They marched until the light slanted gold through the trees. At the next rise, the group dropped to a crouch, Soren's hand up in a flat halting signal. Ahead, across the clearing, were four bodies: three hunched over a low fire, the fourth standing with a spear, scanning the treeline. Soren counted their kit, no insignia, but the boots and cut of the jackets said mercenary, not bandit. The dogs, two of them, dozed by the fire, noses twitching.

He motioned the twins left, Seren right. Kale settled Jannek behind a fallen log, then drew his blade and grinned. Soren felt the old rush, fear, focus, a clarity that only came before things got ugly.

He waited for the twins to signal, then moved forward, keeping low. The wind shifted, smoke drifting their way. The dogs' heads came up, but neither raised alarm. Soren wondered if they were trained not to.

At twenty meters, he saw the face of the lookout. Not Aerthrun, not even local. Valekhyr, maybe. Soren weighed the odds, then drew his own blade, counting heartbeats.

Seren moved first, gliding from the brush to take the sentry with a palm to the throat and a twist of the wrist. No sound. The sentry folded in place. At the same instant, the twins swept from left, Lira hurling a rock at the fire, Liane following with a short stick to the back of one merc's knee.

Kale swung wide, trying to flank, but the dogs woke, snarling and snapping. Soren charged, blade low, and closed on the last merc. The man had barely time to draw before Soren drove him back into the coals, the air filling with the stench of burnt wool and cooked skin. The man howled, but Soren finished it quick, hilt to the temple, a clean break.

Lira, wrestling the dog, called out: "Don't kill them!"

Soren hesitated, then used his boot to shove the other mutt aside. It yelped, circled, then vanished into the thicket.

The fight was over in seconds. Soren stood over the dead, counting the cost. Seren checked the pulse of the sentry, then shook her head.

Kale pulled Jannek up, dragging him toward the fire. Jannek looked at the carnage and laughed, high and mad, then immediately began to shiver again. Soren ignored him, moving to the edge of the clearing, watching for the next threat.

Lady Lethren arrived last, stepping around the bodies with a dancer's grace. She knelt and rifled the pockets, coming away with a set of glass vials and a folded note. She scanned the note, then burned it in the flame, not glancing at anyone.

Soren approached. "You knew they'd be here."

She regarded him with those impossible black eyes. "You're learning," she said, as if that were the point of all of it. "But you're still behind."

He felt the anger again, hotter than before. "What's the real test?"

She smiled, a small, sharp thing. "To see if you'll finish the route, or improvise. To see if you're a tool, or a variable." She stood, dusted her hands, then turned away.

Soren wanted to hit her, but didn't. He returned to the group, who were already dividing the rations and weapons from the dead.

They made camp that night in silence. Jannek slept, fever high, but still alive. Seren wound new bandages, Lira and Liane took turns on watch, Kale sharpened his blade obsessively. Soren sat at the edge of the fire, watching the Lady as she cleaned her saber, the moonlight catching on the glass vials at her belt.

He thought about the shape of the route, about the black square at the end of the map. He wondered if finishing meant surviving, or if it simply meant being counted among the remembered.

He let the sword rest across his knees, palm on the cool steel, and resolved to reach Meridian, even if he had to drag the whole battered squad the last mile himself.

He didn't plan to fail the test. But he didn't plan to pass it, either. They broke camp at first light, a blue band of horizon showing through the teeth of the pines.

Soren calculated their odds: Jannek wouldn't last the day. If they moved fast, maybe they reached the checkpoint before the wound blew open or Kale lost his nerve and made a scene. He didn't dwell. The cold helped. The cold always helped.

By midday, the land snapped suddenly from forest to ledge, a narrow ravine, easily a hundred meters across, spanned by a single rope bridge. It was the kind of thing designed as an intelligence test for anyone trying to cross: do you trust what's obviously a trap, or do you gamble on finding the way around? The answer, as always, was neither.

Lady Lethren was already at the anchor post, inspecting the bridge with a surgeon's interest. "We have to cross," she said, voice flat as her saber blade. "There's a patrol behind us."

Kale snorted, shifting Jannek's weight higher on his back. "That's the oldest story in the world. You want us strung up like ducks while they pick us off from above?"

Soren ignored them. The bridge would hold, he could see the reinforcement cables, the way the planks had been double-lashed. It wasn't meant to fail. It was meant to funnel.

He made a decision. "Twins, left flank. Find cover, mark for archers. Kale, you and Jannek set up rear watch at the tree line. Lady goes first, with Seren on point. I'll follow after."

Lira and Liane vanished, blue hair already evaporated by shadow. Kale cursed, but obeyed. Soren trusted him; at the worst, Jannek could still scream.

Lethren set foot on the bridge, one hand on the guide rope, the other never straying far from her saber. Seren followed, her stride liquid, head scanning the far bank. The wind caught the bridge, setting it creaking in a rhythm that made Soren's teeth ache.

He stepped onto the planks. The drop below was all stone and spatter-marked ice. The sense-memory of falling, a childhood off the ice cliffs at home, ribs bruised purple by the landing, came back sharp and mean. He forced it under.

At halfway, Soren caught the glint off a rock on the far shore: not sunlight, but optics, a lens, or a scope. He shifted his gait, breaking cadence. "On my count," he said, low enough for only Seren and Lethren to hear. "We run."

He heard Seren's soft, affirmative grunt.

"Three. Now."

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