous enough to bother killing," Tyrian said.

  "You survived Seal I's rupture," Calven pointed out. "You stabilized Wells surges at Seal II that should have killed you. You can perceive the Seal network when most people can't even detect individual Seals. Of course you're dangerous enough to bother killing. The question is: are you dangerous enough to capture instead?"

  The thought made Tyrian's skin crawl.

  "So what do we do?" Bram asked. "We can't keep fighting ambushes like this. Eventually we'll lose. Eventually someone will get lucky and—"

  "We reach the ship," Calven interrupted. "We get to Embiad before Tiressia can organize another intercept. Once we're at sea, we're harder to track. Harder to ambush."

  "Assuming Captain Shiva actually shows up at the rendezvous," Kaelis muttered.

  "She will," Tyrian said. He didn't know why he was certain, but he was. "She needs us as much as we need her. Wells-corrupted waters aren't something you sail through with just skill and luck. You need people who can actually sense and stabilize the corruption."

  Varden pulled out his notes—crumpled, bloodstained, but still legible. "I've been analyzing the pattern. Seal I ruptured in Draakenwald. Seal II destabilized weeks later on the western coast. Now Seal III is showing activity on Embiad. The progression is accelerating. And more importantly—"

  He spread a rough diagram on the ground.

  Three points, connected by lines.

  "The Seals aren't independent. They're nodes in a network. Pressure on one node transfers to the others. Like a chain under tension—break one link and the strain redistributes to the remaining links. Which means they get weaker. Closer to breaking."

  "So stabilizing Seal II bought us time," Tyrian said, "but it didn't solve the problem."

  "Exactly. It just moved the problem. Seal II's pressure had to go somewhere. It went to Seal III."

  "Which means going to Embiad isn't about saving one region," Camerise said quietly. "It's about preventing the next cascade. If Seal III ruptures, the pressure moves to Seal IV. Then V. Then VI. Eventually the entire network fails."

  "How many Seals total?" Kaelis asked.

  "The texts I've found reference thirteen," Varden said. "But I can't confirm that's accurate. Could be more. Could be fewer. What I can confirm is that they're all connected, and the connections are weakening."

  Tyrian closed his eyes and reached for his Echo sense.

  The world shifted. He could feel them now—faint points of stress scattered across distances his physical senses couldn't measure. Seal I, still bleeding. Seal II, burning with instability. Seal III, flickering.

  And beyond them, so distant they were barely perceptible: other points. Other Seals. Dormant for now but stirring. Waking slowly like sleepers disturbed by noise from another room.

  The network was failing.

  And underneath it all, binding everything together, the serpent's presence. Not hostile. Not friendly. Just... there. Vast. Ancient. Broken.

  Calling to him.

  Bridge. Come. Find the Third. Before the chain breaks completely.

  Tyrian's eyes snapped open.

  "We need to move faster," he said. "Seal III won't wait for us to figure out logistics. It's waking now. If we're not there when it ruptures—"

  "Thousands die," Calven finished. "Same as everywhere else."

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  Then Brayden spoke: "So we run. Stay ahead of Tiressia's hunters. Reach the ship. Cross the sea. Do what we can to stabilize Seal III. And hope we're not too late."

  "That's a terrible plan," Bram said weakly.

  "It's the only plan we have," Tyrian replied.

  Camerise suddenly gasped.

  All four of her hands flew to her head. Her eyes went completely white—not glazed, not distant, but white like someone had replaced her pupils and irises with blank light.

  "Camerise!" Tyrian lurched forward, caught her before she fell.

  She was trembling. Breathing in rapid, shallow gasps. Lips moving soundlessly.

  Then she screamed.

  Not loud. A thin, desperate sound that cut through the clearing like a blade.

  "What's wrong with her?" Bram's voice was panicked. "What do I do? How do I—"

  "Dreamfall," Varden said grimly. "She's having a vision. Involuntary. Don't try to wake her. Just keep her from hurting herself."

  Tyrian held her, feeling her shake, watching her eyes bleed white light.

  This lasted fifteen seconds that felt like hours.

  Then Camerise's eyes flickered back to sapphire blue. The light faded. Her breathing slowed.

  She looked at Tyrian with an expression of absolute terror.

  "I saw it," she whispered. "Seal III. On Embiad. A mountain—jagged peaks like broken teeth—splitting open. Light bleeding from the crack. Wells corruption pouring out like water from a broken dam."

  "When?" Calven demanded.

  "Soon." Camerise's voice was shaking. "Weeks. Maybe days. The timeline is collapsing faster than we thought."

  "Could you see where exactly?"

  "Edhegoth. Mountain range. I don't know the name but I'd recognize it if I saw it." She looked at each of them. "When Seal III ruptures, it won't be like Seal I. It'll be worse. Bigger. More violent. Because the network is already strained. Already weakened. This won't be a localized event. This will be regional catastrophe."

  "How bad?" Tyrian asked.

  Camerise met his eyes.

  "Edhegoth has a population of maybe three hundred thousand. When Seal III breaks, half of them die in the first hour. The rest die over the following days unless someone stabilizes the rupture."

  Silence.

  Three hundred thousand people.

  Half dying instantly.

  The rest depending on the White Fang to save them.

  "Then we'd better not be late," Calven said quietly.

  They gathered their gear and moved.

  North toward the rendezvous point. Toward Captain Shiva and the Marlinth. Toward the sea and Embiad and Seal III.

  Toward a crisis that made everything they'd faced so far look like a practice exercise.

  The Fang was being hunted on two continents now.

  But they were hunting something too.

  They were hunting time.

  And time was running out.

  THANKS FOR READING!

  The scope just went from "continental" to "transcontinental." The Fang got ambushed by Tiressian soldiers, Avarian mercenaries, AND warriors from Embiad—meaning their reputation (and bounty) has spread across the sea. The Embiad fighters knew about the Blackwood bloodline's connection to the Seals. Someone's been sharing intelligence.

  Varden confirmed the Seals are networked—pressure on one transfers to others. Stabilizing Seal II just moved the problem to Seal III.

  And Camerise saw it in Dreamfall: Seal III rupturing. A mountain splitting open. Three hundred thousand people in danger. Half dying in the first hour.

  The timeline just collapsed. They're out of time.

  Next: "The Third Voice" - Arc II's conclusion and the commitment to cross the sea.

  Monday/Wednesday/Friday. This is getting real. Rate & review!