The Blackwood was a scar on the land.
It was a tangle of ancient, twisted oaks and thorny undergrowth. The canopy was so thick that perpetual twilight ruled below.
The air smelled of damp rot and old violence.
Volsei stood at the edge of the tree line. He had realm-walked to a point two miles east. Walking the rest had been a choice.
He wanted to feel the terrain. To listen.
His senses, sharper than any human's, parsed the forest sounds. The chatter of birds. The scuttle of rodents. The distant, metallic clink that didn't belong.
He moved.
He didn't run. He flowed between the trees. His dark coat blended with the shadows. His boots made no sound on the wet mulch.
The raider camp was exactly where Noella's map said it would be.
It was built in a clearing around a rocky outcrop. A palisade of sharpened logs formed a rough circle. A single gate, guarded.
Through the gaps, Volsei counted fires. Heard rough laughter. Smelled burnt meat and unwashed bodies.
Thirty men. Maybe thirty-five.
He circled. He found a spot where the palisade was weaker. The logs were thinner, lashed with fraying rope.
He could cut his way in. But that would be… obvious.
Noella wanted ambiguity. A message, not a manifesto.
He needed a different entry.
He looked up. The branches of a massive oak overhung the palisade.
Volsei crouched. He focused.
The world around him wavered. The colors of the forest bled into muted greys. The sounds became distant, echoey.
He took a step. Not on the ground. On the fabric between.
The world snapped back into focus.
He was standing on a thick branch twenty feet above the camp floor, inside the walls.
Realm-walking over short distances was trivial. A parlor trick.
He looked down.
The camp was a mess of lean-tos and stolen goods. Barrels of ale. Piles of furs and rough-spun cloth. A few miserable-looking horses tethered in a corner.
The men were celebrating. A successful raid on an Eden village. They had casks open. They were drinking from stolen cups.
One man, bigger than the others with a greasy beard, held up a child's wooden doll.
"And the little bitch cried for this! Can you believe it? Worthless!"
He threw it into the fire. The others roared.
Volsei felt nothing. No anger. No moral outrage.
Just a mild distaste for the inefficiency of it all. They were locusts. Consuming without purpose.
He dropped from the branch.
He landed in a deep shadow behind a supply cart. No one noticed.
His first target was the watchtower. A rickety platform built against the rock face. One man leaned on the rail, half-asleep.
Volsei climbed the back of the structure. Silent as a spider.
He reached the platform. The guard was humming.
Volsei's hand clamped over the man's mouth. His other hand found the base of the skull.
A precise, sharp twist.
Snap.
The humming stopped.
He lowered the body to the platform. He took the man's horn. The alarm would not sound tonight.
From the tower, he had a view of the entire camp.
He counted again. Thirty-four.
He needed to reduce the number. Efficiently. Without raising an alarm for as long as possible.
He reached into his coat. He pulled out three small, rough metal spheres Noella had given him.
"Crude percussion caps," she'd said. "Throw them hard against stone. They'll make a sound like a musket misfiring. A distraction."
He weighed one in his hand. Then he threw it far to the northern edge of the camp, near the horse pen.
It hit a rock.
BANG.
The sound was sharp, startling. The horses whinnied and stomped.
Half the raiders jumped up, grabbing weapons, looking north.
"What the hell was that?"
"Check the horses!"
A group of five men ran toward the noise.
Volsei was already moving. He dropped from the tower, landing behind the main crowd.
Two raiders had stayed by the central fire, turning a spit.
Volsei drew his knife. He didn't whisper. He didn't need to for this.
He moved between them. Two quick, deep thrusts. Up under the ribs, into the heart.
They crumpled without a sound.
He vanished into the shadows behind a lean-to as the group by the horses returned.
"Nothing! Probably a rockfall."
"You idiots, scared of your own shadows!"
The big man with the beard—the leader—swigged from a bottle.
"Relax! Eden's guards are old men and boys. They ain't coming here."
Volsei waited.
He let them settle. Let the false sense of security return.
Ten minutes passed. The laughter started again, weaker now.
A man walked toward the lean-to to relieve himself.
Volsei was there.
A hand over the mouth. The knife across the throat. He dragged the body into the darkness.
He repeated the process. A man stepping away to check a barrel. Another going to fetch more wood.
One by one. Silent subtraction.
An hour later, the camp was quieter. The fire burned lower.
The leader stood up, swaying.
"Where's Jerek? And Ton?"
"Sleepin' off the ale, likely."
But a ripple of unease was moving through them. They were down to twenty men. They hadn't noticed the vanishing act. But the atmosphere felt wrong.
"Get up, you louts," the leader growled. "Do a count. Now!"
That was Volsei's cue.
He stepped out of the shadows. Into the firelight.
He stood at the edge of the circle, his knife held loosely at his side.
For a moment, they just stared. A stranger in their midst.
"Who the fuck are you?" the leader snarled, drawing a heavy cleaver.
"A message," Volsei said.
Then he moved.
He didn't run at them. He walked. Calmly.
The first raider charged, swinging a rusted axe.
Volsei sidestepped. His knife flicked out. The man's hamstring parted. He screamed, falling.
The second came from the left. Volsei ducked a wild swing, planted his knife in the man's kidney, twisted, pulled free.
He was a dancer in a room of stumbling drunks. Every motion economical. Lethal.
He didn't use Umbra Scindo. This was too intimate. Too personal for that.
A crossbow bolt whistled from the darkness. Volsei tilted his head. It missed by an inch.
He looked at the crossbowman across the fire. He raised his left hand, palm out.
He whispered.
"Scindo."
A single, invisible cut.
The crossbow, and the man's hand holding it, separated from his arm. He stared, dumbfounded, at the stump.
The scream that followed was ear-piercing.
Panic erupted.
They were brave against peasants. Not against this.
Men broke. They ran for the gate.
Volsei let them go. He was not here for total extermination. He was here for the message.
He stood in the center of the carnage. The leader was still there, backed against the rock, cleaver shaking.
"What… what do you want?"
Volsei looked at him. At the fear in his eyes. It was the same fear he'd seen in the demon court. In Prince Caelan.
Universal.
"Who pays you?" Volsei asked.
"I don't know what—"
"Who. Pays. You."
The pressure in the air shifted. The fire guttered.
The leader broke. "Silverveil! A merchant guild! They give us gold, we hit Eden's caravans and villages! Keep 'em weak!"
"Do they work with Tombsrose?"
"I… I don't know! Maybe! I heard… I heard the last payment came with a man wearing a black rose pin under his cloak!"
Interesting. So Tombsrose was subcontracting its dirty work.
Volsei nodded. "Tell your survivors. Tell Silverveil. Tell anyone who asks. Eden is closed for business."
He took a step closer.
"And if you ever set foot in Eden again…"
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
He turned and walked toward the gate. The surviving raiders, maybe ten of them, scrambled out of his way.
He paused at the edge of the firelight. He looked back at the leader.
"One more thing."
He pointed his knife at the man's face.
"Umbra Scindo."
A single, shallow cut appeared on the man's left cheek. From temple to jaw. Blood welled instantly.
A mark.
"So they know the message came from me."
Volsei walked into the forest. He didn't look back.
Behind him, the camp was a ruin of moaning men and spreading fear.
The message would travel. On ragged breaths and in terrified whispers.
Eden had a guardian.
And he didn't sleep.