The snow remembered everything. It remembered the screams of men as steel cut them down, the thunder of collapsing walls, the hiss of sorcery unleashed. Now it remembered silence, heavy and unnatural, broken only by the low caw of crows circling above the corpses. Frostpeak's valley lay still beneath a pale dawn, but the air felt alive with what had been lost.
Grimblade stood alone at the ridge, watching the black plumes of smoke bleed into the sky. His sword was buried point-first in the earth beside him, the once-sharp edge chipped and stained. The wind tugged at his cloak, bitter and sharp, as though trying to remind him that victory here was not final—it never was. Dawnspire's banners now flew from the gutted towers of Frostpeak Keep, stark black against the washed-out morning, but Grimblade's eyes searched the horizon, where the mountains stretched northward into endless white. Somewhere beyond those ridges, the survivors had fled. He could feel them still, like wolves lurking in the treeline, watching, waiting.
Behind him, Kaelen approached with his silent tread, the spymaster's cloak drawn tight against the cold. His hood shadowed his eyes, but Grimblade did not need to see them; he knew they were sharp, always measuring, always restless.
"The last of their standards fell before sunrise," Kaelen said. "The valley belongs to us. Yet too many slipped away through the passes. They scatter now, but wolves that scatter do not lose their fangs."
Grimblade's jaw tightened. "They will crawl into the snow and lick their wounds. Some will starve. Some will whisper vengeance. Let them. Silence is victory enough."
Kaelen shifted. "There is more. The prisoners… they spoke of a voice. A hidden master. They claimed the coalition was guided by something greater. Not a man of flesh and bone, but—"
"Whispers," Grimblade cut in. "Desperation breeds ghosts."
"Perhaps." Kaelen's gaze flicked toward the distant mountains. "Or perhaps not."
The wind howled suddenly through the broken towers, carrying with it a sound that almost resembled laughter. Grimblade turned from the ridge, his eyes dark. "See that the dead are burned. I'll not have them rise again in northern tales."
The march south was long and bitter. Soldiers trudged in silence, armor dulled by frost and blood. Wounded men groaned upon sledges, their breaths misting the air like dying candles. At night, campfires burned low, their glow smothered by the oppressive dark. Some claimed to hear footsteps circling just beyond the firelight, though scouts found nothing. Grimblade did not dismiss the reports; the north had always been a land where shadows walked too freely.
Villages along the way cracked open their doors to watch the guild pass. Mothers pulled children close, and elders spat in the snow when they thought no one was looking. These were people who had once cheered the coalition's banners, who had offered food and shelter to the very men Grimblade's soldiers now buried in mass graves. Their eyes held no gratitude, only fear. Grimblade accepted it. Fear was enough.
When at last Dawnspire's towers pierced the horizon, rising black and unyielding against the sky, the army's silence broke. Bells tolled from the spires, not in triumph but in mourning. Merchants shuttered their stalls as the procession wound through the gates, and citizens pressed themselves against the walls to watch. Some cheered softly, but most only stared, their whispers carried on the wind. Grimblade rode at the front, helm beneath his arm, face set in stone. He offered them nothing. His victories were not for celebration; they were for survival.
Inside the great hall, the air was warm but thick with tension. The council had already gathered, vultures circling a carcass. Maps covered the stone table, painted with new borders in bright ink, as though conquest could be measured in strokes of a quill. High Chancellor Merrow rose eagerly as Grimblade entered, his robes trailing.
"The north is broken," Merrow declared, too loudly. "With Frostpeak shattered, Dawnspire's dominion is secure. Our banners fly farther than ever before. This is the hour to expand, to claim what is ours by right—"
Grimblade's hand slammed against the table, rattling inkpots. The councilors flinched. "The north is not ours," he said, voice low but cutting like a blade. "We hold their fear, nothing more. Fear fades. They will wait, and they will remember. Do not mistake silence for surrender."
The chamber stilled. Some of the councilors shifted uneasily, others avoided his gaze. They were men and women of coin and parchment, not war. They thought in victories counted, not in bodies buried.
Kaelen unrolled a fresh map, spreading it across the table. The parchment showed not mountains but the sprawling plains and forests of the east, where ruins dotted the land like old scars. His voice lowered, deliberate. "While the council dreams of banners, my scouts report movements here. Raids upon border villages. Magic, subtle but strong. Wards unraveling where no mage should tread."
Murmurs rose, sharper than before. "The east?" one councilor muttered. "That land has been dead for centuries—"
"Dead things do not stir," Kaelen said evenly. "Yet something stirs there now."
Grimblade studied the map, his scarred fingers tracing the inked forests. He had spent years bleeding to keep Dawnspire's borders secure—north, west, south. But east… east had always been silent, a shadow beyond thought. Now it stared back.
"We will not stumble blind," Grimblade said. His voice carried across the hall, quiet but absolute. "Strengthen our borders. Fortify the watchtowers. Send spies, not banners. If a storm gathers in the east, we will see it before it breaks."
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Merrow, pale now, cleared his throat. "And the north, Lord Grimblade? What becomes of Frostpeak's ashes?"
Grimblade's gaze hardened. "The north is a wound that never closes. We will garrison it. Patrol it. Remind them with every sunrise that their chains are iron. But do not waste our strength chasing ghosts."
Kaelen's lips curved in the faintest smile, as though he alone heard the irony. For Grimblade knew as well as he that ghosts had a way of returning.
That night, Grimblade stood upon Dawnspire's highest balcony, the city sprawled beneath him in pools of lamplight. Beyond the walls, darkness stretched into forever. The bells had fallen silent, but he could not shake the echo of Frostpeak—the smoke, the whispers, the unseen hand that might have guided it all. He rested his hands on the cold stone, eyes narrowing as the wind shifted.
Somewhere in the east, something moved.
And though the council slept easy in their chambers, Grimblade knew the war was far from over.