Chapter 27. Ambush at Dawn

The sky was still ink-blue when Neriah felt the first shift in the wind.

She stood alone at the southern edge of the encampment, boots caked with yesterday’s mud, fingers knotted around the rough hem of her shirt. The trees beyond the clearing seemed to breathe: mist rising from the sodden earth in low, sinuous coils, spilling between twisted trunks like ghosts refusing to sleep. Their branches held the hush of anticipation—no birdsong, no rustle of small feet, only a breathless, uneasy silence that felt as though the world itself was bracing for pain.

Behind her, the camp slept. Or so she thought.

Neriah’s nerves crawled beneath her skin. The Flame flickered low in her belly, restless, uneasy. She inhaled the bracing chill—wet earth, pine, distant woodsmoke—and tried to slow her pulse.

A twig snapped in the shadows behind her, so soft it might have been her imagination. She didn’t startle, didn’t turn. Instead, she listened—counted the silence, the subtle sh