Daylight had always been the one comfort left. Nights were long and full of howls, but when the sun rose the world seemed to breathe again. People worked openly in the yards, children darted between cookfires, and men leaned against walls without armour on. No one said it aloud, but daylight meant safety. Even the ferals seemed to fade back into the forests when the moon sank.
That morning Ravenholt was a picture of weary routine. Arrows were being re-fletched at trestle tables, bowstrings strung and unstrung to test for fray. Stew bubbled thin in a cauldron. Half the garrison slept in their beds or on benches, boots off and weapons stacked neatly beside them. The air smelled of damp wool, ash, and fatigue.
Elara should have felt calmer, but her blood wouldn't settle. Her silver had been humming since dawn. Not sharp, not overwhelming, but like the faint throb of a bruise she couldn't stop pressing.
Luke noticed too. He stood on the wall near her, back straight, eyes scanning nothing in particular. His jaw worked once as if he was holding a growl. Garrett and Amber walked the yard in opposite directions, their paths never crossing, eyes always moving. To anyone else they looked like wanderers restless to be useful. To Elara they looked like wolves with hackles raised.
She touched her water skin, trying to steady herself. "Something's wrong."
Luke's eyes slid to hers, then back to the treeline. "Yes."
He didn't explain. He didn't need to.
---
No one thought about the scratched man from the night before. He hadn't reported to the infirmary. People assumed he was sulking over his bandages or drunk. The truth was that he had gone back to his chamber, shut the door, and lain down on his cot. By the time the fever took him, no one was near enough to hear. When he rose again, it was not as a man.
He walked the halls for hours, his body lurching at strange angles, eyes yellowed, mouth slavering. Anyone unlucky enough to cross him didn't make it far. A woman carrying laundry, a boy running errands, a guard still fastening his belt. One by one they fell, bitten, clawed, dragged into shadowed corners. By the time anyone noticed, there were not one but half a dozen ferals stalking Ravenholt's corridors.
---
The first scream came from the kitchens. Pots clattered, metal struck stone, and the shriek of a woman being torn open echoed into the yard. At the same moment another shout carried from the barracks, raw and panicked: "They're inside!"
Elara froze with her hands still on a crate of arrows.
"What?" Caleb spun, already reaching for the knife at his belt.
The gates weren't moving. No ladders leaned against the walls. But then more screams followed, not from outside but from every direction at once.
People burst into the yard, blood on their clothes, eyes wide with terror. A man stumbled, clutching his shoulder, only to be tackled from behind by a feral that had once been his bunkmate. The creature's teeth sank into his neck and blood sprayed across the cobbles.
"Saints preserve us—" someone gasped.
The yard exploded into chaos.
---
Elara had only a dagger. Caleb dragged her back against the wall, knife in hand, eyes darting. Torvee already had her bow out, but no arrows. She swore and snatched up a cooking knife from a table instead. Corin grabbed the first club-like thing she saw—a hammer from the fletchers' bench.
"Armoury!" someone shouted, but the doors were too far and the corridors already crawling with snarls. Gunshots echoed within—short, panicked bursts. If rifles had been secured, they weren't making it back out.
Amber was suddenly at Elara's shoulder, blade in hand, golden aura blazing. Garrett had already crossed the yard, cutting down a feral with a clean strike to the skull. Luke pulled Elara behind him with one hand, his other already slick with blood from the creature he'd torn down bare-handed.
"This is how it starts," Garrett said flatly, eyes scanning. "Inside, not out."
Elara's blood turned to ice.
---
A child screamed.
Elara spun to see a girl of maybe seven shoved to the cobbles as people fled past. A feral, mouth frothing, closed the distance in three loping strides.
"NO!" Torvee roared. She threw herself forward, snatching the child up and twisting her body to shield her. The feral hit her like a hammer. Knife or no knife, Torvee was small and not strong enough to hold it off. She went down under its weight, still clutching the child to her chest.
Corin didn't hesitate. She swung the hammer with both hands, smashing it into the side of the feral's skull. Bone cracked but the thing only reeled. It twisted and sank its teeth into Corin's shoulder, tearing deep before Garrett's blade cleaved down through its spine.
Corin staggered back, blood pouring from the bite. The hammer slipped from her fingers. She made a sound, half cry and half gasp, before her knees buckled and she collapsed.
"CORIN!" Elara screamed, diving to her side.
Her aura-sight burst alive. She braced for the sickly yellow she'd seen before—but instead emerald green flared beneath Corin's skin, bright and furious. No one else saw it. To the others, she was just another doomed victim.
"She's bitten!" someone shouted.
"Get away from her!" another guard barked, raising his knife.
Elara's silver surged. She planted herself over Corin's body, dagger raised, eyes blazing. "Touch her and I'll kill you."
The guard faltered, shocked at the venom in her voice. Caleb was already there, knife out, fury in his eyes. "Back off."
Garrett's gaze cut across the yard, sharp and commanding. "She's ours."
No one argued with the wolf.
---
Ferals poured from the corridors, claws raking, teeth snapping. More screams, more blood. The yard was collapsing into madness. People fought with pans, with sticks, with bare fists.
Amber snarled, gold blazing as she cut two down in quick arcs. Garrett hauled a man clear of the gates and threw him aside like a sack. Luke stood solid as stone in front of Elara, every feral that lunged cut down before it reached her.
"Elara!" Caleb shouted, eyes wild. "We have to move!"
She looked down at Corin, pale and unconscious, blood soaking her shirt. Her friend. Her family.
"Grab her!" Elara yelled. "Grab her and follow me!"
Caleb froze for a heartbeat, torn between fight and flight. Then he obeyed. He sheathed his knife, bent, and heaved Corin into his arms, her head lolling against his shoulder.
Torvee scrambled to her feet, still holding the sobbing child. "Where?"
"Anywhere but here," Elara said, voice sharp, fierce, commanding.
The wolves closed ranks instantly, Garrett and Amber flanking, Luke directly ahead.
The yard was gone. Ravenholt was gone. All that mattered was keeping the four of them alive.
---
As they pushed toward the side stair, Elara looked back once.
Smoke rose from the kitchens. Bodies lay torn across the cobbles. The gates shuddered as ferals slammed them from the outside now, answering the chaos within. The keep was falling—falling in daylight.
And in Caleb's arms, Corin bled, unconscious, the bite on her shoulder raw and terrible.
Elara saw the emerald still burning faintly under her skin. She didn't understand it, not yet. But she clung to it like hope.
Because if she hadn't seen that light, she would have thought her friend was already lost.