They ran through the forest and the forest kept going.

Jake’s lungs were burning. His ribs were screaming. Every step sent a jolt through his left side where the hegoblin had thrown him and where the cauldron had done whatever it had done to pull at his essence and where everything that had happened today had decided to collect and send him regular updates about how much it all hurt.

He ran anyway.

And the system was busy with all the new bloodline updates, so it wasn’t doing anything about the injuries.

The group moved through the trees in something that was less a formation and more a collective agreement about direction.

The iron-suited men stayed tight.

Eskar kept pace on Jake’s right side.

Ankerita was slightly ahead, moving with the kind of steady, ground-eating stride that suggested she could keep this up for hours if she needed to and had done it before.

Behind them, more dragons appeared.

Not the three from before. These were smaller. Still bigger than anything that should have been able to fly, still producing that deep resonant roar when they called to each other, but smaller in a way that made them faster and more maneuverable through the night sky.

Jake counted six. Then eight. Then he stopped counting because the numbers kept changing and the counting was taking attention he needed for the running.

The riders on these smaller dragons were different too.

There were all women.

Jake caught glimpses through the canopy gaps as the group ran. Dark shapes against a darker sky. Moving with the same coordinated precision as the earlier riders. Working together with the kind of fluid, practiced communication that came from people who had flown together enough times that they didn’t need to signal their intentions anymore.

They were herding the group.

Jake saw it before anyone said it out loud. The dragons weren’t attacking directly. They were positioning. Cutting off paths. Forcing the group’s direction toward something. East and north. Away from the valley road. Toward whatever destination the riders had already decided was where this chase was supposed to end.

"They’re pushing us," he said, between breaths.

"I know," Ankerita said, from ahead of him.

"We need to break the pattern."

"I know that too."

Jake ran and thought at the same time.

He thought about the shadows he’d pulled across the canopy. About how the riders had lost their sight lines when the darkness thickened. About how it was night and the forest was already dark and he could use the night to plan their escape.

He thought about what else shadows could do besides cover things.

The system responded to the thinking. It didn’t speak to him in words. It just showed him. A section of the newly expanded ledger opened up like a door he hadn’t noticed was there. Inside was something the system labeled simply and clearly.

[ SHADOW MIRROR ]

Jake looked at it while he ran. He looked at what it could do. He looked at the cost it would take from the place the cauldron had already drained. He did the math on whether he had enough left to make it work.

The math was unclear.

He decided to try it anyway.

"I’m going to make copies," he said to Ankerita.

"Copies of what?"

"Us. Shadow copies. They’ll look like we’re running. I can send them in different directions. The dragons will chase them because it’s dark and shadows move like real things when you do them right."

Ankerita glanced back at him. She was breathing hard but steadily. Her eyes were bright in the dark.

"How many can you make?"

"I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. Three, maybe four."

"Can you control where they go?"

"For a little while. Then they’ll dissolve."

She ran for another ten steps.

Then she nodded once.

"Do it."

Jake reached for the Shadow Mirror ability and pulled.

It cost more than he expected.

The shadows responded. They came up from the forest floor like smoke being drawn upward by a fire. But instead of spreading thin like the canopy cover had done, they gathered and thickened and shaped themselves into forms that looked almost like people. Almost like the group. Almost like iron-suited soldiers and a big man with a sword and a young woman with dark hair and a young man with dark eyes and all of them running.

Jake made four copies.

Three would have been safer. Four was pushing it. But four meant more directions and more confusion and a better chance that the dragon riders would split their attention enough to let the real group slip through.

He sent the first shadow group running west. The shapes moved through the trees with the exact stride pattern of running people. Their feet hit the ground silently but their movement was right. The shadows knew how to look real because Jake had put enough of his thought into them.

The second group went northeast. The third went straight north. The fourth went south and slightly east.

The real group kept going east.

Jake staggered.

One of the iron-suited men caught his arm. Kept him upright and helped him move. The drain from the Shadow Mirror hit him all at once and his legs decided they had opinions about continuing to run and those opinions were mostly negative.

"Keep moving," Ankerita said. She wasn’t looking back. She was watching the sky.

Above them, through the canopy, the dragons shifted.

The riders had seen the shadow groups. Jake heard the change in the wingbeats. Heard the calls between riders. Four groups of running figures had suddenly appeared in the forest where there had been one and the riders were doing what anyone would do when their one target became four targets.

They split up.

Two dragons went after the westward shadows. Two went north. One went northeast. One stayed above the real group but the rider was clearly uncertain now. Watching. Trying to figure out which group was real.

Jake kept the shadow groups running for as long as he could.