They kept riding, hour after hour folding into one another, the land changing slowly beneath their hooves while the tension never truly eased. Dust turned to stone, stone to cracked earth, and sotis to stretches of silence so complete that Lucas could hear his own breathing beneath the mask. Each ti the terrain shifted or the air carried a strange scent, he would lift a hand and slow the squad, his eyes scanning ahead while his senses reached farther than sight alone.
"Stanley," Lucas said more than once, turning slightly in the saddle, "take this back to the king and do not embellish it."
Stanley would nod every ti with the sa seriousness, fist to chest, absorbing the details carefully. "Enemy traces light but fresh," Lucas would add, or "terrain narrows ahead, ambush possible within a day’s march," or sotis simply, "nothing yet, but it feels wrong." Stanley never questioned the last one, he only mounted his horse and rode hard toward the distant banners, becoming a small moving dot swallowed by the land.
On the first night, as they camped briefly beneath a sky stripped bare of clouds, one of the squad muttered while chewing dried rations, "Feels like we are walking into the mouth of sothing that has not decided whether to bite yet."
Lucas heard him and answered calmly while adjusting his gloves. "That is because we are."
The ice belle sat apart from the firelight, the ground around her faintly crystallized, her presence keeping the cold at bay for the others while she herself seed untouched by fatigue. She watched Lucas in silence for a long ti before speaking. "You do not sleep," she said.
"I do," he replied, though even to himself the words sounded thin. "Just not deeply."
She studied him with eyes that missed very little. "You are burning energy even while resting," she said. "The inferno residue still moves inside you."
Lucas closed his eyes briefly, feeling it stir at the ntion. "I know," he admitted. "It is quieter now, but it burns."
"Then do not let it burn," she said simply.
By the third day, the squad moved with a practiced rhythm, scouts rotating positions, words kept short and purposeful. Stanley ca and went like a shadow, each return followed by a quick exchange.
"The king says maintain current pace," Stanley reported once, breathing hard. "He says trust your judgnt."
Lucas nodded. "Tell him we will reach the broken ridge by tomorrow if nothing changes."
"And if sothing does change," Stanley asked carefully.
Lucas looked ahead at the horizon where the land dipped unnaturally. "Then tell him to be ready."
At night, Lucas would sit alone for a while, mask resting against his knee, fingers unconsciously tracing the scarred edge of his jaw. He would think of the abyss, of heat so intense it erased thought, and of the white light that followed. Each ti, his chest tightened, not with fear, but with the weight of knowing how close the line truly was.
The ice belle noticed it once as she approached quietly. "You are pushing yourself again," she said, sitting nearby.
"If I stop," Lucas replied without looking at her, "I will feel everything at once."
She said nothing for a long mont, then placed a hand briefly on his shoulder. "Then keep moving," she said. "Just do not forget that you are not alone anymore."
On the fifth day, as the sun rose blood red over uneven ground, the ice belle suddenly raised her hand, her expression sharpening. "We are no longer alone," she said softly.
Lucas straightened imdiately, signaling the squad to halt. His heart slowed instead of racing, his mind narrowing into clarity. He looked back once, toward the direction Stanley would ride next.
"Go," Lucas told him quietly. "Tell them this silence is ending."
Stanley did not hesitate. He turned his horse and vanished down the path they had carved over days of relentless scouting, while Lucas faced forward again, his grip steady on the reins as whatever waited ahead finally began to stir.
The ice belle’s composure cracked for the first ti since they had left the army behind, her eyes widening as she turned sharply toward the far ridge where a faint distortion lingered in the air.
"He is leaving," she said urgently, her voice tight and bright with alarm. "I felt him withdraw the mont he sensed us, that was not a warrior preparing to fight, that was a scout fleeing to report, and if he reaches his camp then everything ahead of us changes."
Lucas did not answer imdiately, but his gaze hardened beneath the silver mask as he followed the direction she was staring at, his perception stretching outward until he caught the faint ripple of unfamiliar qi being pulled back and compressed. "You are right about one thing," he said calmly, though the calm carried an edge. "He is leaving, but this was never ant to be subtle, and he already knows enough to be dangerous."
Jennifer leaned forward in her saddle, fingers tightening around the reins. "If he reports back, they will know our numbers are small and that the army is days behind," she said. "They will set a trap or vanish entirely."
Lucas nodded once. "Exactly," he replied. "So we do not let him leave."
The ice belle shook her head sharply, frost gathering at her lashes. "He is fast," she warned. "Whatever he is riding is already infused, and he has a head start."
Lucas’s voice dropped, steady and commanding as he turned to the squad. "Then we beco faster," he said. "Everyone, infuse qi into your mounts, do not hold back, but do not lose control either, we capture him alive if possible, and if not, we make sure no ssage ever leaves his mouth."
The squad did not hesitate, fear replaced by focus as one after another placed a hand against their horse’s neck or reins, qi pouring downward in controlled surges. The horses scread as their muscles swelled with borrowed power, hooves striking the ground with thunderous force as the world lurched forward violently.
Jennifer gritted her teeth as her horse surged ahead. "This will tear them apart if we keep it up too long," she shouted over the rushing wind.
"We only need monts," Lucas answered, leaning low, his own qi flowing not just into his horse but into the space ahead, compressing distance itself. "He underestimated how far I can feel, and that will cost him."
The ice belle rode beside him, her presence stabilizing the air around them as frost spread beneath their passing, reducing resistance and allowing their mounts to push even harder. "I can feel his panic now," she said, voice sharp with focus. "He knows we are gaining."
Lucas felt it too, the frantic tightening of the fleeing qi signature, the erratic fluctuations of soone who had expected to vanish unnoticed. "Good," Lucas said quietly. "Fear makes mistakes inevitable."
The landscape blurred as they closed the distance at an impossible pace, wind tearing at cloaks and armor while the squad moved like a single sharpened blade cutting forward. Lucas’s thoughts narrowed to a single point ahead, already planning the mont of interception, the angle, the strike, the binding seals he would use.
"Do not kill him unless I say so," Lucas added firmly. "I want to know who he serves and how far their eyes already reach."
The ice belle’s expression cooled into sothing glacial and rciless. "He will not escape," she said with absolute certainty. "Not after what I felt in the abyss, not after what I owe you."
As the fleeing figure finally ca into clear view ahead, barely a hundred lengths away now, Lucas’s lips curved into a thin, determined line beneath the mask, and he whispered more to himself than to anyone else, "You should have stayed hidden."
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