The Dead Forest thickened as they marched south. The black trees closed in, their intertwined branches weaving a net above their heads, blotting out the ashen light of the sky. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of rot and damp earth. Beneath their feet, the spongy ground swallowed their footsteps, turning their advance into something ghostlike.

Alka—now Rika to everyone—walked in the middle of the group. Her stigma throbbed faintly, a constant presence humming in tune with her thoughts. She had learned to ration her energy, drawing just enough to maintain the illusion of a useful, harmless Awakened. But the hunger for more—always more—gnawed at her restraint. Every creature repelled, every soldier calmed by a whisper in their mind, only deepened her craving for a second stigma.

Their small team was no longer alone. Three days earlier, they had merged with another convoy, larger and bearing the same red and gold banners. Then another. Now, they formed a sprawling, uneven column of several hundred men and women—an armed serpent crawling into the heart of the forest.

The sight of that assembled force tightened Alka's chest. Pilaf was reforming. The war machine was awakening.

"Impressive, isn't it?" grumbled Varek, walking beside her. Since that night in his tent, his attitude toward her had shifted completely—a kind of paternal confidence tinged with uncharacteristic deference. "Looks like Command's decided to finish this. Martissant's about to taste our steel."

She nodded, unable to speak. Our steel. The steel of those she was meant to betray—or was it the other way around? The lines blurred more with each passing day. She played her part so well she sometimes felt a flicker of camaraderie for these soldiers, a faint pride in the efficiency of their advance.

She could feel the minds around her: a muffled cacophony of fear, fatigue, determination. Fragments of thought trickled in, louder with the growing crowd.

"…the river of blood—they keep talking about a river of blood…"

"…if I die, will my pay still go to my mother?…"

"…these damn trees—I swear they're watching us…"

She listened to that anxious symphony of humanity and siphoned from it tiny shards of energy. Crumbs. Enough to keep her illusion intact, not enough to feed her hunger.

By the fifth afternoon, they came upon an advance patrol—seasoned scouts, their faces hardened by countless missions. Their leader, a sharp-faced woman with piercing eyes, exchanged a few words with Varek before fixing her gaze on Alka.

"The Puppeteer?" she asked bluntly. "They talk about you. You're the one who bends the beasts' minds."

Alka felt her own mind tighten. "I disorient them, ma'am. Nothing more."

The woman stared at her for a long moment, her mind a block of frozen steel. "It better work. Reports say the creatures grow larger, more aggressive the closer we get to Martissant's lines. Like the war itself excites them."

The news spread like wildfire. They were getting close. The tension along the column became palpable—an electric air that made the skin prickle. Laughter grew scarce; the watches grew longer.

That night, by a larger fire than usual, Alka sensed a familiar presence. A mental signature she knew. Her blood turned to ice. She looked up and, in the dim light at the edge of the camp, spotted a hooded silhouette—too thin, too still.

An agent of Martissant.

Gaël had other pieces on the board.

Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Enough. A silent message passed between them: I see you. Keep going.

Her heart pounded. She was caught between two blades—Pilaf's growing army on one side, her old master's unseen gaze on the other. And in the middle, her own power, hungry and unbound.

Later, as she meditated alone with her fingers pressed against her burning stigma, a violent image burst into her mind—not a memory, but a vision, projected from the collective anxiety of the column.

Screams.

The orange glow of explosions tearing through the night.

Figures slaughtering each other beneath the black trees.

The banner of Martissant—a silver falcon on a field of sand—snapping in the wind against Pilaf's red and gold.

She opened her eyes, breathless. The battle was near—too near. It was no longer a possibility but a visceral certainty.

She stood, her legs trembling. There was no time left. No space for hesitation. The gem depot—the second stigma—was no longer a distant goal. It was her only lifeline. Her only way to survive the coming storm—and perhaps, to master it.

Her gaze drifted toward Varek's tent. The keeper of the seeds. Her protector. Her prey.

The dead forest seemed to hold its breath. The silence was thick with omens. The echo of thousands of marching feet beat like a funereal drum.

The clash was inevitable.

And Alka, at the eye of the storm, felt a new kind of resolve crystallize inside her.

She would not be a victim of this war.

She would be its architect.

⸻

The column of Pilaf advanced like a single organism—wounded, but unrelenting. Junctions with other units multiplied, turning their progress into a full military march. Beneath the tangled canopy, an entire regiment was taking shape: hundreds of soldiers, their mismatched armor telling the story of battles already fought in this cursed forest.

Alka felt that transformation within herself. Her stigma reacted to the gathering of spiritual energy, pulsing in rhythm with the synchronized march. Each night, when she closed her eyes, the mental echoes of the soldiers grew clearer—a choir of dread and resignation.

The first skirmishes began under a moonless sky.

A patrol led by the sharp-eyed scout leader—Kaelen—never returned. Their bodies were found two days later, arranged in a grim ritual circle. Their armor untouched, their empty eyes telling of a terror that froze the blood of even the hardiest veterans.

"No blood," Varek murmured, crouching by the corpses, his weathered face etched with rare concern. "Martissant's using weapons that leave no trace. Weapons that strike the mind."

Alka, standing beside him, felt the truth in his words. The air still vibrated with psychic residue—a raw mental force that had simply erased the soldiers' consciousness. Her stigma quivered, both repulsed and drawn to that energy.

The next day, a unit from Martissant fell into an ambush. Pilaf's troops, drunk on fear and vengeance, showed no mercy. When Alka arrived on the scene, the smell of fresh blood mingled with the damp scent of earth.

The bodies lay scattered, some torn apart by the Molosses Pilaf had unleashed at the front lines.

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