The pass was quiet at last. Quiet in the way graveyards are quiet.
Snow drifted down in slow, heavy flakes, softening the black blood and churned mud into a grey paste. Broken spears jutted like ribs from the ground. Armor lay where men had fallen, their banners pinned under stones or bodies. The wind carried the smell of iron and something older, like the damp breath of a cavern.
Kaelen stood among it all, sword tip resting in the snow. The brand on his arm pulsed like a slow drum, glowing faintly through his torn sleeve. It had burned during the fight, but now it hummed with a low, steady vibration, as if the mountain itself were answering it.
Cheers rose weakly from the Ashborn. They had held the Iron Spire Pass, driven the Crown's army back, and survived the binder. But even their voices sounded brittle, like glass waiting to crack. The Hollow Crown had retreated too easily. No one trusted an easy retreat.
Lira picked her way across the battlefield, her red cloak dragging streaks through the slush. "You're bleeding," she said quietly.
Kaelen looked down. The skin around the brand had split, thin rivulets of black-red blood staining his wrist. He flexed his fingers and forced a smile. "I've been worse."
She didn't smile back. Her silver eyes flicked to the mountain ridges, where shadows still clung even under daylight. "It's not over. That horn we heard…" Her voice trailed off.
"I know," Kaelen said. "That wasn't them."
Serenya strode toward them, her war axe still slick with blood. She wiped it on a rag, eyes scanning the soldiers as they gathered. "They're calling this a victory," she said, "but it feels like we were baited."
"Because we were," Lira murmured.
Kaelen nodded once. "Get the wounded inside. Double the watch on every gate. We're not done yet."
As Serenya turned to bark orders, Kaelen caught Varik out of the corner of his eye. The big shield-bearer was sitting against a rock, face pale, eyes unfocused. His arms trembled as if under an invisible weight.
Kaelen approached him carefully. "Varik," he said, kneeling. "Can you stand?"
Varik blinked slowly. "I… think so." He flexed his hands, staring at his fingers like they belonged to someone else. "When he bound me, it felt like he reached inside my chest and pulled out every command I'd ever learned. Like my own body was a stranger."
"Do you feel it now?" Kaelen asked quietly.
Varik hesitated. "No. But sometimes… it's like a thread at the back of my neck." His eyes rose to meet Kaelen's. "If I'm compromised, you need to—"
"No," Kaelen said sharply. "You're not our enemy." But inside, a whisper of doubt twined with the shard's hunger. The Hollow Crown's sorcery was subtle. Could a man know he was compromised?
A group of soldiers nearby whispered, glancing at Varik. Kaelen stood, his voice cutting through the murmurs. "Varik is one of us. He fought and bled for this pass. If anyone questions his loyalty, they question mine. Do you understand?"
The whispers died. But suspicion hung in the air like smoke.
The war-council chamber was carved from the heart of the mountain, its walls etched with runes of flame and stone. The elders had gathered there before Kaelen arrived, their faces drawn tight with exhaustion and fear. Maps lay unrolled across the stone table, markers showing the pass, the valleys, the routes to the lower forges.
Elder Maedryn, oldest of the council, gestured Kaelen forward. His hair was white, his eyes pale as ash. "You've done what we could not," he said. "You've held them."
"We held them for now," Kaelen said. "But they didn't come for the pass. They came for time."
The elders exchanged glances. "Time?" Maedryn asked.
Lira stepped beside Kaelen. "The horn we heard at the end," she said. "It wasn't theirs. It was older. Something stirred beneath the ridges while we fought."
Kaelen placed his hand flat on the map. "The Hollow Crown knows what's under these mountains. They've been trying to wake it. And we may have helped them by keeping our eyes here."
The chamber fell silent. For a moment the only sound was the soft scrape of quills on parchment. Then Maedryn spoke again, voice low. "There are passages below the forges. Sealed since the First War. We thought them lost."
"Not lost," Kaelen said. "Sleeping."
Another elder leaned forward. "You speak as if you've seen it."
Kaelen hesitated, then rolled up his sleeve. The brand glimmered faintly in the dim light, threads of silver and black winding together like veins. "This is not just a mark. It's a key. It reacts to whatever's moving down there. I can feel it."
A ripple went through the room. Some elders leaned back; others leaned forward as if drawn to it. Lira reached out, brushing her fingers near the brand but not touching it. "It's changing you," she whispered.
"I'm still me," Kaelen said. "But if I go down there, I might find out what they've woken — or how to stop it."
Maedryn exhaled slowly. "Then you'll need a guide."
That night Kaelen walked the forge halls, the echo of his boots swallowed by stone. Sparks from dying fires floated like fireflies. Smiths and warriors alike bowed as he passed, some with respect, others with wariness. His shadow flickered against the walls, longer than it should have been.
He stopped at a narrow side passage, feeling the brand tug toward it like a compass. He had walked this hall a hundred times and never noticed the archway before. Now it stood open, the stone carved with runes he didn't recognize.
Lira found him there. "The scouts returned," she said softly. "The Crown's army vanished from the lower valleys. But a fissure has opened near the old forges. Smoke rising. No sign of life."
Kaelen's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. "Then it's begun."
She stepped closer, her silver eyes reflecting the faint glow of his brand. "If you go down there, you may not come back."
"If I don't go, no one comes back," he said simply.
For a moment she said nothing. Then she touched his arm, just above the brand. "Then don't go alone."
He met her gaze. "I wasn't planning to."
At dawn the horns sounded again — not war horns, but the deep call of the mountain itself. The Ashborn gathered in the courtyard, whispering prayers and sharpening blades. Varik stood at Kaelen's side, eyes clear but jaw tight. Serenya adjusted the straps of her war axe. Lira drew her cloak close, the runes on her staff faintly glowing.
They would descend into the old passages together. Into whatever waited beneath the ridges.
Kaelen looked back at the stronghold — the forges, the soldiers, the lives he had sworn to protect. Then he looked at the fissure in the distance, smoke rising from it like the breath of a sleeping beast.
The shard pulsed under his skin, hungry, eager. He held it tight.
"We go," he said.
And they went.