Mist clung to the lake in trailing ribbons, curling low across the water as dawn rose pale and chill. The wide central platform, woven of driftwood and cane, ringed with reed lanterns and memory, lay quiet now. Yesterday it had held debate. This morning, only decision.

Boaz sat near the edge, pulling the last strap tight on his pack. Across the platform, others gathered slowly: no fanfare, just quiet movement and nods. He looked up as Merran stepped into view, not in ceremonial garb, but traveling leathers: close-fitting, water-resistant, with high boots laced awkwardly and a trail cloak slung over one shoulder.

“I thought you might change your mind,” Boaz said.

“I nearly did.” Merran stopped to adjust one of his laces, grimacing. “These things pinch in places I didn’t know I had.”

Boaz chuckled. “You get used to it.”

Merran gave a short breath of laughter. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

He straightened, brushing off his knees. “I’ve never been more than five days away. That was decades ago. I was young, and I paid for it with fever and weight loss. It’s not just the water; we eat differently, too. Jabberfish, lakeweed, stonefruit bark… most of what we pack will make the rest of you sick, and your food will do the same to me if I eat too much of it. But I’ll manage.”

“You don’t have to come,” Boaz said, quieter now. “No one would think less of you.”

“I might,” Merran said simply. “If I don’t go, I’ll always wonder. If I die, then we know nothing’s changed. But if I don’t… then maybe everything has. Someone has to be first.”

Before Boaz could answer, footsteps approached. Aldryn’s cloak swept around his boots as he stepped beside them, eyes on Merran.

“You’ve made your choice, then.”

“I have.”

“Then I’ll see to your protection,” the old sorcerer said. “There are wards I can cast to monitor for illness. I’ll keep watch.”

Merran inclined his head in gratitude. “Thank you.”

The mist had begun to thin as the sun rose faint behind a veil of cloud, casting watery light across Coralhaven. The fellowship stood at the edge of the platform: packs on shoulders, cloaks tightened, weapons sheathed but ready.

Familiars gathered too.

Kestel wheeled overhead, winging slow arcs across the pale sky.

Thorne prowled beside Boaz’s boots, tail twitching with alert anticipation.

Eira perched on a carved post, watching the road north with wide golden eyes, her feathers puffed slightly in the morning chill.

And then there was Tink, who had taken it upon herself to inspect each of the company’s packs for contraband or forgotten snacks. She climbed over Theo’s shoulder and slipped her paw inside his satchel, producing a dried leaf-wrapped bundle.

“That’s my trail ration,” Theo protested. “I was saving it.”

Tink chirped once and dropped it into Boaz’s hands.

Boaz raised an eyebrow. “You were saying?”

Theo sighed. “She’s been extra smug since Coralhaven. I think she likes fish too much.”

“If she’s smug, it’s because she’s bonded to you, after all,” Kiera said without looking up from adjusting her cloak fastenings.

Boaz smiled faintly, then looked toward the docks. A few Aguan had gathered: elders, fishers, children. None spoke. They only watched.

From among them, a girl stepped forward, no older than eight, her curls wet from lake spray. She held out a smooth stone carved with the faint outline of a fish.

“For luck,” she whispered, placing it in Boaz’s hand.

Before he could reply, she darted back into the crowd.

Boaz ran his thumb along the carving’s edge, then tucked it into a small coin pouch he carried. The Sigil felt warm for a moment, as if holding the memory of the lake.

Cayden stepped onto the wooden causeway that led from Coralhaven’s platform to the northern trail. “Let’s move.”

They walked in silence at first, boots thudding softly on the planks. The lake receded behind them, hidden by morning fog and memory. The path ahead was familiar but felt changed, like retracing your steps in a dream where nothing sat quite where it should.

They passed the last of the reed huts and fishing piers. Merran glanced back only once.

And then the forest swallowed them.

The northern trail twisted through the trees like a vein, familiar, but wrong. This was the same route they had taken to reach Coralhaven, yet with every step, it felt less like a trail and more like a tunnel: narrow, enclosed, too quiet. No birds called. No insects buzzed. Even the breeze was still.

