Garrick's fingers closed around the sword's hilt a fraction of a second before the chitterling reached him, and he swung upward on pure instinct, the blade catching the creature's foreleg rather than the killing blow he'd desperately aimed for, deflecting just enough of its momentum that its jaws snapped shut inches from his throat instead of through it.The impact still knocked him flat, the chitterling's weight bearing down hard, and Garrick's vision filled with nothing but teeth and the acrid stink of its breath as he strained to hold the blade between them, arms shaking with an effort he wasn't certain he could sustain.Then, without warning, the pressure vanished entirely.A blur of motion crossed his narrowed field of vision, and the chitterling's head separated cleanly from its body, rolling away across the scorched grass while the creature's weight collapsed sideways off him in a single, decisive motion.Garrick lay there for a moment, chest heaving, sta

King Evandor Caelric read the letter twice before setting it down on his desk, the private study around him quiet except for the low crackle of the evening fire, the same fire he'd sat beside for nearly two decades of quiet decisions that never once reached the full court.The seal on the outer wrapping had been Cedren's own, pressed into wax the way it always was, a small mercy in a palace where too many letters passed through too many hands before reaching the person they were addressed to. This one had come directly, as ordered, carried by a rider Cedren trusted enough to send alone across half the continent.Evandor read it a third time, slower now, letting every detail settle.Wolfsbane Crossing, attacked by a coordinated pack of chitterlings, the same breed responsible for the assault on Emberfall months prior. A containment brand identical to the one recovered from that earlier attack. A banner bearing a symbol Cedren's report identified as belonging to somet

Zephar descended the hidden stairwell beneath the old chapel with a fury he'd spent the entire walk from the palace failing to fully master, his usual composed stride replaced by something sharper, more clipped, every step carrying the weight of a plan unraveling faster than he could contain it. The chapel above had emptied hours ago, its evening prayers long finished, leaving only the cold silence a man could trust to keep his passage through it unnoticed.The crypt waited below as it always did, cold stone and flickering torchlight, a handful of masked figures already gathered around the long table at its center by the time he arrived. He crossed the chamber without the usual pause for formality, his agitation plain enough that the gathered figures straightened at his approach."You called this meeting with considerable urgency," one of the figures said, voice cool and measured beneath the mask. "I trust the reason justifies it.""The king intends to forgive him,"

The trade road out of Wolfsbane Crossing ran south and east before curving toward the distant capital, three horses moving at a measured pace that Cedren set deliberately slow, favoring caution over speed given the manacles still binding Garrick's wrists and the wound at his shoulder that had only just stopped seeping through its bandages. The morning air carried the first real chill of the changing season, and Garrick found himself grateful for the cloak Cedren had provided, however awkwardly it sat over chained hands.Garrick rode in silence through most of that morning, the ache of everything that had happened in Wolfsbane still raw beneath the physical pain, Wren and Fenn and Reyn's faces the last thing he'd seen before the city's smoke-stained walls fell away behind them. Every mile put more distance between himself and the only real home he'd managed to build since fleeing the palace, and the weight of that loss sat heavier than the manacles ever could.Kaelor rod

The blade never reached him.A second shape burst from the tree line, faster than the first, and drove into Kaelor's fallen weapon-arm with enough force to send the already-dying strike wide, steel biting into earth instead of flesh.Garrick, still pinned against the clearing's edge, watched in stunned silence as a young man with a hunter's economy of movement pressed the advantage immediately, driving Kaelor backward with a series of strikes too fast and too controlled to be anything but years of hard-earned skill.Kaelor recovered quickly, years of discipline asserting themselves even through evident surprise, and matched the newcomer's aggression with a controlled defense that gave no ground easily, the two of them trading strikes in a rhythm too fast for Garrick to follow clearly in the darkness."Osric, the captain!" the young man called out, not looking away from Kaelor for even a moment, his voice carrying the rough edges of someone who spent more time ou