Cool night air hit Cel’s face. Darkness waited outside, thick and nearly complete.
He looked up.
The moon hung somewhere above, barely visible. Just a thin crescent, offering almost no light. Perfect for what he intended.
His feet carried him forward. Away from Lior’s house. Through streets he’d memorized during two days of residence. Toward a specific destination he’d learned through casual inquiry disguised as common curiosity.
The path between houses wound without logic. Until a certain house came into view. Larger than the others, positioned where several paths converged. Its walls built with proper planks rather than the woven branches and mud of its neighbors. Windows with shutters that closed properly.
A guesthouse. The kind of building constructed specifically for merchants and their companions. Villages like this one lived and died by trade routes, and a decent bed with a solid roof was often the difference between a caravan choosing your road over the next village's.
Cel slowed his approach. Let his footsteps fall softer.
Then he saw… a silhouette.
A figure standing before the house’s entrance. Still and straight, wearing armor that caught what little light the moon had to offer and reflected it back in muted gleams.
Sylvaine Grovethorn.
Her armor stood out even in the darkness - sleek charcoal metal and ivory leather, muted gold ornamentation catching what little moonlight there was. A high-collared jacket framed her torso, broken by white leather enforced with a large shield-shaped breastplate at its center, twin panels engraved with roses and curling golden stems. Below her waist, an angular armored girdle gave way to fitted ivory-leather trousers reinforced at the knees, ending in tall metal boots that gleamed faintly with every shift of her weight.
She turned as he approached. Her light green eyes found his through the darkness with unsettling accuracy.
Cel stopped perhaps five steps away. Inclined his head in formal acknowledgment.
“Lady Sylvaine.” His voice emerged quiet. Respectful in the way commoners addressed nobility.
Her expression remained neutral. “Celvian.”
Silence settled between them. Awkward and stretching longer than comfortable.
Cel lifted his head. "If I may ask, what business brings you out at this hour?"
Something that might have been amusement flickered across her features. Dry and brief. “Probably the same reason you are here.”
Same reason?
Cel studied her for a moment.
What reason could she possibly have?
“I see.” Cel shifted his weight slightly. Uncertain how to proceed. “Then I should—”
“You may go back.” The words emerged gentle but firm. Not quite a command. More a suggestion that carried the weight of someone accustomed to being obeyed.
Cel hesitated.
How could he trust someone that followed a naive idealist like Theron?
Then it clicked.
She wasn't here for herself. She was here for Theron. If those mercenaries broke their promise, it wouldn't just be a broken promise - it would make Theron look like a fool who couldn't back his own conviction. Sylvaine wasn't protecting the villagers. She was protecting him.
“As you wish, Lady Sylvaine.” The formality felt strange in his mouth. He turned, preparing to retrace his path back through the darkness.
“Celvian.”
He stopped. Looked back over his shoulder.
Sylvaine studied him with an expression that had shifted into something more curious than commanding. “By chance… are you chronically ill?”
The question hit like cold water. Unexpected and specific enough to freeze his thoughts for a heartbeat.
"No." The denial came immediate. More defensive than he'd intended.
Sylvaine held his gaze for another moment. Then nodded once, dismissing whatever thought she'd been holding. "I understand."
She turned her attention back toward the house.
Cel faced forward again. Started walking. Let his footsteps carry him away from the house and back toward—
“Celvian.”
He stopped. Didn't turn this time. Just stood there, feeling annoyance build in his chest. What now?
Silence stretched. Long enough that he started wondering if he'd imagined the word.
He turned, irritation finally winning out. "What is—"
Her hand snapped up. One finger pressed flat against her lips.
The gesture cut him off more effectively than any word could have. Sylvaine had gone completely still, posture shifting from casual observation into combat readiness so complete it looked carved from stone. Her light green eyes fixed on the house's door.
Then she moved.
Her hand extended, palm facing upward. Soft green light bloomed around her fingers, and leaves began drifting free of it - small and pale, spinning lazily through the air like something newly unfurled. The glow intensified, forming into a shape that solidified with impossible speed.
Her weapon appeared.
A whip-sword materialized in segments - blade sections connected by flexible joints, handle wrapped in leather that looked like black vines. The whole thing gleamed dully in the divine light before the summoning energy dissolved, taking the accompanying leaves with it.
Cel followed her lead, summoning Silent Moon. Three moon phases lid along the spine, glowing pale and steady.
Sylvaine reached for the door. Paused with her free hand resting against the wood, listening.
Cel positioned himself slightly behind her. Close enough to support, far enough to avoid interfering with whatever she planned to do.
Then she pushed it open.
The interior revealed itself in increments. Darkness first, deeper than outside. Then shapes resolving as their eyes adjusted - furniture, walls, the entrance to another room visible beyond.
And on the floor… a body.
Half a body.
The mercenary who'd held Lior's mother. Cel recognized him despite the damage - the leather armor, the build, the way his limbs still lay in positions that suggested he'd felt every second of it before the end came.
The other half lay perhaps two steps further in. Separated cleanly. The cut looked surgical, edges precise despite the violence inherent in splitting a human being into pieces.
Blood had spread across the wooden floor in a pool that was still growing, still finding channels and depressions to fill.
And feeding on the corpse, tearing flesh from bone with methodical efficiency, were creatures.
Three of them. Each perhaps the size of a large dog but built wrong. Limbs too long and jointed in places that shouldn't bend. Skin like burnt leather stretched over frames where bones pierced through in places, jagged tips breaking the surface like something trying to escape from the inside. Their heads were eyeless, featuring instead mouths that opened too wide, revealing rows of teeth that curved inward like fish hooks.
One looked up from its meal. The eyeless head turned toward them, mouth still working on whatever it had torn free. Blood dripped from those inward-curving teeth.
