The trail down from Aldryn’s cabin twisted through the trees like a memory worn thin. Snow lingered in the roots and hollows, but with each step down from the high Reaches and farther into the southern lowlands, the air grew softer, the soil less brittle, and the bite of winter slowly gave way to the scent of thawing earth. Pine needles softened the path, and the air, though still sharp and crisp, smelled more of earth than frost.

Boaz walked near the front, Thorne keeping silent pace beside him. The lynx’s ears twitched at every gust of wind, every unseen stir in the brush. Behind them, the others kept quiet. Not in fear, but in focus. The joking, the easy rhythm of the cabin, had been left behind with the snow.

Cayden moved ahead, his shoulders hunched slightly beneath his cloak, gaze scanning the slopes. He said little, but his hand rested often on the hilt of his sword.

Boaz’s legs ached from the slope, but he welcomed the burn. It reminded him he was still in control, at least of that much.

Aldryn trailed them by a few paces, talking now and then, mostly to himself or to Nevara, who glided overhead in widening arcs. Occasionally, the old mage would stop, scratch a note into his battered journal, and mutter about “shifting fault lines” and “echoes under the stone.”

Theo trudged beside Kiera, carrying one of the heavier packs. He didn’t complain, but Boaz noticed him shifting the straps more often than usual. Kiera, for her part, seemed to be listening to something only she could hear; her head tilted just slightly, eyes flicking now and then to the surrounding trees.

“We’re nearly out of the foothills,” Aldryn said, catching up with the group. “Road’s not far now. Old trade path running east from Forlon to Cirol. If it hasn’t crumbled entirely we’ll strike it before nightfall.”

“Is it safe?” Lyra asked from the rear.

Aldryn didn’t look back. “Nothing’s been truly safe since before you were born.”

Silence returned. Boaz didn’t mind it. The quiet suited the land: a hush between breaths, like the forest was listening.

Eventually, the trees thinned just enough for them to catch glimpses of the wider valley below. It was a dark green and brown, cut by a thin silver ribbon that might’ve once been a proper road. A few blackened stumps stood in rows along a ridge, suggesting an old outpost or waymarker long gone to rot.

Boaz let out a breath and adjusted the sword at his back. The vista was opening up again, less frozen, less sheltered, but no less uncertain.

He didn’t look back toward the mountains. Whatever waited ahead, they would meet it head-on.

They reached the road by midafternoon.

It curved out of the trees like something half-remembered: still cobbled in places, flattened by trade-wheels and patrols, edged with pale stone markers sunk deep into the earth. Though overgrown at the edges, it was clearly used. Fresh tracks marred the mud in patches. Someone — merchants, scouts, or worse — had passed this way recently.

“Warden’s Way,” Aldryn said. He tapped his staff against a milestone etched with worn, curling script. “Runs from Forlon-a-Midden to the eastern cities. Once patrolled by the Wardens. Now … watched by no one.”

“Doesn’t look abandoned,” Jaxson murmured, eyes narrowing at the wheel ruts ahead.

“Not abandoned,” Aldryn agreed. “Just … less claimed than it used to be.”

They followed the road east until the trees opened into a gentle clearing just below a ridge. There, leaning slightly into the hillside, stood another Traveler’s Rest.

It was a little larger than the one in Forlon. Two low stone walls framed a broad archway, with a sagging roof of wood and slate stretching between them. The heavy oak door hung crooked but intact. A circular hearth stood at the center, cold and dark, ringed with built-in benches of stone. Ivy crept along the corners, but the place had not collapsed. It simply … slept.

Boaz stepped through the archway first.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the air changed. A low vibration stirred underfoot: not a sound, but a sense, like breath held and then released. The faintest flicker of warmth curled around the hearthstones. Dust motes caught currents in the light, swirling.

Behind him, Thorne halted and sniffed the air.

Then — “tick.”

A small lantern bolted into the far wall flared to life with a pale, steady glow. Kiera gasped softly. Theo looked around like someone expecting the walls to speak. “Just like Forlon,” Boaz said under his breath.

Aldryn stepped in behind him, looking around with a slow nod. “No,” he murmured. “Stronger.”

“What is this place?” Lyra asked, keeping one hand on the hilt of her crossbow.

“Sanctuary,” Aldryn said simply. “Built when the roads were young and the realm remembered how to keep its people safe. They were intentionally created by magicians at the behest of the king, and set about a day’s journey between them, to provide comfort for travelers. Back when there was comfort. And travelers.”

