The war began not with swords but with whispers.By the third night after the crossroads, villages burned in the name of Damian’s defiance. Ravens split into sects, each claiming the true prophecy. Some declared that the Red King would rise from the scarred priest’s blood. Others swore Damian’s rejection was the final trial of the Mouth, a test of patience before his inevitable rule.And still others — the most dangerous — believed Damian’s every denial was itself a command. When he said “I am no king,” they heard “Burn the kings.” When he said “I am no god,” they answered, “Then make the gods bleed.”Every word he spoke was twisted. Every silence was filled with chants he had never uttered.***The Severed Wing limped through the lowlands, numbers dwindled to fewer than twenty. What should have been safe crossings turned into ambushes — not from enemies seeking plunder, but from zealots demanding worship.At one burned hamlet, a child no older than ten ran barefoot to Damian, clutchi

They marched beneath banners Damian had never raised.By the week’s end, the zealots who had once clawed each other apart now marched in ragged unity, feathers tied to their arms, ash smeared across their brows. Some carried torches, others stolen blades, others only bones sharpened to points. But all carried his name in their mouths, chanting as though it were iron.The Mouth reigns. The Mouth reigns.Damian walked at the head, not because he wanted to, but because any step backward drew too many eyes. To them, he was not a fugitive priest scarred by silence—he was silence given form. And silence, once it spoke, could not be unspoken.Mara strode at his side, every line of her body bristling with fury she no longer wasted on words. Behind them, the remnants of the Wing trudged grim-faced among zealots, soldiers swallowed into a tide they no longer commanded. Eryn moved like a shadow at the edges, her bowstring forever taut, her eyes always on Damian—as though weighing, at every momen

The fortress had not finished dying.Smoke still curled from its bones when Mara dragged Damian out of the shattered hall. The corridors echoed with broken banners flapping like torn lungs, the stones still trembling from where his hammer had split the floor. The zealots feasted in the courtyards, their chants rattling through the stone like drumbeats.“You’re not sitting there until it eats you alive,” Mara snapped, her grip iron on his arm. “Move.”Damian let himself be pulled. The hammer scraped behind him, heavy as the sky. The chants rose, muffled by walls, but he could still hear them like knives behind his ears.The Mouth reigns. The Mouth reigns.Eryn was waiting by a half-collapsed arch, torch in hand, face carved from shadow and fire. She didn’t look at Damian first—her eyes locked on Mara, a silent exchange of fury and warning. Then she spoke.“There’s something beneath this keep. Rhel guarded it—badly. His scribes marked it the Root.”Mara’s eyes narrowed. “A crypt?”Eryn

The fortress had barely cooled when the empire began.By the third dawn, the zealots were gone. They did not march in ranks or break in retreat—they simply drifted outward, smoke carried on wind. Some slipped into the mountain passes, others vanished down the river’s black current. A few walked brazen through burned villages, clutching shards to their breasts, leaving trails of whispers behind them.Everywhere they went, the chant followed.The seed. The seed. The Mouth is many.***Damian stood on the ruined battlements, watching the trails of fire fade into distance. Mara slammed her gauntlet against the stone beside him, the sound sharp as steel.“You should’ve ended them. Every last one. You saw it—they don’t fear fire, they don’t fear blood. They’ll spread until this land chokes on them.”Eryn leaned against her bow, eyes narrowed on the horizon. “Killing them would have been a mercy. A quick death. This way they’ll drag the rot into every kingdom they touch.”Damian’s grip tight

The false Mouth did not vanish. He multiplied.By the next moon, whispers told of three others. In the salt flats of Varun, a woman crowned herself with broken glass, her voice twisting the air until men swore the dunes themselves bowed. In the marshlands, a priest who had once cursed Damian now knelt in muck, proclaiming himself the Silent Father, baptizing zealots with blood instead of water. In the northern mines, a boy no older than twelve stood with a shard lodged in his chest, breathing silence with every word.Each claimed to be the Mouth reborn. Each gathered followers by the hundreds.The battlefield had shifted. No longer swords and fire—now stories and symbols.***A Fortress DividedMara hurled a dagger into the map table, the blade sinking into the painted rivers. “Four of them. Four! And for every one we silence, ten more rise. This isn’t war. It’s plague.”Eryn stood at the window slit, eyes fixed on the horizon. “Plague you fight by burning fields. Cut out the crop bef