The fortress loomed ahead like a slumbering titan, its jagged silhouette outlined against the dying stars of the predawn sky. Frost clung to the stone like a shroud, and the air itself felt brittle with silence. The returning riders moved in tight formation—silent shadows in the half-light.

  Irineus led them at the head, Livia’s silver pendant heavy against his breastplate, its chill biting deeper than the wind. He did not speak. He hadn’t spoken since they left the smoking ruins of the village to the north. Behind him rode Martin, his armor still stained with blood and ash, and Lucius, eyes hollow behind spectacles streaked with road dust. The soldiers who’d faced the Drüghal rode like ghosts, their thousand-yard stares fixed on nothing. Even their horses moved with unease.

  As the gates came into view, they were already creaking open. From the high battlements, Sebastian’s figure emerged, cast in bronze by the rising sun. He stood tall, hands gripping the stone rail, flanked by Bardas veterans with wary expressions and drawn swords.

  “You’re back sooner than expected,” Sebastian called down. His voice held no warmth—only the weariness of a man too long at war with fate.

  Irineus dismounted in one fluid motion, his boots crunching frost. “We bring ill news,” he said grimly. “Gather the council. Every captain, every elder. We don’t have much time.”

  The great hall had once been a place of strategy and ceremony—now it was a war room carved from desperation. Torches hissed against damp stone, casting feverish light on worn faces and ancient maps. The air stank of sweat, oil, and tension.

  Irineus stood at the head of the table, shoulders squared, fingers gripping the stone so hard his knuckles turned white. Around him gathered the last slivers of the old world—scarred veterans, hollow-eyed refugees, stewards of lost houses. Livia stepped forward beside him, and the room fell into uneasy silence.

  “The Drüghal are not mere beasts,” she said. Her voice did not rise, yet it cut through the room like a blade. “They are remnants—of something ancient. Something wrong. Drawn to ruin, to grief. They feed on memory. On fear.”

  A gasp came from the back of the hall. A child buried her face in her mother’s tunic.

  “They came to the village under shadow,” Lucius added, his voice dry as parchment. “They did not strike like raiders. They moved with purpose. With intelligence. They... hunted.”

  Theodore stepped forward, eyes burning with the need to act. “How do we fight shadows?” he asked, his spear clutched tightly in his hands.

  “Fire,” Livia replied. “And silver. But walls won’t be enough. They scale stone like spiders. They move through cracks like smoke. We must be vigilant. Relentless. Or we die.”

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  Martin’s jaw tightened. “Then we turn this place into a trap. A furnace.”

  Irineus nodded. “Alexios—inventory every barrel of oil, every drop of pitch, every usable blade. Melt down silver. Coat every weapon that can take it. Lucius, I want every scrap of lore you have on these creatures. Rituals, symbols, anything. Sebastian—double the watch. No one sleeps tonight.”

  As dusk fell, the fortress came alive with furious industry. Fires blazed in the courtyards, not for warmth, but for war. Blacksmiths worked by torchlight, melting down silver goblets and trinkets to coat blades and arrowheads. Carpenters stripped ruined furniture for firewood and barricades. Old tapestries became wicks for firebombs.

  Oil barrels were rolled up to the battlements, their stoppers sealed with wax. Archers tested flame-tipped arrows. Children ran messages. Even the infirm sorted nails and sharpened stakes. Fear had become fuel.

  On the parapets, Irineus stood watch, gazing into the sea of trees beyond the walls. The forest, once a haven of game and timber, now brooded in silence. The wind carried no birdsong. Only the faint, bone-dry rustle of unseen things.

  Livia joined him, her cloak trailing behind her, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

  “You feel it?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

  Irineus nodded. “The world holds its breath.”

  “They’re not just coming for blood,” she said. “They want to unmake. They feast on what we’ve forgotten—what we’ve lost.”

  He turned to her. “I carry the name of Arcadius, but I wonder if memory alone is enough to fight what’s coming.”

  She didn’t flinch. “Then make new memory. Make fire. Make fear.”

  The first scream came just after midnight—a raw, guttural sound torn from a young sentry’s throat. The horn blew a moment later, echoing across stone and snow.

  Irineus was already moving, sword drawn, armor half-buckled. Martin stormed past him, shouting orders. The walls came alive with motion.

  Below the ramparts, the trees moved. No wind. No storm.

  Just movement—silent, slithering. Dozens. Maybe more.

  Then the shadows broke.

  Figures—humanoid, but wrong—emerged from the treeline, their limbs elongated, their backs hunched like dying beasts. Their eyes glowed faintly, like embers behind smoke. They hissed and skittered, then surged forward in a silent wave.

  “NOW!” Martin roared.

  Flaming arrows streaked down, catching oil-soaked ground. Fire spread fast. Shrill screams filled the night—shrill, yet not human. The Drüghal burned, but more came, climbing over their fallen, hands like claws scrabbling at the walls.

  Livia chanted above, casting handfuls of salt and ash from a leather pouch, invoking some old ward half-remembered from ancient texts. Her voice wavered, but she did not falter.

  On the wall, Irineus fought with a fury born of grief and duty. Each strike sent sparks flying. The silver edge of his blade cleaved through shadow-flesh, and with each kill, the pendant at his throat grew colder.

  The Drüghal were not endless—but they were many.

  The walls shook under their weight.

  Below, oil was ignited.

  A great blaze rose, and the screams of the Drüghal became a chorus of pain. The fire held. The fortress, barely, held.

  As the sun crested the horizon, the battlefield smoldered. Charred corpses littered the ground. The air reeked of ash, blood, and burned bone.

  Irineus stood atop the battlements, soot-streaked and bloodied, watching as the last of the Drüghal fled into the woods.

  Behind him, the people of the fortress gathered—tired, wounded, but alive.

  He turned to them, his voice raw. “This was not the last night we will see them. But it was the first night we stood, and they broke against us.”

  A cheer rose—not loud, but real.

  They were no longer just survivors.

  They were a garrison of the last light.