Boaz kept to the front with Cayden and Aldryn. Thorne padded ahead, nearly silent on the loamy earth, but the way his shoulders moved — low and tense — told Boaz everything. Nevara perched silently on Cayden’s pack, like a sentinel.

Overhead, Kestel circled in widening arcs. Eira flew lower, weaving between branches with careful control. Every so often, they returned, never in alarm, but always with a lingering sense of unease.

“They’re flying shorter,” Jaxson muttered, watching the sky. “Like they’re hitting something invisible.”

Kiera said nothing at first, but her expression tightened as Eira landed briefly on a moss-covered branch ahead. The owl’s head turned once, then again, not toward prey, but as though trying to pinpoint a sound that wasn’t there.

“She’s confused,” Kiera said at last. “Not scared. Just… disoriented.”

Aldryn slowed, raising a hand as if feeling the air itself. His fingers spread out, palm drifting, sensing.

“There’s magic here,” he said. “A veil. Not cast on us, but around us. Something spread across this part of the forest like fog, except it has no shape. No color. Just stillness.”

Boaz frowned. “What, like a hiding spell?”

“More than that,” Aldryn said. “It doesn’t just mask, it dampens. Sight, sound, even thought. You could pass through it and never notice you were being watched.”

Cayden stepped up beside him. “So let’s assume we’re already inside it.”

“We are,” Aldryn said. “And have been for at least half an hour, I think.”

Cayden nodded once, sharply. “Formation tightens. Scouts rotate every twenty minutes, human and familiar both. No one leaves line of sight.”

No one questioned the order.

The company shifted into a loose marching formation, boots muffled on the pine-covered trail. Tink moved from Theo’s shoulder to his pack, eyes flicking nervously between the trees. She huffed and flattened herself low, bristling at some unseen change in the air.

Theo glanced around. “Anyone else feel like we’re walking through someone else’s memory?”

“Just don’t say haunted,” Lyra muttered. “The trees might hear you.”

The forest grew darker, not from lack of sun — it still shone through gaps in the canopy — but from something else. A heaviness. Light dulled. Edges blurred. Even footsteps seemed quieter than they should be.

“This is wrong,” Merran said, adjusting the strap on his pack. “The trail’s changed. I don’t mean the path, I mean how it feels. Like we’re being bent off-course and don’t know it.”

Kestel swooped low and cried out once, sharp, not alarmed, but clipped. Frustrated.

“She can’t see beyond the next rise,” Jaxson said. “Says the wind shifts every few wingbeats. Like something’s scrambling it.”

Aldryn exhaled slowly. “It’s not just us, then. Even the familiars are affected.”

Boaz looked up the trail ahead. The land rose slightly there, and the trees thinned just enough to give a glimpse of open sky. But beyond that, nothing. No birds. No towers. No movement. The South Fork of the Evenwell, to their right, gurgled downstream, the only sound and movement.

They should have been able to see the signs of Cirol’s outer wards by now. The shape of the far-off ridge. Something. Instead, the forest just kept going. Clean. Empty. Unmarked.

They paused beneath a weathered arch of stone, an old trail marker, half-swallowed by moss. Boaz reached out and touched it. Cold. Too cold for midday.

Theo cleared his throat. “Okay, but — hear me out — what if we don’t keep walking toward the creepy silence?” Tink chirped and stuffed her face into his collar. “You too?” Theo muttered.

No one laughed.

Merran turned toward the south, eyes scanning the trail behind them. “I don’t like the way the wind is moving. It’s hitting the back of my neck, but the branches ahead aren’t moving.”

Aldryn’s gaze sharpened. “Something’s pressing against the natural order. Not breaking it, but bending it.”

Boaz looked at Cayden. “Should we stop?”

“Not yet,” Cayden said. “But we don’t get strung out in a long line either. We’re too exposed here.”