They settled in as the light from the lantern continued to grow. It was not blinding, but balanced. The hearth flickered once, then stirred with a single orange flame, steady and silent. No one touched it. They didn’t need to. It didn’t seem to need anything flammable to burn.

Boaz ran a hand over the carved frame of the nearest bench. The stone was warm to the touch: not hot, not magical in any obvious way, but welcoming. Like the place had recognized him. Or something in him.

He glanced toward Aldryn, who was watching quietly. “Do they all do this?” Boaz asked.

“I don’t know,” the wizard replied. “But I suspect they might.”

Night settled early in the hollow where the Traveler’s Rest stood. The wind had shifted just before sunset. It was subtle at first, then sharp, like the scent of a storm with no rain. By the time their camp was quiet, even the trees seemed to lean in, listening.

The fire in the hearth gave enough light to see one another’s faces, but not much more. Shadows lingered at the edge of the circle, just beyond reach. They were all eating supper, courtesy of stores taken from Aldryn’s cabin. They had cleaned out his pantry before they left. “I won’t be back here any time soon,” he had said at the time.

Theo sat hunched near the glow, tightening the crank on his crossbow for the third time. “I know we’re supposed to rest,” he muttered, “but I’m not sure my nerves got the message.” He then continued to oil the reload mechanism for it, forgetting he had already done so earlier.

“You’re not the only one,” Lyra said. She leaned against the stone wall, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the tree line.

Kestel, Jaxson’s hawk, perched on a rafter beam above them, feathers fluffed and eyes wide. He hadn’t settled all evening. Mika paced, low and slow, around the inside of the ring, making little huffing sounds every few steps.

“Familiars are uneasy,” Kiera said softly, her fingers brushing Eira’s feathers. “I think even Eira hasn’t blinked in a long time.”

Cayden sat by the door, whetstone whispering against the edge of his sword. He hadn’t spoken since they arrived. The rhythm of his sharpening was steady, almost too steady, like a heartbeat forced to be calm.

Boaz sat near Thorne, who lay with his head up, ears twitching at the dark. Boaz hadn’t taken his eyes off the hearth. Something was wrong, but no one seemed to be able to point out what.

Aldryn stood outside the shelter, just past the door, staring into the woods with his back to the group. Nevara was nowhere to be seen.

Boaz finally spoke. “Why haven’t you come in?”

Aldryn didn’t turn. “The night’s too quiet.”

Theo chuckled nervously. “That’s usually a good thing.”

“No,” Aldryn said, voice low. “Good is noise. Crickets, frogs, owls. Wind that moves.” He turned at last, eyes catching the orange firelight. “This silence? This is the kind the world makes when something’s holding its breath.”

Boaz felt the chill run through him like water down stone. And the hearth, for just a moment, flickered. That night was a restless sleep for all.

By midmorning, after an early start and a quick pace, the Warden’s Way narrowed into a steep-sided pass cut between the hills — sheer walls of stone rising on both sides, broken only by thorny scrub and wind-warped trees. The wind here was stiff, fitful, and carried no birdsong.

Cayden slowed his pace. “We’ll take this stretch slow,” he said, glancing up the slopes. “Too many blind corners. Too many rocks that don’t belong where they’ve fallen.”

Boaz’s grip tightened on his sword hilt. Thorne’s ears were twitching again. Cayden turned to Jaxson. “Send Kestel ahead. Wide arc. Eyes on both flanks.”

Jaxson nodded, and with a word silently passing between them, and a flick of his wrist, the hawk launched skyward, vanishing quickly over the ridgeline.

A moment later, Cayden turned to Aldryn. “Nevara?”

The wizard inclined his head. “She’s already watching.”

For several tense minutes, they walked in silence. Then Kestel returned in a sudden dive, circling twice above them before landing hard on Jaxson’s arm. His feathers were ruffled. His talons clenched.

Jaxson’s face paled. “Ambush. Twenty, maybe more. Just beyond the bend.”

Boaz felt it: the drop in his stomach, the tightness in his shoulders. A moment later, Nevara returned as well, gliding down to land on a boulder near Aldryn. She gave a single low croak, not alarm, but confirmation.

Cayden drew his axe this time. “Tulogan,” Aldryn muttered. “And they’re not alone.”

“The Fallen?” Boaz asked.

Aldryn’s expression darkened. “At least one Handler.”

