The smell of gunpowder still hung over the border hills of Averholth. The field below was quiet now. A plain of churned mud, broken rifles, and dead horses. Crows circled above like slow black embers, waiting.
A boy near about seventeen years of age, stumbled through the wreckage, one arm pressed tight against his ribs where blood leaked between his fingers. His uniform, once a proud green, was now torn and caked with dirt. He had run when the line broke and the call to retreat turned into screaming.
By dusk, he collapsed near a riverbank. The world tilted. Then darkness.
When he woke again, it was to the sound of water being poured into a tin cup and a girl's voice saying, "Drink, slowly."
She was about his age, maybe younger with her hair tied back, her hands rough from field work.
The room was dim, the fire small, its glow flickering across cracked clay walls.
"You were lucky," she said.
"The others they found out there weren't."
He asked where he was.
"A village near the border. Averholth."
She didn't ask his name, and he didn't offer it.
The days that followed blurred into a fragile rhythm.
He'd sit on the cot near the window while she ground herbs or fetched water from the stream.
Sometimes she'd soflty hum a tune with no words, the kind born from habit more than hope.
One evening she brought him bread and said, "You don't talk much."
He smiled faintly. "Soldiers talk enough for a lifetime."
"You sound like one," she said.
He froze for half a breath. "Used to be," he lied. "Now I am just running away."
She nodded,as if not believing him but not pressing him either.
That night, the rain came hard, drumming on the roof. They spoke quietly over the sound. She told him how her brother had gone to the front years ago and never returned.
The silence that followed was heavy but not cold.
On the fourth night, under the slow creak of the roof beams, he spoke again but softer this time, as if confessing to himself.
"I was a messenger," he said.
"From Fareloth."
She didn't move.
"I was meant to reach our remaining troops near Varnholt. To tell them to gather and strike the city together, attacking with all our power at once."
The fire popped.
Then her eyes hardened.
Her hand dropped to her leg in a smooth and practiced way. The pistol came up like a reflex, the barrel gleaming in the firelight.
The gun roared.
He lurched sideways; the bullet grazed his shoulder, spinning him toward the table. He kicked it over, sending a bowl and spoon clattering across the floor. She charged.
He grabbed her wrist but she bit his arm then twisted free and swung again. The gun went off on it's own, splintering the wooden beam beside them. He slammed her back against the wall, her head striking the boards with a hollow thud.
They grappled in the narrow space, both breathless and desperate, slipping on spilled water and blood. His fist caught her cheek; she gasped and rammed her knee into his ribs. He staggered. She reached behind her, hand closing on the shovel by the door.
He saw it a moment too late.
The first blow sent him to his knees. The next broke the sound of the room. A dull, heavy crack that echoed against the walls.
He swayed, trying to speak but only a broken gasp came out. His eyes found hers, at first confused, wounded, then empty.
When he fell, she kept striking until the world went quiet.
She stood over him, breathing hard, her arms trembling.
Her hair clung to her face; the shovel slipped from her hands and hit the floor with a low metallic ring.
"I'm sorry," she whispered
But the words felt hollow, too light for what they carried.
When the shaking stopped, she bound his wrists and began dragging him through the mud-dark night.
The moon hung low, cold and pale, following her across the wasted field.
By dawn, she reached the Averholth military camp. The guards stopped her until she pulled her tongue aside, revealing the small black mark beneath
It was a secret sign of Averholth's informants. They let her through after examining it carefully with a device.
In the commander's tent, she laid the body down. Soldiers searched it, turning out his pockets, unwrapping the bandages but they found nothing of value. No maps, no scrolls. Just a rusted locket and a crushed piece of bread.
"You've done well, Priscilla" the commander said. "We'll prepare for their siege at Varnholt. You've saved many lives tonight."
She nodded, eyes fixed on the boy's blood drying against her sleeve.
That evening, the commander's orders rode out. Reinforce the inland fortresses. Thin the watch along the coasts.
Far away, in a quiet seaside village, two Averholth guards strolled along the pier, joking about the new deployment lists. The ocean was calm. Then a sound like thunder cracked the air.
An arrow — black and sleek — split the wind, moving faster than sight. It pierced both their hearts, split apart, struck them again and again in a blur of impossible motion, before fusing back into one and returning toward the horizon.
From the fog, the great ships of the Kingdom of Fareloth rose with their green banners snapping in the salt wind.