Sylva heard him before she saw him — boots dragging through dead leaves, breath coming in short gasps. She moved toward the sound with her blade already drawn. The grove's boundary held behind her, but something had changed. Someone had crossed it. He collapsed at the threshold, half his body still outside the sacred ground. Blood soaked through his shirt and into the bedroll strapped across his back. The fabric was already dark with old stains, but these were fresh. Sylva knelt and checked the boundary first — no breach, no burn marks, no sign of forced entry. He had simply walked through. She grabbed his shoulders and dragged him fully inside, then pressed her hand against the wound in his side. His eyes opened, unfocused but desperate. "They're coming," he said. "An army. Three days behind me." Sylva's grip tightened. She had been defending against tests and probes, but this changed everything. The entity wasn't trying to solve for her anymore. It was bringing enough force to eliminate the variable entirely. She carried him to the cottage and laid him on the floor near the hearth. While her hands worked to clean and bind his wounds, he pulled a folded map from inside his coat. The edges were burned black, and red ink traced a route across the page. His finger shook as he pointed to the marks. "This is where they started. This is where they'll be by dawn tomorrow." The route curved and doubled back, avoiding settlements and roads, moving through empty country until it reached the grove. Sylva studied the pattern. They weren't marching blind. Someone had given them directions. The stranger's breathing steadied as the bleeding slowed. "I can fight," he said. "When I'm healed. If you'll have me." Sylva folded the map and met his eyes. She had been alone in the dark, but the dark had just gotten smaller. "Then rest fast," she said. "We have two days to prepare." She stepped outside and walked the boundary line, counting her resources. One stranger who could still hold a blade. Two days to turn the cottage and grove into something that could survive a siege. Three attempts last night had been practice. The real test was coming, and she would meet it with help she hadn't expected and a strategy she hadn't planned. The grove was still hers to defend. Now she just had to make sure it stayed that way.