The banner streamed in the dawn wind, its pale silk catching the first full light of day.
A hush rippled through the Seryth ranks, and even those who moments before had been scrambling to reform their shattered lines looked up.
The Moon Court had come.
Kasane's mouth tightened.
"They mean to crush us in a single stroke."
Shiori did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on the ridgeline as a second column emerged—marching in precise lockstep behind the standard. Where Seryth's soldiers wore black lamellar, these men were clad in bone-pale cuirasses engraved with the sigils of ancient dynasties long thought extinct.
Between their ranks moved figures in grey robes—sorcerers.
---
On the parapet beside Daigo, a mercenary spat over the edge.
"Moon-damned witch-priests," he muttered.
Daigo clutched his shortbow, his heart hammering.
"Shiori…what do we do?"
The woman did not turn her head.
"We endure."
---
Below, Commander Vorys straightened in his saddle, color returning to his face. The fear that had gripped him a moment before was replaced by something colder—certainty.
He raised his arm high.
"Forward!"
The Seryth pikes surged as one, their discipline renewed by the promise of overwhelming strength.
At the same moment, a column of Moon Court spearmen broke from the ridgeline, advancing in a wedge formation toward the stronghold's northern wall.
Kasane's voice snapped like a whip:
"Archers—volley!"
The sky darkened as arrows leapt from the parapets.
---
Jin stood unmoving before the gate, his white fire flickering lower as if acknowledging the new threat. His eyes were fixed on the distant standard of the Moon Court.
He knew the sigil well—four broken chains encircling a single silver eye. It was the mark of the High Executors, the ones who had decreed his house be erased.
---
Shiori's voice reached him from the parapet.
"Jin!"
He did not look up.
"Say the word," she called, her voice steady despite the fear that threaded through it, "and I will unleash the fire you claimed."
The vials.
The Fire of the Deep.
For a single heartbeat, he considered it—the simplicity of obliteration.
But when he spoke, his voice was quiet.
"Not yet."
---
Kasane dropped to one knee behind a crenellation, her breath coming ragged.
"If we don't break their momentum now—"
Jin turned, meeting her eyes through the rain of arrows and the rising smoke.
"Hold them."
"And you?"
He stepped into the gap beyond the shattered gate.
"I will greet our guests."
---
The first Seryth pikes reached the threshold.
Jin did not raise his weapon.
Instead, he lifted one hand, palm outward.
The front rank slowed. Men strained against their own advance, feet sliding in the churned mud. Shields wavered.
"Forward!" Vorys bellowed.
A roar went up as fresh ranks crashed into the back of the formation, driving the front line forward by sheer mass.
Jin's gaze did not falter.
"You were warned," he said softly.
The Crown's radiance flared, blinding white.
---
For an instant, all sound vanished.
Then the first four ranks of pikes collapsed, men toppling as if every bone had turned to water. Those behind stumbled over the fallen, their formation shattering into a tangle of limbs and splintered hafts.
Kasane seized the moment.
"Archers! Focus fire!"
Another volley hissed downward.
---
On the north wall, Daigo watched the Moon Court's wedge draw closer.
"Shiori—"
"I see them."
Her hand fell to the hilt of her hidden blade.
"Prepare to drop oil."
A mercenary near the battlement leaned over to Daigo.
"First time in a siege, lad?"
Daigo nodded mutely.
The man snorted.
"Pray it's not your last."
---
Below, Commander Vorys fought to rally what remained of his vanguard.
"Reform! Shields—hold!"
The black-armored men obeyed, dragging themselves upright, but their discipline frayed with each step. The front ranks were gone, dissolved under a force none of them understood.
Vorys turned a desperate gaze to the Moon Court wedge advancing behind him.
"By your oath!" he shouted.
The grey-robed figures at the head of the wedge did not break stride. As they passed, the commander's horse reared in sudden terror, nearly unseating him.
One of the grey-robed sorcerers lifted a skeletal hand.
"You have failed," the figure intoned.
Vorys' eyes widened.
"No—wait—"
The sorcerer gestured.
A soundless pulse rippled through the air. Vorys' horse collapsed without a cry. The commander struck the earth in a swirl of black cloak and rising dust.
And the wedge moved on without a single backward glance.
---
Kasane watched in horror.
"They killed him."
Shiori's face was pale.
"To them, he was a pawn."
---
The Moon Court wedge approached the shattered gate. Behind them, the remnants of Seryth's pikes faltered and began to retreat up the slope.
The sorcerers advanced at the forefront, their hands raised. Thin arcs of white lightning crackled between their fingers.
Jin stood alone to receive them.
---
"Kasane," he called without turning.
Her heart jolted at the sound of his voice.
"Ready the fire."
She nodded grimly.
Shiori lifted one of the vials of Fire of the Deep from a lacquered chest. The pale fluid within shimmered, throwing strange reflections across her face.
---
The lead sorcerer stepped over the fallen, his voice hollow behind his mask.
"You are an abomination," he hissed.
Jin did not answer.
The sorcerer extended his hand.
"All that you are will be unmade."
The lightning leapt.
---
It struck Jin's chest with a crack like the splitting of mountains. The parapets flared white, blinding every watcher.
Daigo screamed as the brilliance seared his sight.
For a moment, nothing existed but that soundless, endless brilliance.
---
Then the light faded.
Jin remained standing.
The grey-robed sorcerer stared, his mask cracked from chin to brow.
"No…"
Jin's voice was quiet, though it carried to every corner of the courtyard.
"You mistake me."
He raised the Saber.
"You believe I am as you are—bound by the old laws."
White fire gathered along the blade's edge.
"You believe I fear you."
The sorcerer took an involuntary step back.
"You are wrong."
---
With a single, measured stroke, Jin brought the Saber down.
A crescent of searing white energy leapt from the blade, carving through mud and flesh and steel.
The Moon Court wedge split apart as if sliced by the hand of a god.
For an instant, nothing moved.
Then the ranks disintegrated—bodies falling in a ragged wave, lightning flickering out with a hollow sigh.
---
Silence followed.
Not the silence of awe, or fear.
A silence so absolute it felt as though the wor
ld itself were holding its breath.
Jin lowered the Saber.
"Kasane."
She swallowed.
"Yes."
"Signal the rest," he said.
"We advance."
---
High above, the pale standard of the Moon Court wavered in the breeze.
Then, as the first light of full dawn struck it, the banner fell.