“We take cover now,” Cayden said. “Let them come to us. Make them fight on our terms.”

They nodded. The small company moved without further instruction. Lyra Theo, and Boaz took position behind a stone shelf to the left. Kiera, Jaxson, Cayden, and Aldryn angled right where there was more room on the side of the road.

The wind blew again: hard, cold, dry. There was a slight rumble of many heavy feet tramping ahead. They weren’t trying to be stealthy. “They’ve scented us,” Cayden said.

Then came the war horns, echoing in the rocky passage.

Figures poured into the pass: Tulogan, massive and howling, brandishing axes, cleavers, rusted blades. Some wore armor. Others painted their bare skin with ash and blood. Tusks jutted from their jaws like teeth grown sideways, most with two, some three, and one with two tusks and two horns as well.

“Fire,” Cayden barked.

Jaxson loosed two arrows before the Tulogan closed, dropping one through the eye, knocking another down. Theo’s crossbow sang, striking one with ferocity, then clacked into its reload cycle. Kiera waited, calm and grim, until one charged her, then slammed her mace into its knee, then used her momentum to spin and strike again with one practiced motion.

Then the second wave emerged. Ten twisted figures, half-rotted and fast, clad in mismatched armor, swords rusted but sharp. The Fallen.

Boaz noticed their eyes first. Dull. Hungering. Wrong. There was a good reason they were “shock” troops. If they hadn’t seen them before, they might’ve frozen.

But the company held together as they had trained, as one. Mika leapt forward to knock one off-balance. Thorne flanked left, low and fast. Eira shrieked from above, claws dragging down a helmet.

Boaz called Thorne’s name silently and charged, flame licking up his arms. His blade struck true, igniting one of the creatures mid-motion. It moaned, then crumbled.

But one got through. A Tulogan spearman lunged from the right and drove its weapon into Jaxson’s ribs. He went down with a cry.

“Jaxson!” Lyra shouted.

The Handler stepped forward.

It was tall — taller than any of the Fallen around it — cloaked in dark, tattered velvet, gold-threaded with rot. A mask of beaten brass covered its face, stylized like a noble long forgotten. The remaining Fallen clustered near it, twitching with unnatural hunger.

It did not speak, but its presence filled the air like oil in water. “He awakens. He walks. You are too late.” The words didn’t come from a mouth — they settled into Boaz’s skull, cold and invasive.

Aldryn raised his staff. “Enough.” Lines of blue light flared from the ground beneath him, ancient sigils flickering to life like awakening eyes. A surge of force struck the Handler square in the chest, throwing it back into the rocks with a crack of bone and stone.

The Fallen around it staggered but did not fall. Aldryn dropped to one knee, bracing on his staff, spent.

Boaz didn’t hesitate. “Take them down!” he shouted. “Burn them — or take the heads!”

The fellowship surged forward.

Theo called Tink’s name and shoved a hastily wired Golem across the ground — a tangle of gears, bones, and a spring-fired pike. It fired the pike at a Fallen, halting it, then tangled in its legs and knocked it to the ground. Theo rushed in, axes raised, and with a shout, he brought both down on the neck. The head came free, the body twitched once, then stilled.

Jaxson, white-knuckled but still upright, gritted his teeth and lifted his bow one more time. “One left in me,” he muttered. Kestel screeched from above, and Jaxson let fly. The arrow struck a Fallen in the throat, staggering it. He drew his short sword and stepped forward, limping, and cleaved the head the rest of the way through.

Kiera was already at his side, Eira soaring overhead. Her fingers found his side, pressing against the torn fabric. “Don’t move,” she whispered. “Just try to breathe normally.”

Lyra whispered Mika’s name and shimmered. Her body blurred at the edges, half-visible. She darted through the line of Tulogan and Fallen like smoke, sword flashing. A Fallen turned — too late. She phased past its lunge and pivoted, her blade slicing its head clean from its shoulders.

Mika leapt behind her, dragging a Tulogan down in a flurry of limbs and teeth.

And then Boaz saw the Handler rise again — mask cracked, robes smoldering, but still moving. Still reaching for something unseen.

“Thorne,” he whispered. The lynx was already gone, a blur of fur and fang cutting across the field. Boaz followed, sword burning faintly at the edges. The Sigil pulsed under his shirt — not loud, not forceful, just ready.

Thorne struck high, driving the Handler back. Boaz came low. His blade carved up beneath the mask, clean through the neck.

