The sword led him.
Not by magic, and not by memory.
By something older—call it instinct, or ruin-worn habit. His steps found rhythm. His grip adjusted by feel. He wasn't walking anymore; he was moving like someone trained to move.
The wind picked up as he crossed the broken plaza. Snow clung to the black scabs on his shoulder where something—*someone*—had pierced him. Cold leached through his boots. The blood that hadn't dried yet was freezing inside his sleeve.
He didn't stop.
The smoke was thicker now, curling behind a ridge of jagged black stone. Not far.
A sound reached him.
Hooves.
Clattering. Fast. Multiple riders.
Atlas crouched low behind the remains of a toppled stone arch. The old muscles in his legs remembered how to balance, how to crouch without sound, how to ready a blade behind the hip. His breathing steadied, but his heart climbed toward his throat.
He peered out between frost-slick gaps in the stone.
Three horses.
Two armored riders. One unarmored man in black robes riding ahead.
The robed one gestured toward the ruins.
The armored pair split off, swords drawn. They moved like trained men—tight formation, watching angles. Not here for scavenging. Not looking for gold or relics.
They were hunting.
And their eyes scanned the snow for blood trails.
Atlas felt the ache in his ribs worsen.
He dropped to a knee and wiped his palm across the old wound on his shoulder. Red smeared against the stone like a beacon.
He swore under his breath.
Too late to hide it now.
---
One of the knights paused. Looked left. Then—
He turned sharply toward the stone arch.
Atlas didn't hesitate.
He bolted.
---
The knight shouted something—words in a tongue Atlas didn't recognize, but understood anyway.
**"There! The boy!"**
Sword drawn, he gave chase.
Atlas sprinted between rubble and collapsed walls, boots pounding over old war-cracked stone. The knight behind him was fast, heavy, brutal—but clumsy on uneven terrain.
Atlas ducked under a broken beam, slid down a slope of ash-slick stone, and vanished through a narrow archway.
---
He didn't think.
He moved.
Turned left. Then right.
His sword scraped stone as he twisted into a final tight corridor, ducking through a gap barely wider than his shoulders.
A flash of iron behind him.
The knight had followed—too close.
Atlas spun.
A single motion.
Fourth stance. Downward guard. Knees bent.
He remembered nothing about the stance.
Only how to kill with it.
---
The knight lunged.
Atlas struck first.
The flat of his blade slammed into the man's knee with a crack like splintered bone.
The knight screamed—staggered.
Atlas pivoted hard and drove his elbow into the man's helm. The steel rang.
The knight went down.
---
Atlas stumbled back, breathing hard.
Then froze.
The second knight was there—just behind him. Sword already drawn.
No time to fight.
The knight raised his blade—
A crack rang through the corridor like thunder.
The knight jolted backward—armor smoking, chest steaming through a smoldering hole.
He dropped without a word.
Atlas blinked.
A woman stood beyond him. Her cloak rippled in the wind. A smoking pistol hung from her gloved right hand.
She stepped past him.
Boots quiet, eyes cold.
She examined the knight's corpse.
Then turned to him.
"You're the Westenra boy."
Her voice wasn't accusing.
It wasn't warm either.
It was...curious.
---
Atlas lowered his sword slowly.
"Who are you?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she took a small sigil from her coat—a coin-shaped disc etched with a golden tiger's eye—and tossed it to him.
He caught it by instinct.
The moment his fingers touched the metal, heat flared through his wrist.
Not burning.
Binding.
Memory trickled in like blood through cloth.
His name.
His House.
His duty.
---
"Welcome back, Lord Atlas."
She holstered the pistol and turned her back on him.
"There's a carriage waiting beyond the ridge. Get in. Before more of them find you."
He hesitated.
Then followed.
---
The snow fell heavier now.
Not soft. Not silent.
This was war's snow.
And somewhere ahead, past the ridge and the ruins and the blood beneath his boots—his family was waiting.
Whether they'd celebrate his return or bury him next to the last heir…
That remained to be seen.