The trees thickened as they moved further into the foothills. Pines gave way to towering oldwoods, and patches of glowing moss lit the forest floor like fallen stars. It had been nearly a week since Kaleva, and though they had only encountered the occasional traveler or faded shrine, the path forward felt anything but safe.
Eric led them in near silence, eyes scanning the trail ahead like a predator. Jake, now used to the older man's rhythm, had taken to matching his pace. At night, around the fire, Eric taught. No tomes, no incantations—just quiet guidance and long periods of sitting still with one's thoughts.
"Magic doesn't come when you force it," Eric told him one morning as they rested beside a quiet stream. "You don't demand. You ask."
Jake sat cross-legged in the soft grass, feeling the energy Eric called the Flow—an invisible current that rippled beneath the world. He had felt it a few times now: when focusing, when breathing in rhythm with the trees and wind.
But today was different.
Eric crouched beside him and motioned upward. A hawk wheeled high above the trees. "The Flow connects everything. Not just you. Try to feel it in her wings."
Jake closed his eyes, heart steady, mind open. He reached—not with his body, but with the sense Eric had been cultivating in him. For a moment, there was nothing. Then—a shift. The thrum of wind over feathers. The spinning world below.
His eyes flew open, and for one brilliant second, he saw through the hawk's eyes. The trees stretching beneath them. The caravan up ahead, its wagons torn and scattered. The goblins—dozens of them—slinking around the debris.
Then it snapped.
Jake gasped, stumbling forward as he clutched his head. The connection had vanished.
Emma caught his arm. "What happened?"
He looked at her, pale. "There's a caravan. Just ahead. It's been attacked—goblins."
Eric was already moving, his face a grim mask. "Show us."
They moved quickly through the forest, ducking branches and brushing past moss-covered rocks. Jake's heart pounded, not just from the run—but from what he had seen. Blood. Still bodies.
When they crested the last ridge, the scene unfolded below. A merchant caravan—maybe six wagons strong—lay broken on a forest path. Horses were dead or gone. Some of the guards were still fighting, but most had already fallen. Goblins, small and wiry with pale-green skin and rusted weapons, darted in and out of view, hissing and shrieking.
Jake froze.
One of the guards, a young man not much older than himself, screamed as a goblin leapt onto his back, driving a jagged blade into his side. He fell, clutching the earth.
Jake didn't move. His breath caught in his throat. It was one thing to train. One thing to fight a creature like a frostmaw. But this… this was murder. Brutal, vicious.
And real.
Eric's hand came down on his shoulder. "You've trained for this. You don't run. Not when people need you."
Jake looked at him, jaw clenched. "I'm not afraid to fight."
"I know," Eric said. "But are you ready to kill?"
That question hung heavier than any blade.
Emma nocked an arrow and nodded. "Let's move."
The three descended into the fray—silent as shadows.
Jake's first target never saw him coming. One moment, the goblin was rifling through a fallen traveler's bag. The next, Jake's blade slid across its neck in a clean stroke, just as Eric had taught him.
There was no honor in the fight. No glory. Only survival.
Jake fought beside Emma, guarding her back while she loosed arrows with deadly precision. Eric moved like a ghost, felling goblins with nothing but a dagger and the sharpness of his instincts.
When the last goblin fell, a bloody hush settled over the forest.
Jake stood over the body of the man who had screamed earlier. His eyes were still open—frozen in terror.
Jake dropped to his knees, fists clenched in the grass.
"He was alive when I saw him," he whispered.
Eric knelt beside him. "You can't save everyone. But you saved the others."
Jake looked around. A few of the caravan survivors huddled near a broken wagon. One woman cried softly. A child clutched her skirts.
He had saved them. But it didn't feel like a victory.
It felt like the cost of living in this world.
A soft breeze rustled the trees. The fires from the wagons crackled faintly. For a long moment, no one moved.
Then a voice—quiet, broken—cut through the stillness.
"Thank you," said a man, no older than thirty, as he staggered toward Jake. His face was smeared with soot and blood, but his eyes were clear and wide with something deeper than relief.
"You… you saved us," he continued, dropping to his knees with a wince. "Gods above, I thought we were done for."
Others began to emerge from hiding. A woman in a tattered shawl cradled a baby. An older man with a missing arm leaned against one of the broken wagons, nodding to Eric with grim respect. A child, no older than Anna, ran forward and threw his arms around Emma's waist, sobbing.
Jake stood still as the survivors gathered around them, unsure of what to say.
"We heard the goblins days ago," the one-armed man muttered. "Didn't think they'd hit us out here. They don't come this far down the valleys."
"They do now," Eric said simply, scanning the woods. "Something's changed."
"They killed my brother," the younger man said, voice cracking. "But without you… they'd have taken the rest of us."
He reached for Jake's hand and pressed a carved wooden token into his palm—small and smooth, with a symbol Jake didn't recognize. "From my family. It's not worth much, but… I want you to have it."
Jake looked down at the token, then at the man's bloodstained fingers. He nodded slowly, swallowing the lump in his throat.
"Thank you," Jake said softly.
Emma was kneeling beside an injured girl, wrapping her leg with a strip of clean cloth. "You're safe now," she said gently. "We'll help get you to the next town."
"Is it far?" the girl asked.
"Not far," Emma lied.
They spent the next hour tending to wounds and salvaging what remained. Two wagons could still move. Enough horses had survived to pull them. Jake helped lift a body onto a tarp, covering it with a cloak. His stomach churned, but he didn't look away.
Eric moved among the survivors with a silent purpose, offering comfort where he could, but always keeping one eye on the tree line. The forest had grown still again—but not in a peaceful way.
It was the silence of something waiting.
When they finally prepared to move, the caravan folk gathered once more around Jake and the others.
"We won't forget this," said the old man with the missing arm. "You've done more than most would."
One of the women reached out and placed a hand on Jake's shoulder, eyes shimmering with tears. "May the gods watch your path."
Jake gave a quiet nod, unsure how to carry the weight of their gratitude or the deaths he hadn't been able to stop.
Jake had killed before; it was a part of life. Though as he saw the life leave the bodies of his fellow humans, it showed him just how dangerous this world really was.