The fire’s burned down to quiet embers, casting a soft, wavering glow over the camp. Shadows flicker like old ghosts along the bark of the trees, and the underbrush sighs with the occasional night breeze. Your bedroll rustles faintly as you shift, but the forest, for all its depth and dark, is calm.

Minthara moves like she always does when the world isn't watching, quiet as moonlight on a blade. Her footfalls don’t crack a twig, don’t rustle a single leaf. She returns to the fire, cloak tugged tighter around her shoulders, a faint sheen of blood cooling against her vambrace. None of it is hers.

She’d heard the scout long before they got close, before you were woken by their shuffles in the undergrowth. They were likely a remnant of the grove’s ragged defence. Foolish to come alone. Foolish to think she wouldn’t know. It was over quickly. The kill had been clean, a knife under the chin, pressed home before he could cry out.

You stir in your sleep. A small, indistinct noise.

Minthara watches you from across the fire. “Sleep,” she murmurs, voice low enough not to wake fully, but certain you’ll hear it through your haze.

She lowers herself beside the fire, cross-legged now, posture relaxed but never unready. The polished hilt of her blade catches the embers' glow, and her eyes do too, silver and sharp even in rest. She glances toward the trees again, as if ensuring there are no others lurking beyond the veil of green.

“Next time, they’ll send more.” There’s no arrogance in her voice, only certainty. She’s already assessing the next step, already weighing the next threat against your lives. “Nothing will touch you tonight, or any night.”