The village was chaos.

  Women dragged children into carts. Men tossed sacks of grain onto wagons. And at the center of it all, a knight in shattered armor leaned against a well, his breath wet and ragged.

  Kael recognized him. "Sir Edric".The Golden Storm. The man who’d single-handedly held the pass at Veldros.

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  Now he was dying.

  “The bridge,” Edric coughed. “Blow it. Cuts off their advance—gives the capital time.”

  A woman clutching a baby sobbed. “But the mechanism—someone has to stay—”

  Edric tried to stand. Failed. “I’ll do it.”

  The woman grabbed his arm. “You can’t! You’re the only one who—”

  Kael didn’t hear the rest.

  His eyes locked on the detonator in Edric’s belt.

  A laugh bubbled up in his throat—harsh, broken.

  Of course.