The transport ship cut through the Vale’s misty skies, its hull gleaming faintly uhe twilight glow. As the vessel approached Elderwynd, its passengers peered out through reinforced windows, taking in the wreckage below. Once a jewel of the Vale, the town had been reduced to fractured stone and scattered embers. Smoke curled from distant homes, a stark trast to the natural serenity that once defihis pce.

  Leona sat he back, arms crossed, gaze distant. Across from her, Lyra studied her friend carefully, sensing the shift in her usual fiery demeanor. When Leona did not meet her eyes, Lyra reached across the small , pg a gentle hand over Leona’s.

  “You don’t have to carry this alone,” Lyra murmured.

  Leona exhaled sharply, as if shaking off a weight too heavy to name. “It’s nothing.”

  Nyx, perched on Lyra’s shoulder, tilted her head. “Oh, e now, I have never known you to be the brooding type, Leona. It’s positively unnerving.”

  Leona shot the tiny creature a gre. “I’m not brooding.”

  “You are brooding.” Nyx fluttered her wings, tail flig pyfully. “It’s all very tragic, really. The mighty Leona Leonis, stri silent by—what? Guilt? Doubt?”

  Leona tensed but said nothing. Lyra gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Whatever it is, we’ll be here for you.”

  Leona scoffed, but the er of her mouth twitched upward. “You sound like one of those cheap adventure novels.”

  “Perhaps.” Lyra leaned back with a knowing smile. “But you listened, didn’t you?”

  Leona rolled her eyes, her ears red. She nudged her friend’s hand away. “Shut up.”

  The transport ship began its dest. Garrett, meanwhile, had already nded some distance away, veering the Sorion-Lupus into a dehicket hiddeween jagged roations. He powered down the craft, ensuring that no stray signals would give away its position, then stepped out into the cool Vale air. He would walk the rest of the way, ensuring his arrival in Elderwynd was as inspicuous as possible.

  The st of herbs and stale sweat g to the air ihe makeshift infirmary, where cots lihe walls and weary healers flitted between the sid wounded. Lyra pushed past them, her heart hammering in her chest.

  "Where is he?" she demanded, her voice edged with panic.

  A middle-aged healer, her face creased with exhaustion, pced a ge firm hand on Lyra’s shoulder. “My dy, I must warn you—your father’s dition has worsened. You o prepare for the worst.”

  Lyra’s stomach twisted into a knot.

  She barely registered Leona’s prese her side as she hurried toward the farthest cot. There, beh yers of bs, y Cedric of Elderwynd, his plexion pallid, his breaths shallow. His silvered beard seemed u, his usually strong frame sunken into the mattress.

  “Father!” Lyra fell to her knees beside the cot, grasping his frail hand. “I’m here.”

  Cedric’s eyelids fluttered open, and his milky eyes fixed on her. “L-Lyra…?” His voice was hoarse, weak. “My sweet girl… you’ve e home at st.”

  “I feared I would never see you again…” Cedric wheezed, coughing pitifully into a handkerchief. “I—” His breath hitched. “I don’t have… much time…”

  Lyra swallowed back tears. “Don’t say that! You’re strong, you’ll pull through.”

  “I only wish… I could have held my daughter o time…” His eyes grew gssy as he reached for her cheek with a trembling hand. “O—”

  Lyra surged forward, ing her arms around him, tears spilling down her face. “I’m here, Father! I’m right here—”

  Suddenly, Cedric gasped.

  Then coughed again.

  Then—

  With unnatural speed, he sat up straight i, his pallor miraculously vanishing. “By the gods, I feel incredible!”

  The entire infirmary fell silent.

  Lyra reeled back, blinking in stunned disbelief. “What—”

  “I must have been dying from heartbreak!” Cedric decred, rolling his shoulders as if shaking off a bad night’s sleep. “But seeing my beloved daughter again has mended my very soul!”

  A muscle in Lyra’s jaw twitched. “Are you serious—”

  He grasped her hands, eyes twinkling with fatherly affe. “Oh, Lyra, I have missed you so much! I haveen properly, I haven’t slept well, and do you know what’s worse? The town’s been selling your likeness without official lising! But don’t worry, I ha!”

  Lyra felt a foreboding sense of dread creep up her spine. “Handled… how?”

  Cedric beamed, reag beh his cot to pull out a small bundle. “I had a mert craft official, Elderwynd-saned Lyra merdise!”

  Leona, who had been quietly , arched a skeptical brow as Cedric triumphantly held up an array of goods—a carved wooden figurine of Lyra in her battle gear, a hand-stitched plushie with exaggerated, sparkling eyes, and a part advertisement prog Lyra of Elderwynd: Heroine of the Realm! in bold, sweepiers.

  Lyra buried her fa her hands. “Oh, gods, no.”

  Cedric wasn’t finished. “This one even has a pull-string that says your most inspirational quotes!” He tugged oring of the plushie.

  A tiny, high-pitched version of Lyra’s voice chirped: ‘Never back down, never surrender!’

  Leona, who had remained coldly detached up to this point, made a strangled sound—half scoff, half muffled chuckle. She quickly turned away, arms crossed, but Lyra caught the fai hint of a smirk tugging at the ers of her lips.

  “Oh, you’ll love this one, warrior dy!” Cedritinued, rummaging through the buhere’s even a limited edition—”

  Lyra shot to her feet. “We are leaving.”

