The few remaining witches with power held each other’s hands. They were a circle of defiance amidst the chaos, their magic a dwindling flame in the encroaching dark. Alice joined them and yelled hoping for an end to the barrier’s collapse. The corrupted lands were relentless, and as the barrier crumbled, so too did the last sliver of hope.

A silence, deep and resonant, followed the final crash of the barrier's collapse. They were exposed, and vulnerable, and the monstrous horde advanced, their growls a terrible promise of the battle to come. The barrier bled and the corruption continued to taint the grass around them. Elias took a few steps backward his sword resting at his side.

“We need to retreat!” yelled Elias.

"No!" Alice protested vehemently, her voice cutting through the chaos. "We can't just leave them—we can't—"

"It's an order!" The Matron's voice was steel, commanding attention even as her eyes softened when they met Alice's. "Elias, Thompson, take Alice and go. Protect her with your lives. She is our hope. She is the hero we have all been waiting for."

"But I can fight!" Alice's hands balled into fists, her knuckles whitening. "I've trained for this!"

"You have," the Matron agreed swiftly, "but sometimes the hardest battles we fight are those where we must choose to survive. Your time will come, Alice, but not today. Today, you must live."

Elias, knowing that time was a luxury they didn't possess, grabbed Alice's arm. "We have our orders. We must move, now!"

Alice resisted, her gaze locked with the Matron's. "I will come back for you," she promised a silent vow that held the weight of her world.

"And I will hold you to that promise, child," the Matron replied with a wry smile, before turning to face the oncoming swarm, her power flaring to life around her.

Elias, Thompson, and Alice hurriedly gathered what few belongings they could carry and dashed towards the stables. The air was thick with the scent of magic and malice, a tumultuous storm that threatened to engulf them all.

As they reached the horses, Thompson spoke up, his voice uncharacteristically tense. "We can't hesitate. Once we leave, we’ll be entering the corrupted lands. If we give the monsters a chance they will chase us down instead. We need to take this chance that the Matron is giving us.”

Elias hoisted himself onto his steed, offering a hand to Alice. Alice took his hand, mounting behind him. Her heart was heavy, her spirit torn between the duty to survive and the desire to fight alongside the coven, a people that she had gotten to know well in the few days she had stayed. As they kicked their horses into a gallop, she looked back to see the Matron, a solitary figure of unwavering defiance. The other witches summoned spectral weapons and helped up those who had fallen. They held themselves tall against the tide.

Thunderstruck barely needed a tug of his reigns and knew where to go. Elias rode in front and guided them to the edge of where the barrier once stood. The others followed. The dark swamps and familiar plants greeted them at the edge. They galloped passed the line between the two as the corruption worked to blur the line between their former sanctuary and the corrupted lands.

The trio rode with no clear direction to go in. They followed the more open areas with less dense trees. Thompson watched the sky to gauge what direction they were heading in.

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“We will want to head a little more to our left so that we can ride west toward the Sword Temple,” said Thompson. “We need to search for a better road and a path we can follow. If that is even possible.”

“We can’t honestly be thinking of running off to the Sword Temple now,” said Alice as she slowed her horse. “We need to return to the capital. Gather a fighting force and march back here. Save them. Fight the monsters.”

“You know that won’t work,” said Elias solemnly. “It has been tried. Was tried when the Sword Temple approached collapse. The corruption and the creatures within fight back harder when we struggle against it. Our goal is clear. Returning to the capital now will do us no good. The best thing we can do now is hurry to the Sword Temple. You need to learn the last of the sword moves. I wish we could just ride back while I teach you the final form along the way, but I can’t. I don’t know it and the only way to learn it now is to search the Sword Temple.”

Alice tightened her grip around Elias as they rode, feeling the steady thump of the horse's hooves match the pounding of her heart. Her mind raced with the thought of abandoning the coven to their fate, a bitter taste of guilt rising in her throat.

"But what about the coven?" she whispered, her voice strained with the conflict inside her. "How can we leave them to fight alone?"

Thompson glanced back at her, his face etched with concern and weariness. "Alice, the coven are fighters, born from centuries of struggle. They have a chance, especially with the Matron leading them. But if we do not seek the strength to fight this corruption at its core, then all will be lost anyway. We don’t have all the pieces yet to end this war."

The sorrow in Alice's eyes reflected the last glimmers of daylight. "It feels like running away," she confessed.

"Not running away, Alice," Elias chimed in, "but running towards a solution and an endpoint. Sometimes the direct path isn't the one that leads to victory. We must think of the greater war, not just this battle."

The silence that fell between them was filled only by the sounds of the swamp and the distant echoes of the conflict they left behind. It was an uncomfortable peace, fraught with the weight of what they were leaving and the uncertainty of what lay ahead.

Hours passed as they continued westward. The landscape began to change subtly, the dark swamp giving way to a less oppressive type of wilderness. The oppressive atmosphere of the corrupted lands was left behind, but its shadow still loomed over them, as if the land itself was reluctant to let them go without exacting some toll.

As night began to fall, the trio finally slowed their pace. They needed to rest, for themselves and their horses. Thompson pointed to a clearing up ahead with a small brook trickling through it.

"We'll rest here for the night," he decided, dismounting with a grunt. "We'll need our strength for tomorrow."

They settled down in the clearing, unsaddling their horses and setting up a modest camp. Elias took the first watch, sitting a small distance away, his sword laid across his lap. Alice lay near the fire, trying to find sleep, but the flames cast more than light—they cast the shadows of doubt and fear that danced across her closed eyelids.

In the quiet of the night, Thompson approached her. "The Sword Temple will hold answers, Alice, and power. With it, perhaps we can do more than just save the coven—we can free the lands from corruption forever."

"I want to believe that Thompson," Alice sighed. "But the cost seems so high."

"Every choice in this war carries a cost," Thompson replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “We had no other option. Or at least one that wouldn’t result in us dying. We might have been able to fight off those monsters for a while, but what about after? You can not be put in danger right now. Not when we have made the progress we’ve been making.” He tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but she brushed it off.

“I am not some fragile princess. These struggles are my own and I will make my own decisions. If you or Elias do that again I will leave you. Understand? You will be free of our obligation and can go home to your castle and servants while I do my job my way.”

Thompson put his hands up and took a step away. With that, he left her to her thoughts, standing watch at the other side of the camp. She stomped away not looking back and found a quieter place to be. Elias watched the interaction from afar and returned to his corner. The night was eerily silent as he sat for the first watch. Eventually, Alice returned to the campsite and went to bed. He did not comment and watched the pair sleep. The wind blew against him as he sat trying to keep warm. Soon the time for his watch came to an end. He woke Thompson and traded places with him. Elias placed his sword next to him as he slept.