I couldn't see.
The world was thick and gray. Faces swam in the dark—too smooth, too quiet, like wax left too long in the sun. No eyes. No mouths. Just hollow things with blurred edges, standing in a wide circle around me.
I was frozen. Not from fear. I couldn't move.
My body had been strapped to something—wood, maybe. My arms were pinned, stretched back until my shoulders burned. My chin pressed against the groove of a heavy block. I couldn't lift my head.
There was no sound but breathing. Not mine—theirs. Shallow and slow, like animals too tired to eat.
Then came footsteps. Even. Deliberate. The sound of heels striking stone.
A man stepped forward, breaking the circle.
He wore deep red—no dirt, no tears. A noble's coat, sharp at the shoulders, silver chain across the chest, boots shined like mirrors. His hair was pale and combed straight back. He looked at me the way people look at mold.
He didn't say anything for a while. Just stared down like I was a stump someone had forgotten to burn.
And then, like he was reciting a line from a play, he said:
"You never realized the sun fell down… and the moon came up."
He turned and walked away. Each footstep rang out louder than the last.
I tried to shout—but my mouth wouldn't open.
And then I woke.
Gasping. Wet with sweat. The cot creaked beneath me, sagging under my weight and broken boards. My foot slipped off the edge, and I had to grip the side to keep from hitting the ground. My breath came fast. Shallow.
It took me a moment to remember where I was.
The building was a ruin—someone said it used to be a church, but the roof was mostly gone and the windows were just holes filled with smoke-stained boards. The walls leaned in like they were tired. We'd taken shelter here after yesterday's march.
I sat up and looked around. Bodies lay sprawled across the floor—soldiers, most of them young, all of them dead to the world. Some snored. One of them whimpered in his sleep. Another twitched like a dog.
My shirt clung to my skin. I wiped my face, but it didn't help.
I didn't want to go back to sleep. I didn't even want to lie down again.
So I stood up, careful not to step on anyone, and slipped through the broken doorway into the cold night.
The air outside was sharp and wet. Mist clung to the dirt like spilled milk. Trees stretched out in all directions, thin and naked, reaching for a sky full of cloud. The moon hung low. Pale. Wrong.
My hands trembled a little, so I stuffed them into my coat. The wind pushed at my collar and slid through the holes in my boots. I looked around the camp, but it was quiet—only a few scattered fires and the shifting shape of the old wagon we'd been using for wounded.
I wandered past the fence line. Not far. Just enough to hear less breathing.
The dream kept repeating in my head. That voice. That line.
You never realized the sun fell down.
What did it mean?
"You tryin' to get yourself run through, walkin' around like that?"
The voice came from behind me, slow and amused.
I turned fast, but it was just one of the night guards. He held a torch made from a shovel handle wrapped in rag. The fire spat and hissed, throwing light over his lined face. He wore four coats—none of them matched—and a scarf that looked like it'd been torn from a flag.
"Didn't mean to sneak up," I said, voice rough.
"Didn't say you did." He stepped closer and squinted. "You one of the new ones?"
"Joined a couple months ago. From the east."
He raised a brow. "You look young. What are you, fifteen?"
"I don't know." I shifted on my feet. "Someone once said I was twelve, but that was a while back."
He huffed, more sigh than laugh. "Don't matter, I guess. You can lift a sword. That's all the count cares about."
I looked down at my boots. The laces didn't match, and the left one kept cutting into my ankle.
"You sleepin' out here now, or just got the shakes?" he asked.
"Bad dream."
"They'll do that," he said. "Especially now. Before the blood starts, your mind's still soft. Still got enough sense to be scared."
"I've seen fights."
"Scuffles," he said. "Maybe a raid or two. But this? This is war. Once we take that ridge, there won't be anywhere left to run."
I didn't say anything. He stuck the torch into the ground and sat on a flat rock near a half-burnt log.
"You from a village?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"What'd your folks do?"
"Father made nails. Mother washed for the baron's house. She died when I was small."
He nodded like that made sense.
"My old man used to say the gods don't bother with peasants," the guard said. "Said they only talk to nobles, and even then, only the mad ones."
I glanced at him.
"But that's not true," he went on. "They talk to us. They just don't use words."
I thought of the dream again. The noble's voice. That strange, weightless feeling.
"Yours say anything useful?"
He shook his head. "Mostly they just show me things I don't wanna remember."
"Like what?"
He gave me a long look, then smiled without humor. "You'll find out."
Silence settled in again. The torchlight danced across the frost-slick ground. I heard something shift in the brush beyond the camp, but neither of us moved.
"You should go back in," he said after a while. "Sleep's sleep, even if it's short."
"I don't want to dream again."
"You will," he said. "That's the point. They don't let go once they've started talking."
I didn't move.
He stood up, bones cracking as he stretched. He pulled the torch free and gave me a nod.
"Good luck tomorrow," he said. "You'll need it."
Then he walked off. His footsteps were soft in the dirt, swallowed by the mist.
I stayed behind.
Just me, the moon, and a sky that felt far too close.