“The wind remembers every oath you whisper into a horse’s ear.”“Ride or fall!”Vael’s spear flashed as the sky buckled. A round black wound opened above, drinking heat from the world.Lyra hugged Kael close. “Hold, little star.”Karan urged his smoke-stallion on. “Stay tight!”Serah laughed. “If I die, make it a song.”The sky-steppe trembled under hooves that struck nothing and found everything. Behind them, the wound widened with pale fire; a cold drew breath from their lungs.“Vael!” Lyra shouted. “What is it?”“The Mouth,” Vael said. “What eats thrones.”“Can it eat us?”“It eats anything that calls itself ruler.”“Then it will choke on me,” Lyra muttered, face down to the mare’s neck.Kael stirred, eyes half-gold, half-boy. “It’s hungry.”Karan leaned in his saddle. “Don’t speak to it.”“I’m not,” Kael whispered. “It’s speaking to me.”Vael slashed her spear; a hard wind-bridge arched a canyon of cloud. “Single file. Breathe with your mounts.”Karan sang the binding song—low Dor

“Now? In my city?” Lyra asked.The white-veiled leader kept a palm raised. Light hung like a held blade. Ten more robed figures set their feet, each hand crowned by a bright sigil. The storm-city went still.Karan stepped half a shoulder in front of Lyra and Kael. “No one forces a rite on my son.”“You forced storms,” the leader replied, voice careful and clean. “We force meaning with law. Plaza of Lions. Now.”Vael clicked her tongue. The smoke herd stamped. “They want a door. If the city is a mind, they found where it dreams of lions.”Serah touched her hilts. “You move us by talking?”“By script,” said the leader, and drew a square of light. It hinged into a gate. Through it lay gold stone, broken marble, and the long shadow of two fallen cats. The dawn there was deliberate.Lyra felt the knot over her heart where three bands waited. “You will not name him.”“We will prove him harmless,” said the leader. “Or prove you cannot hold him.”Karan glanced at Lyra’s mantle. “We go. We cho

“Do we follow him?” Serah asked, staring at the doorway that had opened where the lions once watched. Kor’Vareth stood with one forehoof inside the light, coin-braids chiming, ears pinned to whatever breathed beyond the stone.“We follow,” Karan said. He kept the open circlet under his cloak, fingers hooked through its gap as if it might try to close. “When the stallion calls, riders answer.”Lyra shifted Kael higher on her hip and kissed his hair. “Stay small. Stay ours.”“I’m not a door,” the boy murmured.“Never again,” she promised.Vael raised her horn; the smoke-born mounts stamped. Kor’Vareth blew once, a thunder that trembled the tiles, then stepped through. The light accepted him like a lake taking back a river. Karan guided his stallion after and looked back.“Now,” he said, and they crossed.Inside was tarnished silver. No sky, no ground, yet a road appeared under their hooves and sealed behind them like skin healing. Air smelled of wet iron and stone.“What is this?” Serah

“Keep the pace,” Vael murmured.Beyond Velannis’ green fringe, the world unrolled in sheets of hammered light. Dunes lifted and settled like the muscles of a sleeping beast; heat made the horizon breathe. Sand hissed under hooves that knew how to float rather than punch. Dortracy riders kept braids uncut and curved swords wrapped in cloth so the sun would not turn steel into a second sun. The road was memory more than line, a path felt through a mount’s shoulders.Lyra rode with Kael tucked against her, counting his breaths and the small shivers that meant thirst before he spoke. The open circlet lay beneath her mantle, its gap a cool kiss over her heart. She had promised the well-woman to wear refusal like law; even here the promise steadied her, as if a little emptiness created space for air.Karan took the middle rather than the point and let Vael read the dunes. He rode open-handed, shoulders loose, weight in calves, not jaw. The serpent scar along his forearm stayed quiet, cooked

“What’s on the lake?” Serah asked.“Not ash,” Vael said. “Not riders.”The black glass field shivered as if a fingertip tested its skin. Far out, something pale slid beneath the crust, a shadow traveling under a mirror. The forge breathed slow.Karan did not reach for lightning. He stood in the doorway with his hands open, letting the desert pass through him. Lyra lifted her mantle so the open circlet rested where any archer could see it. Kael leaned at her hip, listening to a song only he could hear.“It swims,” he whispered. “Not in water. In words.”The smith wiped her palm on leather and watched the lake. “If it favors glass, it favors reflection. It will try to turn you back into yourselves.”“Then we don’t look,” Serah said.“You look,” the smith replied. “And you don’t blink.”Three billets lay on oiled cloth, dark as river stones. Oathsteel was still a promise.Outside, Kor’Vareth stepped onto the nearest ribs and put weight down carefully. Coins in his braid clicked as hair b