The night was a predator. Clouds smothered the moon, leaving only the dim glow of dying fires behind the shattered camp. Every crack of a twig, every whisper of grass in the wind sounded louder in the stillness.The hooded figure moved quickly, every step calculated, every glance backward sharp. No one had seen him slip away or so he thought.The further he went from the camp, the easier his breathing became. His mind replayed the scene at the fire: Isolde’s words, the camp’s fragile cheers, Kael’s rough growl of command. Fools. All of them clinging to a light that was already gone.He pulled his hood tighter and pressed on toward the foothills, where the shadows of the Riders’ banners flickered faintly against the night.Back at camp, however, someone had noticed.A girl no older than seventeen, one of the runners who ferried water and messages, had seen him slip between the tents. Her name was Nira, and she had learned to survive by watching what others ignored. She chewed her lip,

Nira’s lungs burned as Garron’s grip crushed tighter around her throat. His fingers were like iron shackles, digging into her skin with merciless strength. The world blurred at the edges, her vision flickering between light and shadow. Each ragged gasp scraped fire into her chest, and for a moment, she thought her body might give in.But Nira was not ready to die. Not yet.Her nails clawed at Garron’s wrists, leaving deep crimson grooves, but the warlord’s shadow-born strength held firm. His face was twisted with the cruel satisfaction of a predator savoring the kill, his eyes glowing faintly with abyssal corruption.“You should have stayed quiet,” Garron snarled, his voice low, rumbling with venom. “But no you carried whispers of betrayal. You thought you could outwit me?” He leaned closer, his breath hot against her ear. “Now your warning dies with you.”Nira’s body convulsed as she tried to wrench free. Stars danced across her vision. The edges of her mind screamed not like this… n

The night was heavy with smoke and silence. Nira stood at the edge of the encampment, her hand resting against the worn leather grip of her blade. Her breath came slow, measured, though inside her chest a storm rattled. She had fought Riders before. She had crossed steel with shadows and monsters. But what loomed now was different—something deeper, darker, the kind of fear that made even the bravest hesitate.Her gaze drifted toward the flickering torches lining the camp. Men and women whispered in tight circles, polishing weapons, wrapping wounds, sharpening resolve. Yet their voices carried unease more than courage. Even the horses shifted restlessly, sensing the weight pressing down on them.“Still awake?”Nira turned sharply. It was Cael, his cloak draped loosely, his eyes sharp despite the hour. He carried no torch, moving like he had grown up in darkness itself.“Sleep feels useless tonight,” Nira replied. “Dreams would only mirror what’s waiting for us come dawn.”Cael smirked

Nira’s breath burned in her throat as she pressed her back against the jagged stone wall of the ruined outpost. The night was alive with sound—clashing steel, the hiss of arrows cutting through air, the guttural cries of men who refused to yield even when their bodies had already betrayed them. Smoke curled from the torches scattered across the battlefield, the flames struggling against the choking dark.Her fingers tightened around her blade until her knuckles whitened. She could feel her heartbeat in her grip, each throb of blood against the steel like a drum urging her forward. Yet her eyes weren’t on the battlefield—they were on Isolde.The woman had returned like a phantom, striding from the darkness with eyes that glowed like shards of moonlit ice. Her presence had silenced men mid-battle, freezing hearts that had long believed she was gone forever. Even now, as chaos reigned, there was a strange order in the way her mere presence shifted the tide. Warriors who had been falterin

The battlefield still smoked, littered with corpses and broken steel. The shattered horn of the Riders lay in the mud like the tooth of some slain beast, its once-resonant power now nothing more than twisted bone and ash. The cheers of the surviving soldiers rose into the night sky, ragged and uneven, half-born of triumph, half-born of exhaustion.Shade stood in the middle of it all, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. The battle’s heat had not left his skin. His blade still dripped with blackened ichor, and though the Riders had withdrawn, he felt the weight of their eyes watching from the treeline, silent and patient.He should have been proud he had cut down the horn-bearer, the keystone of the Riders’ cohesion—but the silence in his chest unnerved him. The shadows, which had once whispered like hungry wolves, were quiet. Too quiet. He wondered if the abyss was merely waiting, biding its time to devour him whole when he was weakest.“Shade!” Nira’s voice pierced thro