Radeon decided there would be no fight this time. Not because fear touched him.

Fear was expensive, and Radeon did not pay for things he did not need.

It was simpler than that. Fighting burned energy.

It spent breath, qi, attention, and time, and time was the only coin that never came back.

He had taken too much already to throw it away on a brawl that offered nothing but noise and risk.

"Fay. Listen. Crimson token, inside my cloak. Now."

Fay crooked a finger at the man lugging the tied cloak. He hurried over, eyes down, and held it out with both hands.

Radeon guided Fay's hand into the folds. The cloth was stiff in places, still cold from the river.

It smelled of damp stone even after the drying. H er fingers searched by touch alone.

There. An insignia sat stitched inside the lining, half hidden where most eyes would never look.

Fay pinched it free and held it up to the moon. The token was a crest carved in tight detail.

A hooded man. A collared man. A capped man. A crowned man. Four figures, their ranks within the sect shown in what they wore.

At the center sat a glass like vial, small as a thumbnail, with a bead of blood suspended inside. The member's own blood.

It swirled with a dark red sheen that was not dye. Blood, sealed and made to last. Giovanni's mark.

That detail made it almost impossible to forge. Almost.

Fay's gaze lingered on it, then slid to Radeon's stick form, a plain length of wood lying too still for something that had just moved.

Her lips parted as if a question wanted out, how he had come by such a thing. She was young, after all. Curiosity had sharp teeth.

Radeon felt the question forming and cut it off before it could reach her lips. He let Fay's mouth pursed into something that could pass for a grumble.

"Later," Fay said. "When our hands are free. Then tea."

He added a promise to keep her compliant, the kind that sounded simple and meant nothing.

"Very soon."

Fay's eyes narrowed for a heartbeat, then she smiled, sensible enough to accept what she could get.

Radeon took her body again like a glove and turned back to the three men, ready to send the next command.

"We walk straight through." Fay held up her cultist token for the three to see. "No delays."

The three men looked torn between awe and dread. Any link to that cult was not a joke you laughed off later.

It was a rope you woke up choking on. Fay cut their faces short with a sharp beckon.

"Move. No more whispers. No more clever guesses."

Night had fully settled. Steel flashed in brief, hard sparks as blades kissed and clashed in the dark.

Arrows hissed past with a sound like angry mosquitoes, hunting blood to feast on.

Somewhere ahead, two groups were already tearing at each other over the same prize.

Each side convinced they deserved the lion's share.

They fought quiet and quick, the kind of skirmish where men died without ever seeing who killed them.

Then Fay and the three men stepped out into open view. Not a feint. Not a lure. Just a sudden presence where none should be.

Even the fighters hesitated for a breath, thrown by the sheer stupidity of it.

Fay lifted the badge high, letting moonlight catch its gleam, and her voice rang out over the clash.

"The cult has arrived. I have no patience for your squabbling over profit. We are here to honor the dead. Nothing else."

Steel paused half raised. Feet stopped mid step. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath between the pines.

Fay stood rigid, badge still up, and fear tore through her so hard her body tried to betray her.

Radeon felt it in the tightening low in her gut. The sudden tremble in her legs.

He tightened his hold at once, clamping down on her bladder like a fist, forcing her to stand there dry and steady while her heart hammered itself raw.

She was terrified. Mortified even. She was mortal, and she was not stupid.

That made it worse. A fool could stumble through danger and call it luck.

Fay could see the teeth in the plan and still had to walk into its mouth.

Radeon pushed through her, kept her breathing even, kept her face blank.

Then, badge in her hand warmed.

Lines on its surface kindled, red light threading through the carved figures until it shone like a coal in the dark.

The watchers flinched back. Someone swallowed loud.

Fay did not look at them. Radeon guided her straight past the stalled skirmish and deeper into the trees.

Toward the scar on the land where the anomaly had taken its tribulation.

As they drew close, the land stopped looking like a forest and started looking like a warzone.

Sword marks carved the earth in long savage grooves, not shallow cuts but trenches deep enough to swallow a man.

Between the gouges sat craters, wide bowls of torn soil and shattered stone, as if the ground had been punched again and again until it gave up.

'So the real fight started after I left.' Radeon thought.

He did not linger on the evidence. He kept Fay moving, feet picking their way through splintered roots and broken rock, straight toward the center.

They crested a low rise and the sight opened. A broad sheet of glassy ground spread before them, smooth and pale, reflecting the night like frozen water.

It was not a pond and it was not ice. It was earth turned to glass by force. The air above it tasted thin and sharp, and the hairs on Fay's arms lifted.

The epicenter. Radeon pressed a thought into Fay's hands.

"You touched that warm crystal earlier. The big one. We need it."

Fay pulled it out with both hands, hands that wanted to shake. It was a pristine ruby, half an arm's length.

Radeon made Fay hold it between them, close enough that he could alter it with her.

Then he found the rune. A ward, meant to keep certain things out. Misfortune. Resentment. The stink of dead men's grudges.

Radeon snapped it. Not with spectacle. With a simple twist of qi, the pattern broke.

"Fay. Drop it. Run. Now!"

The air shifted at once. Something that had been held back came rushing in, like foul water finding a new crack.

It poured toward the crystal. The ruby drank it greedily, and the change was immediate.

The crimson clarity clouded, then thickened. The surface of vitality that had looked clean a heartbeat ago turned slick and black.

Tar creeping through red as if the stone were bleeding oil. The shine died. The color soured.

Then the crystal began to deform. Jagged, brittle protrusions thrust from it in sharp angles, like broken teeth forcing their way out.

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