Mireholt disappeared behind them, swallowed by dawnlight and dust.
From above, the formations looked like a serpent of silver and steel slithering through the open plains. Skycarriages drifted overhead, tethered to windspirits whose bodies shimmered like liquid cloud. Armored beasts rumbled beneath, shaking the soil. Sleek naval skiffs cut through eastern rivers that had rarely seen traffic in generations.
But it was the night before—the last night in Mireholt—that whispered loudest in their memories.
Tarin hadn't slept. Instead, he climbed the quiet ramparts and watched the stars burn silently. "Three days," he muttered, hands clenching the cold stone. "Then the Nine willing, we live." Ironic, he whispered to himself.
Lira spent her last hours walking through the still markets. She helped a child tie a prayer strip to a lantern, lit it, and sent it into the wind. The child smiled at her like she was invincible. That smile would stay with her.
Marcel knelt in the sanctum garden, the one place where ancient vines grew wild against polished stone. His hand hovered above his palm, where the shard pulsed in silence. Not painful. Not anxious. Just... waiting. You feel it too, he thought. War is coming.
Veyla stood alone in the stables, forehead pressed against Emberjaw's armored snout. The beast's eyes were closed. She whispered something only they could understand. Then, with a nod, they walked together into history.
---
Now, they marched.
Tarin moved with surprising calm, his fingers brushing the hilt of his sword every few minutes. Lira scanned the terrain like a hawk, eyes sharp, posture tighter than usual. Marcel, normally composed, had a strange fire in his gaze. Not fear—focus. His hand occasionally twitched, the shard glowing faintly beneath the glove.
Along the path, citizens waved and shouted prayers to the Nine. Some warriors raised fists in reply. Others simply nodded. Children ran along the route, calling out names of their heroes.
A boy reached out to Lira. "You'll come back, won't you?"
She knelt briefly. "I plan to. So wait for me, alright?"
Marcel stepped beside a weeping mother. "We'll hold the line," he said. "Whatever comes—Mireholt stands."
More warriors joined in, clasping shoulders, sharing affirmations. It wasn't just a march. It was a promise.
---
In the skies beyond, farther east than even Mireholt's farthest scouts dared roam, shadows began to move.
Three great columns crawled through the wildlands. Winged horrors led the left flank, banking on stormwinds, wings like bone and canvas. The right flank slithered—scaled fliers with hooked talons and echoing screeches. The center bulged with the heaviest force.
At its core: Breakmaw, obsidian-skinned, six-legged, taller than trees. It crushed boulders underfoot like sand.
Behind it, the Broodhorn Commander, its flesh ever-shifting, mimicking the shapes of others, marching in perfect silence.
Above all—watching from a perch of broken stone—a single creature of ragged wings and seeping flame: The Bleakflame Wyvern.
And riding unseen through the shadow winds, cloaked in hollow armor, came the Hollow Rider. A harbinger.
They said nothing. They had no war chants. No unity but destruction. And in three days, they would fall upon Burnscar Gully.
-----
Marcel stumbled.
The shard surged in his palm, its pulse accelerating like a second heartbeat—urgent, commanding. His body shuddered as ancient instincts spilled through his limbs. Movements not his own. Styles born of forgotten wars. Techniques from lifetimes he had never lived.
Tarin was the first to notice. He always was.
"You're losing it," he said sharply. "Your eyes—they're glowing again."
Marcel clenched his jaw, fighting to remain rooted in the present. "It's the shard. Again. But… this time it feels—closer. Stronger. Like it's trying to push something through."
This wasn't the first time.
He'd seen visions before—fragments of a shattered past, symbols older than language, faces not his own whispering truths in dead tongues. The shard had always spoken to him in riddles, in sensation, in moments of uncanny clarity.
And each time, his siblings—Tarin, Lira—and Veyla had been there. They'd seen the aftermath. Watched the way Marcel blinked out of reality for heartbeats too long, watched the shadows that lingered in his gaze after every episode.
But this time… it wasn't just another echo.
It was louder. Sharper. More deliberate.
The world darkened around him.
In his mind's eye, the scene flared to life: A ruined hall lit by flame. Chains of glowing script floated around a figure cloaked in ragged majesty. She stood blindfolded by runes, her presence commanding, tragic. She raised a hand—not to welcome him. To warn him.
"You are too late," she said, voice split across space and time. "They shattered me. Not for what I did—but for what I knew."
Flames licked the edges of the vision. Around her, nine faceless silhouettes watched from a burning dais—silent, immovable, divine in their absence of humanity.
"The Nine," Marcel whispered.
Her voice came again, quieter. "Even broken, I remember. I remember the truth the Nine buried in blood."
Marcel staggered back, breath catching. He'd seen her before. Not once. Not twice. Again and again, in different fragments—always broken, always warning. But this time, it felt different. Like something was shifting. As though the shard was no longer content to show him the past. It was pushing.
Harder.
Clearer.
It wasn't trying to overwrite him—it was trying to awaken him.
The woman's memory dissolved into embers. The Nine's silhouettes faded. But the echo of their presence remained. Something was coming. Not just a battle. A revelation.
The shard pulsed again—violently, then gently. Like it was waiting for him to ask the right question.
Veyla steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. "You saw it again, didn't you?" Her tone wasn't panicked. Just resigned. They'd all come to accept that this was part of him now. Something they would face together.
"Same woman," Marcel said, staring at his palm. "Same Nine. But it's building toward something. This time I felt… close. Like I was on the edge of the truth."
Tarin frowned. "You think it's a warning?"
"No," Marcel said quietly. "A reminder. Like it's saying, 'don't forget.' Because the truth… is almost here."
Lira stepped up beside them, blades strapped and eyes sharp. "Then let's make sure we survive long enough to learn it."
The march continued. Their column moved in tight coordination—skyward fliers patrolled in long arcs, ground forces kept perfect formation, Emberjaw flanked Veyla like a living engine of war. The cohesion was remarkable, their movement swift and smooth—less an army, more a single living creature.
From above, the forest of Mireholt thinned into burned grassland. The land sloped toward the gnarled ravine they called Burnscar Gully. They'd reach it by dusk tomorrow.
Two days left.
Two days until truth and war collided.
And Marcel could feel it now—not just in the shard, but in his bones.
Something ancient was waking.