The rope holding the bell snapped.

Guts didn’t slow his stride. “You’re an apostle.”

He walked into the darkening woods, the brand on his neck throbbing a dull, rhythmic ache. Behind him, the children’s sobs faded. Ahead, the trees grew twisted, their bark weeping sap like amber tears.

The wind did not mourn.

He turned his one eye toward the horizon, where a familiar shape of twisted trees clawed at a bruised sky.

Guts stopped.

He’d dreamed of it the night before—not the Eclipse, not the brand’s searing chorus of damned souls, but something quieter. A memory wrapped in thorns: Griffith’s voice, soft and certain, saying “You are the only one who made me forget my dream.” And then the snow, the blood on white feathers, and the scream that wasn’t a scream.

“Puck,” he said. “Get them to the next town.”