The group moved forward again, more cautious now. Their pace slowed as the trees began to thin around them, the rise just ahead promising a wider view.

But still, no sound. No city. No smoke. No sign of life at all. By the time the sun reached its midpoint overhead, the trail had led them almost to the edge of the ridge above Cirol.

And the city was still nowhere to be seen.

They stopped just below the crest of the ridge, a shallow rise in the land where the forest thinned and the sky finally opened above them. They sat only briefly, just enough to chew a strip of dried ration or sip water from their flasks. No one truly relaxed.

Boaz pulled out a wrapped length of dried Jabberfish and offered it to Merran. Boaz knew he couldn’t eat it, or risk being poisoned. No telling if the full curse was lifted, and now was not the time to find out.

“You’ll keep the rest of us at a safe distance with that,” Theo muttered from behind his pack. “It smells like you salted it with low tide.”

Merran gave a faint smile. “Only the finest lake-spiced variety.”

Even Tink wrinkled her nose and climbed onto Theo’s shoulder, as if making a formal statement of protest. The moment passed quickly. They finished eating and resumed the climb.

The top of the ridge came into view like a veil lifting. Beyond it, the land dropped into a sloping, broad valley. Where once the towers of Cirol should have been visible against the horizon, all they saw now were pillars of smoke.

Thick, black, rising from the tree line in jagged strokes. Boaz stopped dead. “No…” Kiera breathed.

Cayden cursed sharply. “That’s the outer wards. The north gate of Cirol is besieged.”

“There’s no signal fire,” Jaxson said. “No banners, no horns of alarm, nothing.”

“Because they didn’t want us to know,” Aldryn said quietly. His voice was tighter than usual. “That veil we passed through, it wasn’t a ward for the city. It was for us.” He stepped forward, scanning the ridge. “We were blinded.”

Lyra shook her head slowly. “There were no signs. No warnings.”

“We were supposed to arrive late,” Merran said grimly. “Too late to help.”

Cayden drew his blade with a soft whisper of steel. “We’re not too late yet.”

They descended the ridge quickly, following a trail that wound toward the edge of the tree line. Near the bottom, the signs of struggle began to appear. A smashed wagon. Burned canvas. Blackened tools scattered in the grass. A broken bow. A child’s doll, missing an arm, resting beside a crushed helmet.

Boaz’s chest tightened. They had arrived in the middle of something they should have known about, but hadn’t. Then a noise from the underbrush froze them all. Thorne growled low. Kestel swooped low, circling. Eira gave a single short cry, sharp and cold.

A figure stumbled from the thicket.

A man in ranger’s leathers: mud-caked, bloodied, barely standing. He collapsed to his knees just as Cayden and Boaz caught him. “They’re everywhere,” the man rasped. “They came from the north; we saw them days ago. Big… force. Too many to count. But then, then came the second wave. From the west.”

He grabbed at Boaz’s arm, voice trembling. “Not just Fallen and those abominable Handlers — Tulogan. And their siege engines. They hit us before dawn. We tried to hold the roads but, they moved like they knew where we’d be.”

Boaz looked to Aldryn, who had already stepped forward, hand raised. He murmured a few words in Old Speech, and a faint shimmer passed over the man’s body.

Kiera was already beside him, reaching into her pack to get her medicines. Aldryn nodded to her. “Do it. Quickly.”

Kiera pressed her hands gently to the man’s chest. A soft white light flowed from her fingers, dim at first, then brighter as it took root. The man winced, then let out a gasp as the bleeding slowed and his ragged breathing eased.

His head fell back against a rock, but his eyes stayed open. Color had returned to his face. “His wounds were bad, yet you healed him,” Boaz said, marveling.

“Enough to stand,” Kiera said quietly. “He needs real care, but he can walk now.”

Cayden crouched. “Can you make your way to your post gate in the city?”

The man nodded. “If I go now.”

“Then go,” Cayden said. “Tell them: the southern trail is compromised, the western gate’s been attacked, and we’re trying to come through. We’ll try to flank the enemy. Tell them Aldryn Quell is with us.”

