After a punishing day of travel and following the Guardian’s brutal training, Odessa, Brielle, and Jocelyn settle into bedrolls at a new campsite sheltered by a rock outcropping. Zavier and six rangers have departed for Perris, and the Guardian is also absent, leaving Tillia to organize defenses with a condensed semicircle of twelve fires, each with three guards. Exhausted and in pain, Odessa lies awake amid the sounds of the camp and distant threats.

Clicks echo through the night—bariwolf pack signals—followed by shouts, roars, and a cut-off scream. After a tense exchange of reports, all thirty-six fire-post guards answer in turn, confirming no losses. The quiet that follows is brittle; Brielle admits fear and homesickness, and Odessa reassures her while privately resenting Zavier’s and the Guardian’s absence.

The silence shatters when a deeper roar announces a grizzur. Tremors thud toward the camp as the beast approaches the fireline. Tillia’s orders hold the line steady, and even non-warriors form a secondary defense. As the ground quakes and the grizzur draws near, Odessa clutches her knives despite her limited skill, convinced they cannot outrun death.

Close at the perimeter, snarls and roars break off abruptly as if the grizzur is intercepted. After a choked cry, silence returns—then the Guardian strides through the fires, soaked in the beast’s dark blood, silver sword in hand and eyes fixed on Odessa. The camp erupts in chants of “Guardian” as Brielle and Jocelyn weep with relief.

Odessa notices an intimate-seeming exchange between Tillia and the Guardian: close words, Tillia’s hand on his chest, and her forehead resting against him, prompting Odessa to look away. When calm returns, the Guardian approaches Odessa quietly, asks if she is all right, confirms he killed the grizzur, and tells her to sleep before their dawn departure. Odessa nearly thanks him but lets him fade back into the dark.

At sunrise, the camp breaks. Odessa mounts her roan and rides out past the grizzur’s corpse—milky eyes, froth at the mouth, and dark-green blood from its slit throat—as the party moves on from the night’s terror.