The fractured moon loomed like a wound in the sky, its ghostlight bleeding across the clouds in jagged ribbons. Each fragment of Myrsel hung weightless and cruel above Duskfall Reach, casting warped silver shadows across the frostbitten hills. The air smelled of pine sap, frozen blood, and the copper tang of magic left too long to fester.
Captain Ilyra Veil stood on the battlements of Black Hollow Ridge, peering through a spyglass as the enemy moved into place beyond the river. Below her, the soldiers of the Arcane Coalition murmured prayers or sharpened blades already honed to perfection. All of them knew what came next. The Dominion's vanguard had arrived, and with it came war.
"Formations confirmed," murmured Lieutenant Caedrin, lowering his own glass. "Six phalanxes, artillery on the rise behind their second line. Cavalry tucked behind the ridge shadows. They're not being subtle."
"They don't need to be," Ilyra replied, voice dry as ash. "They have the numbers. And the moonlight."
Caedrin winced and adjusted the clasp on his mantle. His fingers trembled. "Never seen so many banner-flames in one place. They're ready to burn us out."
"Then let them try."
She said it like stone. Like death already tasted on the wind.
Below them, the Duskfall River gurgled with sluggish winter flow, its edges glimmering with thin, treacherous ice. Makeshift wards had been bound along the shoreline — glyphs etched into stones, strands of thornvine infused with warding sigils, lanterns of feyglass containing flickering spirits — but even those defenses felt small against the wall of fire and steel gathering across the field.
The Dominion of Varn had come to end this war, or so they claimed. And they'd chosen Duskfall Reach as the place to do it.
Ilyra turned from the edge and descended the wooden stairs, her boots creaking on every frost-bitten plank. She moved like a ghost through the camp — tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair bound tight against the back of her neck, silver-threaded armor dull with soot and cracked enchantments. Every soldier she passed straightened and saluted, but no one tried to speak to her. No one ever did unless they had to.
That was fine. She wasn't here to be liked. She was here to hold the line.
At the central firepit, her squad awaited her. Seven remaining. All that was left of the original twenty-three who'd followed her from the Cindergate campaign.
"Briefing," she barked. They gathered instantly.
She pointed to a char-smeared map unfurled across the ground. "Enemy is across the river in force. Primary assault expected on the west flank, near the bend — soft terrain, weak leyline activity. They'll want to breach there before we can reinforce. We hold that position, we hold the Reach. Understood?"
Nods. Grim ones.
"Is it true," asked Garren, a thick-necked brute with sunburned cheeks and arms like oaks, "that they brought a Moonshard with them?"
Silence fell like an axe.
Ilyra didn't answer at first. She looked into the flames. They danced too high. The winds hadn't stirred. That meant Dominion augurs were already bending the elements, even from across the river. It was starting.
"We have no confirmation," she said at last. A lie. They all knew it. She gave them no comfort. "Our wards will dampen the worst of it, and we have tether-sabers ready if their mages get too close."
Garren grunted. Others looked pale.
"Dom is moving siege platforms," said Kael, the only one who still wore a mage's half-robes under his armor. "They're using silverwood frame mounts. Anti-wyrd design. Old Empire tech."
"Means they plan to camp," said Ilyra. "They think we'll fold by morning."
The fire spat sparks. Somewhere nearby, a horn blew — low and long and cold. Not Dominion. Coalition. A signal: movement detected on the river's edge.
They stood without another word.
Fifteen minutes later, Ilyra crouched with her squad in a trench above the western bend. The river curved out like a hooked claw here, forcing any crossing force into a bottleneck. Perfect ground for ambush — if it weren't for the shattered leyline beneath it, a churning sinkhole of dead magic and unstable spells. Their best mages couldn't keep wards active longer than an hour here. The Dominion knew that.
"They're baiting us to commit early," Kael muttered, brushing a gloved hand over the chalk glyphs carved into the ground. They fizzled. "Even the dirt here hates us."
"That's mutual," said Garren, spitting. He held a repeating arbalest the size of a child. "See that? Just right of the broken birch. They're moving. Four squads. Light shield formations. Looks like Varn-Second."