The man’s eyes widened at the name, looked around, and seemed to see the old sorcerer for the first time. He struggled to his feet, braced against a tree, then nodded once and disappeared into the brush.

Silence settled over the group for a long moment. “They’ve been under siege for at least a day,” Lyra said softly. “And we had no idea.”

“Because they planned it that way,” Aldryn said. “This wasn’t a siege. This was a snare.”

Cayden turned to the others. “We move now. Kestel and Eira high. Boaz and Merran to the flank. Aldryn, prep to break the veil when we’re close. Stay sharp, we’re not out of the woods yet.”

Literally, Boaz thought grimly. And somewhere beyond the haze and trees, Cirol was burning.

The forest grew denser as they advanced, the path narrowing to little more than a game trail. Every branch seemed to reach inward. Every shadow felt thicker than it should.

Boaz moved with Merran near the rear flank now, Thorne just ahead, slipping between roots and underbrush like a ghost. The lynx’s ears twitched with every gust of wind.

No birds. No voices. Even their breath felt muted.

“Kestel’s losing altitude,” Jaxson called softly from up front. “She says the air’s gone strange.”

“She’s not wrong,” Theo muttered. “Feels like we’re walking through wet wool.”

Aldryn raised his staff and murmured a soft incantation. A pale ring of light spun briefly from its tip, then vanished into the air. “Veil’s still active,” he said. “I’ll try to punch through, but it’s layered: woven with intent.”

“Do it when we’re in striking range,” Cayden said. “I’d rather they not see us until they have to.”

They broke into staggered ranks. Kiera and Lyra tightened the center, weapons drawn. Tink scouted low, bounding ahead and then pausing, ears up.

Aldryn murmured again, pressing his palm to a tree trunk. They felt the pressure shift, like the whole forest had just inhaled. “They’re close,” Aldryn said.

“How close?” Boaz asked.

But the old sorcerer’s face had gone still. They barely had time to react.

The same wounded ranger crashed onto the path ahead, a flash of movement and breathless words: “They circled… flanks… Tulogan…” before an arrow thudded into his back and drove him to the ground.

Aldryn didn’t hesitate. His staff struck the earth with a boom like thunder. A silver wave burst outward, shattering the illusion that had cloaked the land around them.

And the forest exploded into motion.

Fallen squads surged from gullies and ridges, ten to each Handler, their eyes blank and glowing. More emerged from the woods in ragged formation — silent, fast, purposeful. Tulogan warriors lumbered behind them, taller than any man, tusks gleaming, blades broad and black.

Cayden’s voice rang out above the chaos. “FALL BACK! To the ridge! Fight them from the high ground!”

The fellowship moved as one, but they knew they were outnumbered.

Jaxson blurred forward, Kestel streaking overhead. “I’ll sweep left — buy you seconds!” he called. His magic had refined into something seamless, legs faster than thought, reflexes sharp as glass. He darted past two Fallen and cut a path for the others, his two short swords glinting, before vaulting onto a rock outcropping to redirect.

Kiera dropped into a low stance, sling already whirling. A stone snapped from the arcing pouch and struck a Handler square in the temple, disrupting its control. Two Fallen stumbled, momentarily aimless. She fired again: one, two, Tulogan fell and didn’t rise, then slung the pouch over her shoulder and pulled her mace free as the enemy closed.

Theo stepped back, murmuring under his breath, saying Tink’s name. His golem sprung out of the ground instantly — taller than a man now, its bark-iron limbs cracking with stored force. It charged into the line of Tulogan with a roar like grinding stone, smashing two together and sweeping others aside with its great arms.

Lyra flickered in and out of sight, phasing between tree trunks, crossbow slung over her back now after loosing two bolts into the Tulogan horde, her sword dancing now in a deadly pattern. Illusions bloomed in her wake — decoys that turned aside blows, fake footfalls that drew enemies off course. A Tulogan struck at her and hit nothing but air.