The Handler fell.

The remaining Fallen shrieked — not in pain, but as if some deep inside link had been severed — and collapsed mid-motion, their bodies crumpling like broken scaffolds.

The last Tulogan turned to run. Cayden’s axe buried itself in its back before it had taken five steps.

Silence.

The only sound was wind through the pass and the labored breathing of the living. Boaz stood over the Handler’s body, sword trembling in his hand. Thorne sat beside him, ears up, watching the shadows for movement that didn’t come.

His arms burned. His jaw bled. But it was over. They had won.

Theo sat shaking, trying to reload with trembling hands. “That was…”

“Bad,” Lyra said, wiping her blade clean. “It was bad.”

Aldryn stood apart, hunched slightly, staff still glowing faintly. Nevara landed near him. He reached out a hand to her, as if asking her for strength. Something passed between them, and he seemed to steady a little.

Boaz looked out over the pass. Smoke drifted from the corpses. One of the Tulogan with two tusks and two horns lay burning, face-down in the dust of the road. Cayden stood beside the monster.

“That wasn’t a raiding party,” Boaz said.

“No,” Cayden agreed. “That was a test.”

Boaz nodded, jaw tight. The Sigil was warm against his chest. Something worse was coming.

The wind picked up after the battle, carrying the scent of scorched cloth, flesh, and blood.

The group gathered quietly beneath a lean-to of stone at the edge of the pass. Jaxson lay wrapped in blankets, propped against a pack. His face was pale but steady. Kiera had done what she could; the bleeding had stopped, and his eyes no longer drifted.

Aldryn stood alone at the edge of the outcrop, one hand on his staff, the other extended into the open air. He looked weakened. Nevara perched on a low branch near him, unmoving.

Boaz watched him from a distance. The wizard hadn’t spoken since the fighting ended. Then Aldryn whispered a word Boaz didn’t know. Nevara’s head turned sharply. Her eyes clouded: not white, not blind, but deep, endless.

And Aldryn’s body swayed. Boaz moved instinctively, taking a step forward, but Cayden raised a hand to stop him.

“Let him look.” The wind stilled.

Aldryn’s mouth moved, silent, as if speaking to someone very far away. Then his breath caught. He shuddered, not in cold, but in recognition.

His legs gave out.

Boaz was at his side in an instant, catching the wizard before he could hit the stone. Aldryn sagged against him, his breathing shallow and ragged, his skin damp with sweat despite the chill.

Nevara flew to him at once, landing beside Boaz and cawing once, sharp and mournful. “He saw something,” Boaz said.

“Yes,” Cayden said grimly, stepping beside them. “And it nearly killed him.”

Aldryn’s eyes fluttered open. “He walks again,” the wizard rasped.

Cayden knelt beside him. “You’re sure?”

Aldryn nodded once. “No longer spirit. No longer whispers from the dark. He has a shape again. A form.”

“Who? Where?” Boaz asked, looking around, as if he might see a figure emerge from beyond the pass.

Aldryn didn’t answer right away. His hand curled tightly around Boaz’s forearm.

“Vortannis. Far to the east. Beyond the outer maps. The land is grey there, the air wrong. I saw a hall carved deep into black stone, no light touching it. Saw thorns growing upside down. And him, seated on a throne of bone, in silence.”

His head lolled slightly, eyes unfocused. “He looked at me. Through Nevara’s eyes. He saw me. I don’t know how.”

Boaz felt the cold settle in his spine. The Sigil under his shirt pulsed once, a heartbeat that wasn’t his. Aldryn sagged fully then, slipping into unconsciousness.

Cayden lifted him gently. “He’ll live,” he said. “Just needs rest. Let him sleep through the night. I’ve seen him do this once before.”

“What now?” Theo asked, voice thin. Boaz looked to the east, where the road curved toward the shadowed peaks. The city of Cirol waited beyond. Fortified. Watchful.

“He knows we’re coming,” Boaz said. “And he’s not hiding anymore.”

Kiera tended both Jaxson and Aldryn through the night with her magic and healing herbs, so much so that Jaxson was able to walk slowly, and Aldryn had mostly recovered. The wind had shifted again near midday, and with it came the first bitter threads of smoke.

Not the sharp tang of cooking fires or hearth-smoke, but something heavier. Burned wood, scorched thatch. Something older beneath it, sour and metallic. Boaz was the first to smell it. Thorne growled low in his throat, nose to the wind.

