The smoke of victory had long since faded from Dawnspire's skies, but the air still carried a weight heavier than ash. The streets bustled with signs of recovery—stone masons patching the cracked walls, smiths forging new weapons to replace those lost, merchants daring once more to display their goods in the squares. Songs of survival filled the taverns, the people raising mugs of ale in honor of their guardians. But beneath the laughter, a quiet unease pulsed. They had survived the siege, yes—but survival was not the same as safety.
Grimblade felt that unease most of all. He stood atop the eastern ramparts in the dead of night, the cold wind tugging at his cloak. His eyes swept the dark horizon where the eastern armies had fled weeks before. Nothing moved now but the whispering grass. Yet he felt watched, as though unseen eyes lingered beyond the reach of torches. His gauntleted hand clenched the shard of obsidian Kaelen had recovered. It pulsed faintly, a thrum that seemed alive. He had carried it ever since, studying it, waiting for it to reveal its purpose. It remained stubbornly silent—but never still.
Drennar approached from behind, his boots heavy on the stone. "Still brooding over that cursed stone?" he muttered, his scarred face set in a frown. "If you ask me, we should cast it into the deepest pit we can find and be done with it."
Grimblade did not turn. "You speak as if the pit would hold it. It hums, Drennar. Not like steel, not like magic I've known. It feels… old."
"Old doesn't always mean dangerous," Drennar grumbled. "Sometimes it just means forgotten."
Grimblade finally looked at him, eyes glinting beneath the helm. "Nothing that commands armies and fuels zealotry is forgotten. Someone sent those legions against us, someone gave them purpose. This shard is part of it."
Drennar grunted but did not argue further. His loyalty was unshaken, but Grimblade could sense his unease. It was the same unease that rippled through the entire guild. They had triumphed, but victory had come too swiftly at the end, collapsing the enemy like rotted timber. Armies did not dissolve in a single night without deeper strings being pulled.
The council gathered again in the war hall, maps unrolled across the scarred table. Kaelen leaned forward, his silver hair shadowing his sharp features. "Scouts have tracked remnants of the eastern host," he reported. "They're splintered, scattered in small bands. Some flee south, some vanish into the mountains. A few… march west."
Serah slammed her fist against the table. "West? Toward the heartlands? They mean to regroup with northern survivors, form a new front."
Kaelen shook his head. "Not regroup. It feels more like… pilgrimage. As if they're being drawn to something."
Grimblade placed the shard on the table. Its faint thrum seemed louder in the silence of the hall. "This," he said. "This is what draws them."
The others stared. The obsidian shard pulsed, veins of crimson light crawling briefly across its surface before vanishing again.
Serah's eyes widened. "That wasn't there before."
"It responds to them," Grimblade said. "And they respond to it. This is no relic of war. This is a beacon."
The word silenced the room. For a heartbeat, only the crackle of the torches filled the hall.
"If it's calling them," Drennar said slowly, "then whoever controls the shard controls them too."
"Or worse," Kaelen added grimly, "it means there are more shards. This may be only one piece of something greater."
Grimblade felt the weight of the room pressing down on him. The siege was over, but the true war was only beginning. Dawnspire had defended its walls, but now it stood at the edge of a mystery that stretched far beyond borders and armies.
That night, Grimblade moved alone through the silent corridors of the keep, the shard heavy at his side. His instincts prickled. Every shadow seemed longer, every echo suspicious. Too many secrets lingered in Dawnspire's walls. The betrayal during the siege had never been fully revealed. Someone had fed their enemies knowledge of wards and weak points. Someone close.
And then—he heard it. A whisper, faint as wind, curling from the darkness of the corridor ahead. He drew his blade, steel sliding free with a low hiss.
"Grimblade…"
The voice was neither male nor female, neither near nor far. It coiled from the shard itself, pulsing in his gauntleted hand. The light seeped through his fingers, crawling up his arm.
"Who speaks?" he demanded, his voice harsh against the silence.
The whisper was not words now, but visions—fleeting images that struck him like blades. A ruined citadel buried in shadow. A sea of armored figures kneeling before a throne of obsidian. A masked figure with eyes like fire, raising their hand as the world itself seemed to bow.
The shard fell silent, its light dimming. But the images lingered, etched into his mind.
Grimblade stood frozen, his heart hammering. This was no mere artifact. It was a doorway. And whoever had placed it in the enemy's camp had meant for him to find it.
The realization struck like a dagger.
The traitor was not just feeding the enemy information. The traitor was guiding Grimblade himself—pushing him, step by step, toward something far darker.
The embers of treachery still burned, hidden in the ashes of victory.
And Grimblade knew, with the weight of certainty that chilled him deeper than any blade, that Dawnspire's true trial had only just begun.