Merran raised both hands and water responded. A flood poured up from the trail below, turning the slope to mud. Roots burst from the ground and tripped charging Fallen. Below them, the water froze into jagged, defensive ice.

Cayden fought like a man possessed. His sword arced in tight, brutal sweeps, cutting down two Fallen before they could fully rise from the mud. A Tulogan charged, snarling, but Cayden ducked beneath its cleaver and drove his blade through its thigh, twisting hard as it fell. He stepped over the falling body without pause, barking orders to the others even as he parried another blow. His movements were clean, controlled: the fury of a soldier who knew he was outnumbered yet refused to give ground. A Handler tried to flank the group, weaving a spell — Cayden hurled a knife and struck it through the wrist, disrupting the casting. “Hold the path!” he shouted. “I’ll hold them here!”

The line broke around him. His blade carved a hole through the advancing ranks — an opening on the trail behind them, leading toward a narrow ascent of twisted roots and shale. Fallen reeled and tumbled into Merran’s mudslide. A Tulogan faltered just long enough for Lyra’s sword to flash. The slope behind them was treacherous, but open: a path to higher ground.

Cayden turned and pointed. “Now! Go!”

Boaz didn’t move. He didn’t reach for the Sigil. He didn’t have to. It was already responding. Beneath his shirt, it burned against his skin, a deep internal pulse: heat rising, begging to be used.

A Handler raised a hand toward him, eyes locking.

The Sigil flared. Flames burst outward from Boaz in a ring, licking across the wet earth, igniting bark and bone. Three Fallen staggered back, smoldering. Boaz gasped, caught off guard by the Sigil’s own magic — and then the flame sputtered. It wanted to rise again, but something caught.

The connection thinned; the fire fell.

From the path, just behind Boaz, Cayden turned in time to see another Handler raising both arms. Green-black tendrils curled through the air, coiling toward Boaz, like poisonous snakes.

Cayden ran. He slammed into Boaz from the side just as the cursed snakes struck Boaz. They made no sound, but their strike caused a flash of venomous, sickly green glint on steel. Cayden fell.

Boaz hit the ground beside him, hands scrambling. “Cayden!”

The light armor Cayden always wore was punctured, the edge of his wounds blackened, yet bleeding. His breath came in shallow gasps, and one hand clutched his side, slick with blood.

Before Boaz could shout again, Aldryn was moving, not forward in defiance, but sideways, swift and low. He knelt beside a cluster of broken roots and pressed his palm into the soil, murmuring sharp, clipped words in a tongue Boaz didn’t recognize.

Vines that had once lay dormant lashed upward like grasping hands, tripping Tulogan warriors mid-charge, grabbing their legs. A thin bank of shimmering haze spread in a crescent arc between the fellowship and the enemy, distorting light and sound — a living barrier of illusion and wind.

It bought them seconds. But seconds were enough.

“Fall back now!” Aldryn shouted, his voice rough but steady. “Up the ridge!”

The others moved. Lyra blinked through the haze, phased onto a ledge above them, and began cutting a clear path with her sword. “Go! They can’t see through this!” Jaxson blurred past the edge of the spell, scooping Kestel out of the air as she dipped low. “I’ve got your right!”

Theo and Kiera dragged Cayden between them, her mace swinging wide to block a lunging Fallen, while Tink scurried ahead, clearing the slope of loose debris.

Boaz turned and reached Aldryn’s side just as the old man’s spell faltered — the wind stuttering, the vines already shriveling back into the ground.

Aldryn wavered, his shoulders sinking. Boaz caught his arm before he fell. “Don’t speak,” Boaz said. “Just move.” Aldryn nodded once.

Together they turned and lumbered up the ragged path, the distorted barrier swirling behind them like mist across a battlefield.

Lyra and Jaxson flanked them while Theo and Kiera held Cayden’s arms and lumbered along. Theo’s golem blocked a final push from a Handler’s thralls.

Thorne appeared at Boaz’s side, growling low, guiding him upward. They ran, best they could, up the ridge, the Sigil pulsing like a wound in Boaz’s chest.

