Vadar castle.
Count Mirek stood atop the weathered ramparts, a hand resting on the worn stone. The castle wasn't grand—its bricks bore the moss and scars of a hundred years of border duty—but it had served his house faithfully. A solid medium-sized keep, unremarkable in design, surrounded by hills and woodland. Quiet, save for the distant sound of hammers in the enemy camp.
He squinted into the morning light.
Across the valley, the encampment of the Attalian army sprawled like a patient beast—low, circular tents set in rigid rows. Smoke trails rose from them like signals. There were no banners flapping, no siege towers moving yet. Just quiet construction and an ever-watchful presence.
Nomadic style. Fast to deploy. Faster to leave. They're not digging in. They're waiting.
He exhaled slowly, fingers tapping the stone.
"Khan… you're not here to conquer me aren't you?"
His squire, a young lad from Luska, tilted his head.
"My lord?"
Mirek didn't look away.
"He's keeping me here. While the rest of his army moves unopposed."
His eyes narrowed toward the siege machines being built—intimidating, yes, but idle. "Cunning bastard."
He looked back northward, where the true battlefield awaited him. Every day spent here was a day lost.
'The king promised the Phantom Maw would come,' he reminded himself.
Just two weeks. Hold.
He looked up—past the forest, past the horizon.
The sky above the far peaks was… unnaturally straight. Not cloudy. Not stormy. Just aligned.
…
Outside of Vadar castle
General Khan stood in front of the map table, a castle tucked in a valley with the only path leading there was a path heading west to east, arms folded behind his back. Around him, his men dotted the valley floor, preparing.
Behind him, a captain approached.
"Trebuchets in progress. Scout lines holding. The Valerian commander hasn't mobilized."
Khan nodded once, eyes still fixed on the castle.
"Keep the pressure. No provocations. If they try to break out—crush them."
The captain hesitated.
"Reinforcements?"
"They'll come," Khan murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "So will 'she'."
A pause.
The captain retreated, boots crunching softly over dirt.
Khan exhaled slowly and looked northeast—toward the mountains.
He felt it again.
A rhythm beneath his bones. A slow, pulsing pressure, like gears locking into place. The sky above the northern range shimmered with a sense of symmetry he couldn't explain. As if reality itself was remembering how it was supposed to be.
He didn't know what it was.
Only that it was familiar.
And it made him uneasy.
His gaze shifted—west, toward the forests. There, the wind moved strangely. The trees swayed too deeply. Birds had gone silent. An odd silence hung near the edges of the wood, as if something watched from behind bark and shadow.
That wasn't the same as the north.
This—this was wrong.
But whatever lingered there, it wasn't his concern—not yet.
His concern was the timing. The pieces.
"She will move," he said softly. "And when she does, Mirek won't matter… But in the meantime, be wary of possible reinforcement coming from the west and put more guards near the western forest… Something is wrong there." He added
…
On an unknown road
A distant thunder rolled—not from the sky, but from hooves.
A hundred riders advanced in formation, black-plated and silent. They bore no banners, only the dull gleam of steel. Their visors reflected the sky's ordered sheen above them, moving like a tide of metal inevitability.
At their head, a pale-haired man rode with his helm at his side.
His face was flawless, almost too perfect—white hair falling in neat strands, skin untouched by the sun. There was no expression on his face, only a single flicker in his silver eyes as he turned back to the land behind them.
He could feel it.
The sky had changed.
'That pattern… That pull.'
His grip on the reins tightened.
He didn't know its name. But whatever stirred in the far north—it knew him.
It's a stage. And someone, something's raising the curtain.
'I will have to finish this quickly.'
He turned forward again.
They rode faster.
…
At the Illyrian mountain pass.
Roots twisted and wove through the mountain paths like serpents of wood, carrying a woman across the range.
She had no guards.
She didn't need any.
Blonde hair fluttered in the wind. Her eyes gleamed with warmth, but something deeper stirred beneath.
The soldiers of the Attalian outpost stood at attention as she passed, heads lowered—not out of fear, but reverence.
She gave a casual nod, barely registering their faces. Her gaze was fixed—westward at first, toward the castle.
But something else touched her.
Like a ripple in calm water, a pulse passed through her chest, and she straightened.
Her mount—those living roots—shifted and paused.
She turned her eyes northward, and the light caught in them.
Something ancient stirred there, beyond the mountains.
She did not recognize it. But it recognized her.
What is this? she thought.
Her fingers curled.
She whispered to the wind:
"I know this feeling."
But the answer did not come.
Only the trembling beneath the soil—and the scent of something older than memory—remained.