They crested a ridge and saw it.

The village lay nestled in the low valley below: what remained of it. Pinehaven, Aldryn had called it. Now the pines were blackened, and the haven was ash.

Smoke drifted in lazy columns from shattered rooftops. Walls lay collapsed into their own cellars. A cart burned slowly in the center of the square, its frame warped into a skeletal silhouette.

No movement, no sound.

Only the wind, and the moan of something half-hinged swinging in the breeze. Cayden raised a hand, signaling them to slow. Nevara circled once above them and did not call.

The group fanned out as they descended: cautious, blades drawn, eyes sharp. Theo whispered, “Why burn it? There’s nothing left to take.”

“They weren’t here to take,” Lyra said flatly. “They were here to leave a message, I think.”

They passed a barn with its doors blown inward, the hay inside charred and streaked. A long smear of blood stained the ground outside, ending where the grass had been flattened by something that had been dragged through.

Kiera swallowed hard but said nothing. Boaz stepped carefully over a fallen beam, his eyes locked on the village square ahead.

Bodies. Not many; two or three, scattered. The rest, it seemed, had been taken. Or burned. Children’s toys lay broken in the mud. A cooking pot half-buried in ash. A shawl caught in a bush, fluttering like a flag.

Boaz’s fists clenched at his sides.

They reached the edge of the square, and no one spoke. Even Cayden looked stricken: not surprised, but wounded. Aldryn leaned on his staff with silent fury.

“We were too late,” Theo said. Boaz stared at the burned cart, the ruins, the emptiness.

At first, the ruins of Pinehaven gave no answer.

The fellowship stood in the village square, the blue sky overhead feeling wrong against the blackened timbers and sunken roofs. Smoke curled from smoldering beams. Nothing moved but ash in the wind.

Then Thorne growled.

Boaz turned. A faint sound, shuffling and hesitant. From behind the half-collapsed well at the edge of the square, a figure emerged.

A woman, middle-aged, face streaked with soot, a cut across her brow. She held a broken hoe like a weapon. Behind her came others, slowly, as if waking from a nightmare they hadn’t yet left. A boy with a bandaged arm. An older man missing one boot. Two small children clung to a teenager’s cloak.

None spoke. Not at first. Boaz raised a hand, sheathed his blade, and took a slow, deliberate step. “We’re not here to hurt you,“ Boaz said gently. “We saw the smoke. We came as fast as we could.“

The woman’s eyes flicked to Thorne, then to the others behind Boaz. Her grip on the hoe tightened. “Who are you?”

“My name is Boaz,” he said. “These are my companions. We came from Forlon. We fought the Fallen and Tulogan at the pass.“

A murmur ran through the survivors. “You killed them? The ones who attacked us?” asked the boy.

Boaz nodded once. “We did. Not all, but enough.”

The woman lowered the hoe. Her shoulders sagged. “They came before dawn,” she said. “The Tulogan first. Killed the watchman. Set fire to the grainhouse. Then the … other ones. Took people. My sister. My father. Anyone who couldn’t run fast enough.”

Kiera moved quietly to the boy and crouched beside him, inspecting the bandage. He flinched, but didn’t pull away. She murmured something low and soothing.

Theo stepped forward, scanning what remained of the buildings. “We can salvage the carts, maybe. Get some clean water if we boil it.“

Boaz turned back to the woman. “What’s your name?“

“Lysa,“ she said.

“Lysa, we need to bury your dead. We can help with that. And then we need to make sure those who are left can eat, and rest. While we’re here, let us help.“

She hesitated. Looked him over again. Then she nodded.

They worked until dusk. The villagers, a dozen survivors in all, began to move with purpose as the fellowship guided hands to tasks. Lyra and Jaxson cleared a stable of debris. Theo repaired a wheel with parts scavenged from a cart. Kiera and Aldryn tended wounds. Cayden stood watch with grim resolve.

Boaz helped dig. It wasn’t heroic. It wasn’t glorious. But it mattered. This was not what he had pictured when he was daydreaming. It seemed so long ago, when he was still naive. Each shovel of earth felt like a promise he couldn’t quite name. Each wrapped form placed gently in the ground an echo of what had been lost.

They buried nine.

When it was done, Boaz stood at the edge of the last grave, placing the last marker stone. He didn’t speak. The wind did enough of that.

They stayed the night in Pinehaven.

