The march south settled into rhythm. Dust rose beneath steady feet, not scattered ones. For the first time, the line of refugees looked more like a column than a mob.
Brenn strode along the flank, voice steady, shaping order with words as firm as iron.
"Lina, that's not a hoe anymore, it's a spear. You plant wheat with a hoe, but you hold the line with a spear. Now get your back straight. You've run long enough."
Lina bristled, clutching the old tool. "We're not soldiers, Brenn. We're farmers. We don't know how to stand in lines like that."
"You're survivors," Brenn said, not slowing his step. "And survivors learn. Rows hold better than crowds. Carts carried crops once, but now they'll stop a charge. You hold your shield now, or you scatter later. Which do you want?"
The words cut through the line. Murmurs followed.
"They don't even call him Draven now," a man muttered. "They call him Chainbreaker. The fire at Stonecross forged the name, and it's stuck."
Another hissed back, uneasy. "Hush. Careful with your tongue. He hears more than you think."
Brenn's eyes moved across them, sharp but calm. "I hear enough. And I'll tell you plain — the running is done. Now we stand."
The march pressed on.
That night, firelight flickered across tired faces. The air shifted, and a faint glow stirred above Draven. For the first time, all saw it. Pages turned in the unseen book, light pooling as a new image revealed itself.
A blade — Joran's hammer-forged scrap, etched in perfect detail. Every scratch, every line of quench, even the uneven bevel glimmered across the page.
Gasps broke through the silence.
Marrek, an older refugee, stumbled forward. "That's his blade… every scratch, every mark. Gods, it's the same. Not a line missing."
A girl whispered to her mother, voice hushed but sharp with awe. "Is it a beast-book, or something else? How does it know? How can it show steel?"
Draven's voice steadied the rising murmur. "It shows bonds freely given. The bond between man and steel is no different. Nothing more."
Joran's eyes burned in the firelight as he stepped close. "By the hammer… every line of the quench, even the bevel on the edge. It's honest steel. The craft remembered as if the forge still burned before us."
He touched his chest with a scarred hand. "It took steel — every strike of the hammer, every mark of the quench. If it can hold that, why not words? We swear oaths same as we forge iron to hold. If it shows my blade, maybe it could show a vow the same way."
Murmurs swept the circle, uneasy and hopeful both.
Later that night, a few refugees stood with beasts at their sides, faces lit by fire. Among them was Ryl, a wanderer who had drifted into their line days before. She stepped forward, gaze firm.
Draven's voice carried across the hush. "Stand steady. Hold the choice in your mind. Speak it plain. No chains on your words."
Ryl's reply was sharp, hes jaw set. "The binding is felt. The risk is mine. I choose to stand."
The ground seemed to hum, faint threads of light stirring around man and beast before fading into the night. The people whispered, unsettled, as if something had shifted beneath their feet.
Draven nodded once. "The line holds. The path is open for the morning."
Joran's eyes had not left the shimmer. His voice came low, heavy as an anvil. "An oath can be forged. It only needs a hammer."
Across the camp, two men exchanged a glance. They had marched as refugees, their faces worn like the others. But in truth, they were Dorn's couriers — deserters turned watchers, carrying his word in secret. They slipped back into the crowd without a sound, eyes on Draven even as the fire dimmed.
That night, the people lay restless, their whispers circling.
Not just beasts.
Not just steel.
The book remembered more.
And in Joran's words, the seed of something new had been spoken aloud — a thought that would not die.
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