"Scouts," Ilyra said. "And sacrifices."
As the first wave advanced into the bend, she gave no order. No one moved. Let them come.
Snow crunched under armored boots. Dominion soldiers bore flame-forged shields, gleaming faintly with residual moonlight — heatless, blue-silver flame that danced across the metal like water. These weren't conscripts. These were war-sworn.
The trap sprung when the Dominion reached the middle of the bend. Ilyra raised two fingers, dropped them.
Glyphfires burst from the trenches. Sigils hidden under frozen earth exploded upward in arcs of orange and gold, binding the front ranks in snaring light. Arrows flew from the trees, whistling into helmets and under pauldrons. Crossbow bolts sang.
Garren leapt up and fired twice — thump, thump — as Dominion knights reeled. One shattered, armor buckling as it twisted inward like tinfoil. The second shot punched through three men before splashing against a mage's warded breastplate, which cracked but held.
"Push!" Ilyra shouted, and they charged.
She drew her sword — old steel, rune-inscribed, with a core of petrified moonroot — and wove into the melee like a hawk among pigeons. She cut down a Dominion footsoldier with a thrust through the chest and parried a glaive swipe in the same breath.
Kael stood back, chanting. His spells sputtered, but one found traction — a gout of shadowflame that blinded a cluster of enemies long enough for Ilyra to dispatch them.
They pressed the invaders back across the ice-slick river. Three Coalition soldiers died, one screaming as Dominion fire-magic caught his tabard and reduced him to ash in seconds. Ilyra didn't break stride.
Then the ice cracked.
A distant boom echoed across the valley, and the river shook. Water pulsed upward in a geyser as something heavy — too heavy — slammed into the far bank.
"What the—?" Kael started.
From the mists emerged the real threat: a siege platform mounted with a moonlight cannon, pulled by two horned bonebeasts and guarded by a fresh Dominion phalanx. Their armor bore the sigil of the Seventh Dawn — the Dominion's elite Moon-Bound.
"Back! Back now!" Ilyra screamed. "They baited us out—!"
Too late.
The cannon fired. A silent pulse of lunar energy tore across the river and struck the leftmost treeline. Where it hit, everything ceased. Not destroyed — simply gone. Trees, soldiers, ground — erased in a sphere of weightless emptiness that pulsed once and vanished.
Ilyra hit the ground. Ears ringing. Nose bleeding. Garren was down, his armor glowing with residual light. Kael was screaming something, pointing.
Another cannon charge was building.
"Fall back to Ridge-Three!" Ilyra barked. "MOVE!"
They scrambled up the bank. Dominion forces poured across the river now, using the shattered terrain as stepping stones. Phalanxes advanced behind the Moon-Bound, shields locked, chanting battle-hymns to their lunar patron.
The Coalition line was cracking.
By the time they reached Ridge-Three, dusk had fully fallen. The sky burned crimson and silver. The fractured moon gleamed like a god's eye.
Ilyra's squad had lost two more in the retreat. Kael was barely standing. Garren's arm was useless. Still, they stood beside her.
Commander Vess met them at the watchtower ruins, his beard stiff with ice and one eye milky white from some long-forgotten duel. He surveyed her group.
"Casualties?"
"Seven of ours. Many more along the river's edge. The cannon's operational."
Vess spat. "We knew they'd bring it eventually."
"They baited us out. Used their vanguard like kindling."
"They always do."
Ilyra looked up at the ridge. Fires burned across the valley. She could see the Dominion banners now — white on blue, crescent moon dripping blood. They'd encircled the Reach almost completely.
"We can't hold this without the eastern wall," she said. "And the mages can't keep channels stable. We're out of tether-beads. We're out of time."
Vess said nothing.
Finally, he handed her a scroll. Sealed in red wax. Coalition High Command sigil.
"This came just before the breach. You're to read it alone."
She did.
Then she burned it in the fire.
Vess didn't ask. He didn't need to.
Orders or not, she wasn't abandoning Duskfall Reach.
Not tonight.