“I’ll take care of the creatures,” Sylvaine whispered. “You get the other people out.”
Before Cel could come up with a response, she charged.
Her whip-sword extended with a sound like metal singing. The blade segments separated, connected joints allowing the weapon to flow like vines while maintaining cutting edges along its entire length. She swung it in an arc that should have been impossible - the weapon bending mid-flight, adjusting its path to strike the creature that had looked up.
The blade caught it across what passed for its neck. The creature’s head separated from its body with the same clean precision the mercenary had received. Both pieces hit the ground.
The other two creatures abandoned their meal immediately. Rose from their crouched positions, limbs unfolding with disturbing grace. They moved fast - faster than their ungainly appearance suggested possible.
Cel moved sideways. Let Sylvaine hold their attention while he made for the doorway leading deeper into the house.
Behind him, combat sounds erupted. The whistle of Sylvaine’s whip-sword cutting air. The wet impact of blade meeting flesh. The creatures’ sounds - not quite shrieks, more like metal scraping against stone.
He pushed through the doorway into darkness that his eyes hadn’t adjusted to yet. Shapes resolved slowly. Two beds, rough frames with straw mattresses. And on them, still sleeping, the merchant and the other mercenary.
‘How are they still asleep?’
Cel crossed to the nearest bed - the mercenary. Grabbed his shoulder and shook. Hard.
The man groaned. Swatted at Cel’s hand without opening his eyes. “Fuck off...”
Cel shook harder. “Wake up you bastard!”
The mercenary’s eyes opened. Confusion filled them, then irritation. “The fuck do you want? It’s the middle of the—”
“We’re under attack.” Cel moved to the merchant’s bed while speaking. Grabbed his shoulder with less patience than he’d shown the mercenary. “Get up.”
The merchant woke slower. His eyes opened but didn’t immediately focus, consciousness taking longer to reassert itself. “What... what is it?”
“Creatures.” Cel hauled him upright by force. “You need to leave. Now.”
Understanding crashed through the merchant’s expression. Fear replaced confusion, his face going pale even in the darkness.
The mercenary had found his sword - kept beside the bed, apparently. Smart, for all the good it would do. He moved toward the doorway leading back to the main room, weapon raised, body falling into the kind of ready stance that came from experience.
The merchant stumbled after him. Cel followed both, Silent Moon gripped tight.
They emerged into chaos.
Sylvaine had killed another creature. Its body lay in pieces - limbs separated from torso, head split open.
But somehow… there were more now.
Five additional creatures had emerged from somewhere. They spread across the room in a loose formation that suggested no particular reason.
The mercenary charged forward immediately. “Get to the door!” he shouted back toward the merchant.
Brave. Stupid, but brave.
He swung his sword at the nearest creature, a wide arc that carried decent form behind it. The blade caught the thing across its torso, cutting deep. Blood sprayed from the wound.
But the creature barely slowed. Its limb - that wrong-jointed thing that shouldn’t be able to move the way it did - lashed out faster than the mercenary could react. Claws caught him across the throat.
His blood spilled across the floor, mixing with the other mercenary's. He went down choking, hands pressed to his neck in a futile attempt to hold himself together.
Cel moved.
Not toward the dying mercenary. Toward the merchant, who’d frozen in the doorway, eyes locked on his hired protection bleeding out.
One of the other creatures charged at him.
Cel’s body moved without thought. Enhanced speed carried him forward, Silent Moon rising to meet the creature’s leap. The violet blade caught it mid-air, momentum doing most of the work. The steel slid through burnt-leather skin and whatever passed for bone beneath.
The creature’s weight drove it further onto the blade. Silent Moon bit deeper, catching somewhere inside the thing’s body. Cel twisted, using the creature’s own momentum to redirect it. The body tumbled past him, crashing into the wall with force that shook the ground.
He spun back toward the merchant and grabbed his arm with his free hand. “Move!”
The merchant stumbled forward, legs remembering how to work. They made for the door - just three steps away, close enough to reach if nothing else went wrong.
Naturally, something went wrong.
Another creature had broken from the fight with Sylvaine. It positioned itself between them and the exit, body low and coiled like springs under tension.
Cel didn’t slow. Let his momentum carry him forward while Silent Moon came around in a horizontal slash. No technique. No form. Just raw speed and enhanced strength driving the blade through space the creature occupied.
The violet steel caught it across the midsection. The cut wasn’t clean - Cel’s lack of proper technique meant the blade dragged and tore instead of slicing smoothly. But the result was the same. The creature folded, body separating enough that its limbs stopped working properly.
They burst through the doorway into night air that felt sharp and clean after the blood-thick atmosphere inside.
The merchant collapsed to his knees. His breathing came ragged, too fast, shock beginning to assert itself. “You... you saved my life.”
“Go.” Cel turned back toward the house. “Raise the alarm.”
“I’ll never forget this.” The merchant’s voice cracked. “I swear it. I’ll—”
“Go!”
The merchant ran. His footsteps retreated into the darkness, gradually building speed as his legs remembered their full function. Then his voice rose, cutting through the night with desperate volume. “Attack! We’re under attack! Creatures in the village!”
The cry repeated. Growing more distant as the merchant ran along the street.
Cel moved back through the doorway.
The room had transformed into a butchery. Blood covered everything - walls, floor, the old furniture. Bodies lay scattered - the two mercenaries in various stages of dismemberment, creature corpses in even worse condition.
Sylvaine stood near the center. Her armor was splattered but she looked uninjured, whip-sword extended to its full length and dripping blood that steamed slightly in the cool air. Four creatures remained, all focused on her.
She glanced toward Cel as he entered. Her expression remained composed despite the carnage surrounding her. “About time.”
Cel didn't bother answering. Just raised Silent Moon and took position.