The sky was torn open above them, streaked with veins of unnatural light. Where once dawn should have glimmered with pale gold, now cracks of shadow and flame spilled across the heavens, painting the battlefield in a light that was neither day nor night.Nira stood at the heart of the ridge, cloak snapping in the wind. The silence after the horn’s last echo still clung to the world, heavy, suffocating. Every breath she took felt stolen, every heartbeat louder than war drums.Behind her, Kael adjusted his armor with his one good arm, the other still bound from wounds that never truly healed. His eyes, however, burned with the same stubborn fire. “The sky’s bleeding,” he muttered. His voice was rough, but steady. “If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is.”Nira didn’t turn. Her gaze stayed fixed on the valley where the Riders gathered, a dark tide rolling against the horizon. “It’s not the end,” she said. Her words cut like steel. “It’s the beginning of their fall.”Roran shifted his

The descent into the valley began before the sun had fully risen, when the mist still clung to the ridges like a shroud. Their boots slid on gravel, cloaks dragging against the jagged rocks, every movement swallowed by the heavy silence of a land holding its breath.At the front walked Nira, her eyes fixed on the shadows gathering below. Beside her, Roran carried his greatsword across his shoulder like a banner of steel, his jaw set. Isolde moved with slower steps, her hands hidden in her sleeves, as though conserving the embers she carried within her.But it was Kael the valley seemed to notice most.The cursed blade at his side pulsed with a faint, unnatural rhythm—like a second heartbeat that wasn’t his own. Each thrum sent a chill through the mist, rippling the fog around him. The others felt it too. Scouts gave him sidelong glances, their grips tightening on their weapons, though they never said aloud what they feared: that the sword whispered not onl

The night was still, but Kael could hear the whispers.They slithered through the cracks of his mind, soft as breath, sharp as knives. A thousand voices, all speaking at once. Some begged. Some warned. Some promised glory. Others only screamed.He opened his eyes. The stars wheeled above, pale and indifferent, while the camp lay shrouded in uneasy silence. Men and women slept where they had collapsed, their weapons within reach, their dreams surely as restless as his own.Kael’s hand was still wrapped tight around the black blade. He hadn’t let it go since the fight in the valley gorge. The battle replayed in his memory in flashes the thunder of hooves, the clash of steel, the moment when a Rider’s spear nearly found his throat before the blade guided his hand and split the man from neck to hip.The victory should have brought him pride. Instead, it left him hollow.He pushed himself upright, wincing as his bandaged ribs protested. The whispers swelled the moment he rose, curling in h

The valley was smoke and silence.The Riders had pulled back, their horns fading into the fog, but the oathbound did not cheer. They gathered in the broken circle of their camp, the wounded groaning, the dead laid in rows. The air reeked of blood and fire, and every face carried the same question, unspoken but heavy:How long can we last?Kael sat apart, the cursed blade across his knees. He hadn’t spoken since the charge. His eyes kept drifting to the corpses he had cut down, to the smear of black blood that still clung to his fingers. He felt no triumph, only the whispers, purring low like a beast that had fed too well.Nira watched him from the fire, her jaw set. She didn’t speak either, though her eyes burned with a question sharper than steel.Isolde leaned against a rock, pale as ash. The blue fire she had unleashed had taken its toll—her hands trembled when she tried to lift a cup of water. Kael saw her shiver, saw her mouth form silent words. Not prayers. Warnings.And Roran—R

The valley lay in ruin.Smoke choked the sky, curling into dark columns that clawed at the sun until even dawn felt like dusk. The battlefield was a grave of twisted armor and blackened stone, the air sharp with the stench of char and blood.At the heart of it, Kael knelt in the ash, Isolde’s limp weight in his arms. Her chest rose in shallow, uneven breaths. Her silver hair, once bright as the stars, was matted with soot. Even in unconsciousness, her face was pale as bone.“She’s alive,” Nira said, her voice low, as though afraid that speaking louder might shatter what little life remained.Kael didn’t answer. He was listening to the blade in his hand.Weak. Broken. Ash already. Let her burn away and take her place. Take the power. Take it all.His jaw clenched so tight it hurt. “Shut up.”But the whispers only laughed.The oathbound gathered in broken knots, their numbers thinned, their strength sapped. Roran stood like a pillar among them, blood streaked across his face, his greats