  “But, my sweet girl, you haven’t evehe Lyra orative pte set—”

  “I SAID WE ARE LEAVING.”

  As Lyra dragged a very smug Leona out of the infirmary, the st thing she heard was her father’s delighted chuckle and the faint, distant echo of the plushie’s voice:

  ‘Elderwynd forever!’

  Wulfric rode alone. He had left his men uhe guise of scouting new supply routes, though they would no doubt question his absence before long. It was a risk, but one he was willing to take.

  As he entered Elderwynd, the devastation struck him harder than expected. He had known what the Iron Revenants would do—had seen their work before—but standing in the wreckage was something else entirely. He moved past the broken remains of homes, past the market square where shattered stalls y abandoned. He paused before a makeshift infirmary, watg as wounded civiliaeo by weary healers.

  A boy, no older than ten, sat he entrance, his arm in a crude sling. Wulfric’s gaze lingered on him, memories threatening to rise. He's the same age when Nefina...

  He grimaced, then turned his gaze away. g his jaw, he pressed on, passing through the outskirts until he reached the farmnds. What had once been fields of Hex—golden stalks humming faintly with residual magic—were noled and burned, a wastend of charred husks. The loss was greater than just crops. This was lifeblood, sustenance. A cruel reminder of what this war had cost.

  He exhaled, his breath heavy. He had e to see what his alliah Lyrius had wrought. And now he wondered if he could live with the answer.

  The fire crackled between them, its amber glow flickering like a living thing, casting long shadows that danced across their faces. Wulfric sat with his back against a gnarled log, his calloused hands idly rolling the wooden bowl of stew in his p. The steam rose in zy curls, carrying the st of herbs and game, but his mind was elsewhere. Across from him, Garrett—cloaked in the guise of the Helmed Mah a precision that betrayed his disguise. Every movement was measured, every bite deliberate, as though he were dining in a lord’s hall rather than a makeshift camp in the wilderness.

  “You eat like a fug lord,” Wulfric said, his voice dripping with mockery. “Or like a man who’s never had to fight a dog for his dinner.”

  Garrett paused, his spoon h above the bowl. “Do I?” he replied, his tone light but guarded.

  “Aye,” Wulfric said, a smirk tugging at the er of his mouth. “All careful and deliberate, like you’re judging the quality of the dish instead of just eating it.”

  Garrett chuckled, a dry, humorless sound, a his spoon down. “Old habits,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of unspoken history.

  Wulfric leaned forward, his smirk widening. “You’re doing it wrong, you know.”

  Garrett raised a brow, his expression unreadable beh the shadow of his hood. “Oh?”

  “Aye,” Wulfric said, his voice dropping to a spiratorial whisper. “oner’s trick—take a bit of bread, dip it in the broth before you take a bite. Lets the fvor sit properly.”

  Garrett sidered this, his gaze flickering to the crust of bread beside his bowl. After a moment, he tore off a piece, dipped it into the stew, and took a bite. His eyes widened slightly, a flicker of surprise breaking through his posed facade.

  Wulfric grinned, his teeth fshing in the firelight. “Better, isn’t it?”

  Garrett swallowed, nodding slowly. “I’ll admit, that’s an improvement.”

  For a time, they spoke in easy tones—of the roads they’d traveled, of the crumbling state of the town they’d left behind. But then, as the fire burned lower and the night grew heavier, Wulfric’s voice turned somber. He stared into the fire, his voice dropping to a low growl. “You ever wonder if righteous men are just born to get fucked?”

  Garrett hesitated, his fiightening around the edge of his bowl. Guilt crept into his voice, subtle but unmistakable. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Sometimes, we’re just forced into these things. All I do is overy own weakness.”

  Wulfric regarded him in silence, his expression unreadable. The fire crackled, and the weight of unspoken truths hung heavy in the air. Then, as if to lighten the mood, Garrett leaned bad said, “You know, there’s a saying in the Vale: ‘A man who walks too carefully will never leave footprints.’”

  Wulfriorted, shaking his head. “Dry as my former wife’s whore t itself,” he muttered. But then his expression darkened, aared into the fire as though it held the ao questions he’d long stopped asking. “There was a man and his daughter once,” he began, his voice rough and low, like the grinding of stones. “This mahought he could protect her from the world. Thought he could keep her safe, no matter the cost. But the Empire… the Empire doesn’t care about fathers and daughters. It doesn’t care about love or hope or any of the things that make us human. It only cares about quest.”

  Garrett’s gaze sharpened, his attention fully on Wulfriow. The firelight cast deep shadows across the older man’s face, highlighting the lines of grief etched into his features.

  “When the Empire came,” Wulfritinued, his voice trembling with suppressed rage, “they burned everything. The fields, the homes, the people. They took her from me. My little girl. And I… I couldn’t save her.” He looked up, his eyes bzing with a fury that seemed to pierce through the night. “That’s the truth of it, lordlingt. Righteous me destio be victims. They’re just the ones who refuse to look away when the world burns.”

  The silehat followed was deafening, broken only by the crag of the fire. Garrett opened his mouth to respond, but before he could speak, a bloodcurdling screech tore through the night. It was a sound that froze the blood ahe teeth on edge—a sound that could only meahing.

  The ghouls had e.