They rode hard. Down from the Frostline, through snow choked trails and ravines carved by ancient glaciers. The sky had darkened to a bruised gray, and the column of smoke on the horizon only grew thicker. The nearer they got to Lamba Fortress, the more the air began to sting not with cold, but with ash.Oliver urged his horse faster. Mina kept pace beside him, her face set in a grim line. Neither spoke. There was no room for words only the thunder of hooves and the growing dread in their chests.By the time the fortress came into view, the sun had nearly set. What should have been a secure Citadel stronghold, with banners waving and soldiers patrolling the walls, now looked like a battlefield. Flames licked at the upper ramparts. Parts of the stone wall had collapsed, revealing splintered wood and shattered siege engines. Smoke curled from broken arrow slits, and the air reeked of scorched metal and blood.Oliver dismounted at the outer gate. It hung open. No guards stood watch. No

It took five days to reach the edge of the Frostline Range, and each mile felt heavier than the last.The road south through the pines was long gone, swallowed by centuries of snow and creeping frost. With the convoy down to one half broken wagon and a handful of weary horses, the survivors trudged onward through bitter winds and shifting mountain paths.Oliver led the way. Every night, he reviewed the Glacari map under starlight. The symbols shifted subtly depending on the light’s angle each movement revealing a new ridge or slope, glowing faintly in tones of gold and icy blue. The Tomb of Mirrors lay just beyond the Spine of the Wyrm a natural rock formation that split the Frostline peaks like a jagged scar. According to legend, no one who entered its shadow ever returned.Mina, ever pragmatic, didn’t care for legends. “Everything wants to kill us anyway,” she said, checking the straps on her pack. “Might as well die looking for something useful.”Oliver raised an eyebrow. “You ha

They reached Highbarrow on the third morning after the battle at Frostline Pass.The journey was cold and silent. Even the wind seemed to mourn. Smoke from the smoldering funeral pyres behind them had followed the group like a second shadow, clinging to their clothes and clumping in their lungs.But Highbarrow stood untouched. A city of stone and stormlight. Carved into the western cliffs, it had been the last true bastion before the lowlands fell into Glacari control. Its outer walls were forged from obsidian black granite, each slab carved with ancestral runes that flickered faintly when touched by moonlight. Twin towers flanked its main gate each housing a guardian bell that had not rung since the last king of Barrow died nearly a century ago.It looked like a tomb. It felt like a warning. Oliver tightened his grip on the reins of his frostbitten horse and turned to Mina. “Ready?”She didn’t answer. She just nodded. The surviving Winter Guard followed behind what remained of a fo

The storm hit just after sundown. Not snow this time, but a different kind of cold sharper, quieter, filled with whispers that didn’t carry on the wind but inside it. As if the air itself was remembering something terrible.Mina pulled her cloak tighter as they crossed the frost choked causeway that led to the cliffs beneath Highbarrow. Few knew about the entrance there, and even fewer had permission to pass. But Elias had made the arrangements.This was no longer a matter of command. It was history. And history, as Elias had warned, lived in the Black Archives.The door to the archives was stone and rune sealed, older than the city above it. According to Elias, it had been carved by the mountain's first settlers, back when Highbarrow was only a scattering of firewatch towers guarding against the northern glaciers.A sentinel waited at the threshold half man, half spectral construct, eyes glowing with glacier light. It didn’t speak. Only stared as Elias pressed a copper disc into a

The red sky broke at dawn like the shattering of stained glass. From the battlements of Highbarrow, Oliver watched as streaks of fire painted the horizon. Pillars of smoke rose beyond the tree line wide and deliberate. Not the careless destruction of bandits or rogue beasts. These fires were signals. Tactics. A message.The enemy was coming, and they had already begun to burn the land.“They’re pushing from the east,” Elias said, his fingers wrapped tightly around a spyglass. “Fifteen hundred strong, maybe more. No banners. No horns. Just… silence.”“Mercenaries?” Mina asked from where she stood, arm still bound in slingcloth.Elias shook his head grimly. “Worse. Disciplined. Uniform. But not Imperial.”Oliver narrowed his eyes. “Then who?”“Ghosts,” muttered General Berra. She was a hawk faced woman in steel plated armor, her grey braid twisted like a rope. “Those aren’t soldiers. They’re revenants. Risen or reprogrammed. I’ve seen it before once, in the southern barrens. Kaelien