Behind them, the forest burned — and the trap they hadn’t seen had fully closed.

They didn’t stop climbing until the trees thinned and the slope began to level out. The ridge was narrow, more a ragged spine of rock than a true highland, but it gave them a view of the forest and river below, — and, more importantly, bought them some time.

Boaz helped Aldryn down behind a crooked slab of stone. The sorcerer leaned against it, white-haired and wan, gripping his staff like a lifeline.

Cayden lay motionless in the middle of the clearing, his armor blackened and dented where the strike had hit him. His chest still rose — but barely.

Kiera was already there, her knees planted in the soil, fingers moving with calm urgency. She pressed a damp cloth to the wound, whispered soft healing chants as light flickered between her palms. “Hold on,” she whispered, not to anyone else, just to him. “Please. Just hold on.”

Boaz knelt beside her, numb. He had seen death. His father. Villagers. Friends. But somehow this was different. Cayden was the one who always stood. Always shielded the rest of them. Always knew what to do, was always leading. Seeing him still, quiet, was like seeing the mountain fall from under your feet.

Thorne sat just behind them, unmoving, his massive body forming a silent guard. Kestel circled high above the ridge, keeping wide arcs. Eira perched on a broken tree limb, head bowed.

Jaxson stood watch near the ridge’s edge, scanning the valley below. “They’re not coming,” he said finally. “At least not yet.”

“They’ve lost more than they expected,” Aldryn murmured. “Too many Handlers disrupted. Fallen scattered. The veil is broken — they’ll need time to prepare a second push. You all did very well. As much as they surprised us, we also surprised them, I think.”

“So, they’re regrouping?” Theo asked, voice ragged.

Aldryn nodded. “And letting fear do the work for them.”

“They won’t catch us like that again,” Lyra said, her voice a steel thread. She stood farther back, arms folded tight, her sword planted tip-down in the earth. “Next time, we make them pay more dearly.”

Kiera tried again — one more healing weave, more light than flesh should be able to bear. The glow shimmered, wavered… then dimmed. She bowed her head. “I’ve done all I can,” she said, barely above a whisper. “It’s not enough.”

Boaz looked down at Cayden’s face. Pale. Drawn. His breath was shallow, rattling just beneath the surface. “He did this for me,” Boaz said. No one contradicted him. “He stood in the way. I should’ve seen it coming, I should’ve…”

“You’re not to blame for that,” Merran said gently. He stood nearby, hands still wet and trembling from the effort of conjuring the water. “Cayden did what he chose to do. What he was trained to do.”

Boaz opened his mouth, but found he had nothing to say. The Sigil pulsed beneath his shirt. Not brightly, just a faint, slow throb, as if echoing the heartbeat beside him.

He reached into his pouch and took out the carved fish token, the one the Aguan girl had given him in Coralhaven. He turned it over in his hand, then placed it beside Cayden’s shoulder. Kiera gave him a questioning glance. “For luck,” Boaz said. She nodded once. They sat in silence.

The sun dropped lower in the sky, staining the smoke-hazed clouds with bruised gold and rust. From below, the sounds of the forest didn’t return — not fully. A few birds. The creak of trees. But no Fallen. No pursuit.

Not yet.

They were tired and thirsty. Merran summoned a thin stream from the ridge itself. Theo brought out his water flask, filled it, and Tink passed it around. Aldryn rested. Lyra and Mika kept watch. Jaxson walked the ridge perimeter with Kestel shadowing him from above. But Boaz stayed beside Cayden. He didn’t speak. Didn’t cry. He just stayed.

The light was starting to fade. The smoke in the distance gave the sunset a blood-hued cast, and the breeze that reached the ridge carried the faint scent of ash and iron.

Boaz walked quietly to where Aldryn sat, half-reclined against a jut of stone. The old sorcerer’s face was pale and lined with strain. His staff lay across his lap, his hands folded loosely over it like someone half in prayer.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Boaz said.