It was too late to travel, and the villagers wouldn’t hear of sending them off without warmth and rest. What little shelter remained was offered freely. The remains of the old inn had one room mostly intact, and a small fire crackled in its hearth as the company gathered. Others settled into abandoned homes, patched the walls, swept the ash, and shared what remained.

Boaz helped quietly where he could. He didn’t give orders. But still, the villagers looked to him — to ask what should be done next, to offer thanks, to sit near him in silence.

That evening, as the sun slipped behind the Cirol Pass, Aldryn wandered into the village square. There, half-covered in moss and time, lay the bones of a Traveler’s Rest — a cracked ring of stone half-sunk in the earth, long forgotten.

Boaz followed. He kept his voice low. “You think it’ll answer?”

Aldryn gave a thin smile. “Only one way to know.”

Boaz stepped into the ring. It wasn’t dramatic. No roar of wind. No tremble beneath their feet. Just a breath of warmth, a shift in the air — like the ground itself exhaled. The moss curled back from the stone hearth. One of the old wall sconces, thought dead for years, flared softly to life.

A single flame.

Behind him, villagers had gathered. No one spoke. In the silence, the old stones seemed louder than words.

Boaz stepped back. “It’s not me.”

“No,” Aldryn murmured, “but it remembers you.”

One of the villagers passed out some stores of food for supper. Another passed around a kettle of weak herb-tea. The flame in the hearth burned low and steady, casting long shadows that didn’t feel so heavy now.

Lysa approached as the others settled. She stood straight and her voice was clear when she said, “It was said long ago that the Rest only wakes for those the land once trusted. And perhaps trusts again.”

Boaz shook his head. “I’m not who you think I am. I was a blacksmith’s apprentice from a forgotten village a month ago.”

“You still are,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not something more.” She placed her hand on his shoulder — light, brief — then turned and joined the others.

Later, in the inn’s half-lit room, the fellowship sat around the hearth. No one spoke for a while.

“He still eats too fast,” Jaxson said finally, nodding in the direction of Boaz. “Still sharpens his blade when he’s nervous. I’ve seen him trip over his own boots.”

Lyra gave him a sidelong look. “And yet a whole village just watched him walk into a forgotten place, and it lit up like the stories.”

“It wasn’t just that,” Kiera murmured. “It was how he looked at them. Like he really saw them. I wouldn’t have known what to say. He did.”

Theo leaned back, rolling a brass gear between his fingers. “If we’re going to end up following someone, I’d rather it be the one who doesn’t want the job.”

“He’s not a lord,” Jaxson muttered.

“No,” Theo said. “But they seem to think he is.”

No one argued.

Boaz sat slightly apart, near the hearth, Thorne curled at his feet. He stared into the flame — not lost, not proud, just quiet.

Cayden glanced toward him, then back to the others. “He’s not who he was,” he said. “And neither are we.”

They left at first light.

The road out of Pinehaven wound gently eastward, curving through low valleys still kissed by morning mist. Dew clung to the grasses, sparkling in the early sun. Birds had returned with the light, flitting from branch to branch, cautious but curious.

They passed small orchards, the trees bare now, and waiting for spring. Fences stood half-mended, some hastily repaired after the raid, others still broken. Farther on, the land stretched wider — open fields bordered by stone walls and hedgerows, where sheep grazed and a few distant figures harvested the late-season harvest. Smoke curled from homesteads tucked between stands of trees, and the air smelled of earth that had been cultivated, cared for.

The road widened, and signs of civilization thickened. Fresh wheel ruts marked where supply wagons had passed. A stone milestone read: CIROL, 3 MILES. The company paused only briefly to rest, their pace steady, eyes forward.

As they climbed a final ridge, the plains fell away before them, and the city came into view at last.

Cirol.

From behind them, just before the crest of the hill slipped from view, a voice spoke. It was the old man from Pinehaven — the one with one boot and a weathered face. He’d apparently walked part of the morning with them before turning back.

He shaded his eyes, looking out over the fields to the shining towers and walls in the distance. “Our king walks the old roads again,” he murmured — not loud, and not for show, but with the quiet conviction of someone who’d waited a long time to say it.

No one answered. Boaz certainly didn’t have any words, but the words followed him down the slope, as sure and heavy as the blade on his back.

Walls like cliffs. Towers like teeth. Flags snapping in the wind. Boaz didn’t stop. But he heard one last whisper from a voice behind, carried on the wind:

“Our king walks the old roads again.”

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