**Day Three – Before Dawn**
We don't sleep.
Nobody suggests it. Nobody even tries. The air is too thick, too wrong. Every shadow could hide a cultist. Every sound could be the advance warning of an ambush.
Felric gathers us around a hastily sketched map, his scarred face grim in the darkness. "Umbral Hollow is three hours' hard march from here. But the approaches are saturated with cult presence—patrols, wards, probably scrying networks."
"Probably?" Marcus asks.
"Definitely," Nyssa corrects. "I recognize the markers. They've laid detection grids. Anything living that enters within a mile of the Hollow's perimeter triggers alarms."
The weight of that statement lands hard.
"So we can't sneak in," Thea says flatly.
"We can try," Nyssa responds. "But it's risky. The detection wards respond to magical signatures and body heat. We'd have to move completely silent, suppress all magical emanation, and hope nothing trips the physical sensors."
"That's not a plan. That's suicide with extra steps," Elira mutters.
"We don't have better options," Felric says. "The cult knows we're coming. They've been herding us this direction since yesterday. They *want* us to reach Umbral Hollow."
"Then why not just attack?" Toren demands. "They've had opportunities—"
"Because they want Ren alive and relatively undamaged." Seraphine's voice is quiet but cuts through everything. "They need him intact. Which gives us one advantage—they won't kill him outright. But everyone else? We're expendable. They'll kill us to get to him."
All eyes turn to me.
"So we split up," I say quietly. "I go in alone. You all retreat—"
"Absolutely not." Kaela's voice is sharp as broken glass. "That's insane. You walk in there solo and they own you completely."
"But if I take all of you—"
"Then we die together or live together," she interrupts. "Not abandoning you. Ever."
Lysara steps forward, her analytical mind already working the problem. "Tactically speaking, a small team has better chances than a large one. The detection wards are calibrated for mass signatures. Ten people will definitely trigger alarms. But three or four? Possibly escapable."
"Who?" Felric asks sharply.
"Ren, obviously. Myself—elven magic doesn't register the same way on human-designed wards. Kaela—she has minimal magical signature, mostly physical." Lysara pauses. "And one more. Someone who knows the layout. Someone who can guide us to where Miren is held."
Everyone looks at Nyssa.
She's silent for a long moment. Then: "If I do this, I'm walking back into the place that destroyed my family. The place I escaped from." Her violet eyes are haunted. "But yes. I know the layout. I know where they keep prisoners. I know the guard rotations."
"That's four," Felric says. "The rest of us create a distraction on the perimeter. Draw guard attention away from your infiltration route."
"That's suicide," Marcus says flatly. "We'll be surrounded, outnumbered—"
"Yes," Felric agrees. "But we buy them time. That's all we can do."
The plan is terrible. Desperate. Likely to get everyone except the four infiltrators killed.
It's also the only plan we have.
"We move in thirty minutes," Felric announces. "Get what rest you can. Check your weapons. Say your goodbyes."
**Thirty Minutes Before the Assault**
I find Kaela sharpening her blade with focused intensity, working the stone along the edge with practiced precision.
"You don't have to do this," I say.
She doesn't look up. "Yes, I do."
"Lysara could handle infiltration without—"
"Lysara's brilliant, but she's not a fighter." Finally, Kaela meets my eyes. "If something goes wrong, if cultists spot you, Lysara's magic is good for offense but terrible for defense. You need someone who can fight close quarters. You need me."
"I need you alive."
"Then don't get us caught." She sets down her blade. "Ren, listen. We've trained for this. We've fought corrupted beasts. We've stood against impossible odds. This is just... bigger. Scarier. But the fundamentals are the same."
"Except this time if we fail, my mother dies. And you all die with her."
Kaela grabs my shoulders, forcing me to look directly at her. "I'm not dying. You're not dying. Your mom's not dying. We're going in, we're getting her, we're getting out. And then we're going home. That's not optimism, that's fact."
Her fierceness is almost enough to make me believe it.
Almost.
"Warrior's oath?" she asks.
"Warrior's oath," I confirm, but the words feel fragile now.
She pulls me into a quick, fierce hug that surprises me before letting go. "Now stop catastrophizing. We have work to do."
**Lysara – The Warning**
I find Lysara checking her magical components, cataloging them with meticulous precision. She looks up as I approach, her silver eyes calculating.
"You're worried," she says. Not a question.
"Terrified," I correct.
"Statistically reasonable." She sets down her materials. "Infiltration success rates for groups of four against entrenched defensive positions average seventeen percent. With our specific advantages—elven magic, your gift, Nyssa's knowledge—I'd estimate we're at perhaps thirty-two percent."