Aldryn’s eyes opened slowly. “Then sit.”

Boaz did. “You spent a lot down there,” Boaz added.

“Too much,” Aldryn said with a weary nod. “Magic like that costs something. And I am no longer young enough to spend it freely.”

“You saved us, like before.”

“Not all of us.”

Boaz said nothing. He looked down the slope, where the forest still seethed in smoke and shadows. “Cayden saved us too,” he said.

Aldryn was quiet for a moment. “He bought us this ridge. Bought you time. We use it well, or his sacrifice means nothing.”

Boaz nodded faintly.

“What do we do now?”

Aldryn didn’t answer right away. His gaze swept the ridge, then the valley below.

“We get into Cirol.”

Boaz blinked. “You think we still can?”

“The city’s defenses haven’t fallen yet — not entirely. But they will if we don’t act.”

He tapped his fingers once on the stone. “The Evenwell splits just under the city walls. There’s a culvert, old and narrow. It empties out just south of here, through a reinforced grate. With Merran’s help, we may be able to stem the flow long enough to pass through, under, and into the city.”

Boaz looked over his shoulder, to where Merran crouched near the ridge’s edge, silent and still. “You think he can hold the river?”

“I think,” Aldryn said, “he’s the only one who can.”

Boaz took a slow breath, letting the idea settle like dust.

“And you?” he asked. “Will you have the strength to lead us in?”

Aldryn gave a tired smile. “Not all strength is in the limbs, boy. Some of it lives in memory. Some in wisdom. And some… in the ones who walk beside you when you can no longer stand.”

Boaz looked back at Cayden. “That used to be him.”

Aldryn didn’t correct him. He only said, “Now it’s you.”

Night had not yet fully fallen, but the stars were dim behind a veil of drifting smoke.

From the ridge, the land below seemed eerily quiet — until the wind shifted. Then, faintly, from far to the north, came the muffled echoes of war: the clash of steel, distant horns, the occasional roar that could have been fire or something worse. Cirol was still holding, but the battle was real. And close.

Boaz sat beside Cayden, who hadn’t moved since the retreat.

The others kept their distance — Merran at the edge of the ridge, Kiera with her head bowed, stroking Eira, Jaxson kneeling beside Kestel. Lyra kept silent watch with Mika, and Theo dozed, curled beside his now-broken golem and Tink.

Then, without warning, Cayden stirred. His eyes opened slowly, unfocused, and his mouth twitched toward speech. Boaz leaned in, hand already at Cayden’s shoulder. “I’m here. Take some water.” Boaz pressed the flask to his lips, Cayden drank a bit, then nodded slightly in appreciation.

Cayden blinked. Recognition settled over his face like a wave of warmth. “You made it out,” he rasped.

Boaz nodded. “We all did. Thanks to you.”

Cayden gave a weak breath that might have been a laugh. “Not all of me.” His fingers reached up and found Boaz’s arm. “You remind me of her,” he said. “Your mother. You’re stronger than you think.”

Boaz swallowed hard. “You knew her well.”

“I served her,” Cayden said. “Captain of her guard. She was fierce. Brilliant. Never backed down from what mattered.” His eyes searched Boaz’s face. “She’d have been proud of you.”

Boaz looked away, jaw clenched. “I didn’t do enough.”

Cayden’s grip tightened. “You led them. You saved them. Even served them. You’ll continue to do all that. That’s what good kings do.”

Boaz met his gaze again, tears in his eyes. Cayden smiled faintly. “You’re not done, Boaz. Your kingdom’s not built in gold or stone. It’s in the ones who walk with you. The ones you choose to stand for.”

His voice trembled now, fading. “You’ve already begun.” His hand slipped from Boaz’s arm.

And then he was still.

Boaz didn’t speak.

He simply bowed his head, the Sigil warm against his chest, and listened as the sounds of distant battle rolled across the valley like a dying echo.

The wind stirred the grass along the ridge. Ash drifted on the air.

And full night fell.

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