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Chapter 65 – The Weight of Banners
Dawn tasted like iron.Ryan felt it the moment he stepped onto the western wall—the sharp, metallic promise that hung in the air before storms and battles alike. The Dominion banners were closer now, their black cloth stirring lazily as if the hawks stitched upon them were breathing.Below, the road had become a slow river of armor.Kael stood with the Keep’s captain, counting wagons and spears with a soldier’s eye. Maya leaned over the parapet beside a cluster of young archers, already joking too loudly. Olivia was farther back, helping Seris organize the healers, her braid tucked tight against her neck.Everyone had found a place except him.The storm prowled inside his ribs, curious and bright. It pressed against his thoughts the way a dog nudges a closed door.“Not yet,” he whispered.A horn sounded from the Dominion line—long, courteous, utterly confident.Kael spat over the wall. “They’ve brought
Chapter 64 – The Keepers’ Oath
The hall of Lethen Pass did not feel like a fortress meant for kings.It felt like a house that had learned how to bite.Smoke from the hearth curled lazily toward beams darkened by centuries of winters. Shields hung beside drying herbs, and the long tables bore scars from both knives and laughter. Yet beneath the homely warmth lay an alertness Ryan recognized from Kael—the quiet readiness of people who expected trouble and had decided to outlive it.Seris watched them as a grandmother might watch a storm through her window, curious but unafraid.“You’ve crossed many thresholds to reach this one,” she said when the bowls were empty. “The marsh, the river, the city that pretends it fears nothing. Each place leaves a fingerprint. Tell me what you carry.”Ryan hesitated. Words had never been kind to what lived inside him.Olivia answered instead. “He carries a storm that wants to be free. And a Dominion that wants it chained.”<
Chapter 63 – The Mile of Crooked Pines
Night in the scrublands sounded different from the marsh.Where the wetlands had whispered and chimed, this country spoke in dry tongues—pine needles scratching one another, small animals skittering through brittle leaves, the occasional crack of sap inside the trees like distant knuckles. The air smelled of resin and dust, clean after the sour breath of salt.Ryan took the second watch.The others slept in uneven shapes around the fire: Kael on his back with one hand still resting on the spear, Maya curled like a satisfied cat after a meal of unlucky rabbit, Olivia close enough that their shoulders almost touched even in dreams. Hobb snored with the stubborn determination of a man who had survived worse roads than this.The storm in Ryan’s chest was quiet, content from the offering he had given the marsh folk. He wondered if power could feel gratitude. The idea unsettled him less than it once would have.Beyond the ring of fire
Chapter 62 – The Salt Marsh Road
The marsh began with a smell.It reached them before the land changed—brine and crushed reeds, a sweetness gone sour beneath the sun. The road narrowed from honest dirt into a ribbon of pale shells that clicked beneath the cart wheels like small bones. On either side the world flattened into water and grass, stitched together by channels that gleamed like knives.Ryan rode at the back with his feet dangling over the edge, letting the wind worry his hair. After the noise of Vareth, the silence felt suspicious, as if the marsh were listening for mistakes.The driver, whose name turned out to be Hobb, hummed tunelessly and pretended not to hear anything else.Maya balanced on the front rail, tossing bits of bread to birds that were far too large and far too interested. “Cheerful place,” she said. “Looks like a grave that forgot to lie down.”Kael walked beside the cart to spare the old horse his weight. “Good terrain for ambush.”
Chapter 61 – Ashes That Know Our Names
Dawn found Vareth limping but alive.Smoke thinned into pale ribbons above the docks, carrying with it the sour smell of wet timber and spilled oil. The river had returned to its ordinary face, pretending innocence as gulls argued over floating scraps. Only the broken piers and the Dominion ship listing like a wounded animal told the truth of the night.Ryan woke on a narrow cot in Brin’s tavern with sunlight stabbing through warped shutters.For a moment he could not remember where his body ended and the storm began. Every muscle ached as if he had wrestled the river with bare hands—which, he supposed, he had. His palms were scored with thin silver lines where the chains had bitten him, already fading to scars that shimmered when he breathed.Olivia slept in the chair beside him, head tilted against the wall, fingers still curled loosely around his. The bond between them hummed steady and warm, a quiet hearth after a long winter.He tried to sit and the room spun.“Don’t,” Brin said
Chapter 60 – What Rises from Deep Water
The streets above had changed their voice.Where an hour ago there had been music and drunk laughter, now there was the anxious clatter of shutters and the quick, nervous barking of dogs. People moved with the purposeful haste of those who did not want to understand what they were hearing. The river wind carried a new smell—wet iron and something sour, like weeds rotting in a jar.Ryan stepped out of the courtyard first. The key in his pocket felt warmer than it should, as if it had learned the shape of his pulse. Olivia emerged beside him, drawing her cloak tighter around her shoulders. Kael followed, unwrapping his spear without bothering to hide it anymore. Maya vaulted the low wall instead of using the gate, landing lightly in the alley with a grin that looked slightly forced.Maris closed the hidden door and pressed the stones until the seam vanished again. “If that thing destroys my city,” she said, “I’m charging you double.”“Fair
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