"Those are terrible odds."
"Yes." She adjusts her staff. "But they're better than zero, which is what we'd have if we tried anything else." She pauses, seeming to war with herself. "I need you to know something. Not for tactical reasons. For... personal reasons."
"Lysara—"
"Let me finish." Her voice is stiff, uncomfortable. "If something happens in there. If I can't get you out. If the choice comes down to saving you or saving your mother... I need you to know that I—that I would want you to save her. Because that's who you are. And I don't want you losing yourself trying to save me."
The confession catches me completely off-guard.
"That's not—you're going to be fine—"
"Probably. But if I'm not, I needed to say it." She turns away quickly, cheeks flushed. "Obviously this is only relevant tactically. In case there are regrets about resource allocation. It has nothing to do with... personal... concerns."
"Right. Tactical resource allocation."
"Exactly." She doesn't look back. "Now go rest. We move in twenty minutes."
**Nyssa – The Reckoning**
I find Nyssa at the edge of our camp, staring toward Umbral Hollow in the distance. The sky is starting to lighten—dawn approaching—and she looks like a ghost in the pre-dawn glow.
"You okay?" I ask quietly.
"No." She doesn't look at me. "I left that place because I couldn't save anyone. My family, my clan, the people I loved—all dead or corrupted. I ran because staying meant joining them or becoming them." She finally turns to face me. "And now I'm going back. Deliberately walking into the place of my greatest failure."
"You're not failing now. You're saving someone."
"Am I? Or am I just prolonging everyone's suffering?" Her violet eyes are haunted. "The cult is patient, Ren. They plan decades ahead. They don't care if we take your mother out—they'll just take someone else. Infiltrate another village. Spread more corruption. The cycle continues."
"So what, we should just give up?"
"No. We should know what we're fighting. Not just the cult, but the philosophy behind them. The void is entropy. It's the inevitable ending. Fighting it means fighting the fundamental nature of reality itself."
"Then we fight anyway."
She smiles sadly. "Yes. We fight anyway. That's the only choice that matters." She places a hand on my shoulder. "When we're in there, if I tell you to leave me behind—"
"I won't."
"You might have to. Don't let sentiment override survival instinct." She grips my shoulder harder. "Promise me you'll get out of there alive, even if it means leaving people behind."
"I can't promise that."
"Then promise you'll try. Promise you'll choose life over noble sacrifice."
I want to argue, but I can see it matters to her. "I promise."
She nods, satisfied.
**The Distraction Force – Final Preparations**
Felric gathers Marcus, Thea, Toren, Seraphine, and Elira in a tight circle.
"You have two objectives," he tells them bluntly. "First, draw as much guard attention as possible toward the eastern perimeter. Second, survive long enough for our infiltration team to reach the prisoner hold and extract Miren."
"How long are we talking?" Marcus asks.
"Best case? Forty minutes. Worst case? You die before we finish."
"Comforting," Thea mutters.
"I don't do comforting. I do honest." Felric looks at each of them in turn. "You're going to take significant casualties. Probably all of you are going to take wounds you can't fully heal. Some of you might die. But you're also going to hurt the cult. You're going to make them bleed. And you're going to buy time for that kid to save his mother."
Toren steps forward. "My wife is in there. My son is going into danger to save her. I'm not dying until I know they're safe."
"Then don't die," Felric says simply. "Fight smart. Use terrain. Don't get surrounded. Let them come to you and make them pay for every inch of ground."
Elira produces her void dampeners and hands them to Seraphine. "These will help suppress corruption effects. Should buy you time if void mages show up."
"Should?"
"I'm an inventor, not a miracle worker. But they're the best I can do in the time we had."
**One Hour Until Assault – Final Darkness**
We gather one last time before the attack. The sky is lightening—soon the darkness that's hidden us will be stripped away.
Felric addresses all ten of us, his scarred face hard as stone.
"This is the moment. After this, there's no going back. Some of us won't return. Some of us will carry scars—physical, magical, spiritual—for the rest of our lives. But we're doing this because it's right. Because Miren Amaki doesn't deserve to suffer in enemy hands. Because Ren deserves a chance to be more than a weapon or a monster."
He looks at me directly. "And because we're a village that doesn't abandon its own."
"No matter the cost," the team echoes.
Kaela grips my hand one more time. "See you on the other side."
"You'd better," I reply.
The sun breaks over the horizon, painting everything in shades of red and gold. Beautiful and terrible.
And in the distance, Umbral Hollow waits like a monster with its jaws open wide.
"Move out," Felric commands.
We march toward darkness and destiny, knowing that before this day ends, everything changes.