The fires hadn't gone out.
Even now, days after the vaults bled fire and wind, the rebel camps smoldered — scattered fires clinging to charred tents and half-buried weapons. The scent of blood mixed with damp ash.
Mazen sat by the edge of the Howling Pact's ring of stones, sharpening his blade. Every scrape against the whetstone sent a hiss into the air, steady and deliberate.
"You plan to grind that thing to dust, or just bleed the edge dull?"
Shadow's voice carried from behind, dry as always.
Mazen didn't look up.
"Keeps my hands busy."
Shadow came closer, dropping onto a stone nearby.
"We've got bigger things to worry about than your ghosts, Arkios."
He tossed a folded scrap of parchment to Mazen's feet.
Mazen opened it. His eyes narrowed.
"A tournament?"
"The Great Tournament of Vortrex. Rhys III's hosting it in three weeks. Every faction leader, warlord, and glory-seeking dog will be there."
Shadow's smirk was thin.
"Guess who's expected to compete?"
"I don't give a damn about the king's games."
"You should," Shadow leaned in, voice lowering.
"Half the rebellion's already talking about it. They'll see it as a chance to claim position… or kill rivals in plain sight."
A voice cut through the camp.
"Well, isn't this a cheery little huddle."
Both men turned.
Ishra of the Ember Clans strode into their circle, flame-orange hair catching the light like a living spark. Tribal tattoos marked her arms and throat. Behind her, three Emberfall warriors held torches high.
"I'm told the Howling Pact talks of rebellion while we bleed."
She kicked a burnt log toward the fire.
"Either you stand with us at Emberfall… or you stand alone."
Mazen rose, expression hard.
"We fight the same war."
"Then prove it."
Ishra's grin was sharp as a blade.
"Or this rebellion's going to burn long before it reaches the capital."
The air crackled.
Somewhere beyond the hills, lightning split the sky.
And the world waited for blood.
The mist rolled in like creeping fingers.
Shina stirred from restless sleep, the Wind Wyrm's scale beneath her pillow pulsing with a faint, cold heartbeat. The tent flap rustled as a figure stepped in — face hidden beneath a veil of gray silk.
No voice, only a single gesture.
A hand pointing into the mist-choked night.
Shina's pulse spiked.
"What is this?"
The figure turned, stepping silently back through the veil of fog.
Something inside her — instinct, blood, fate — pulled her feet after them.
Through Emberfall's outskirts, past the hanging charms and flickering wards, the mist thickened. Shapes twisted inside it, half-seen things. The figure ahead never slowed.
A cave mouth waited at the far side of the ridge.
Smoke coiled from it, and the air smelled of old earth and wet stone.
Inside, a lone voice spoke.
Rough. Ancient. Dry as the bones it sat among.
"The girl comes. The storm listens."
Old Mother Zeva sat cross-legged by a cracked stone basin, her eyes clouded milky white, though somehow staring straight through Shina's bones.
"You sought the wind. Now the wind seeks you."
Shina swallowed.
"What do you want from me?"
"Nothing. Everything. A warning."
Zeva dipped fingers into a bowl of thick gray water. Ripples twisted into shapes.
A gate. A black tear.
"A tear of midnight falls. The world bleeds. The earth breaks."
"I don't understand—"
"You will."
The old woman's smile was a broken thing.
"Mark Arkios walks beside you. The darkness feeds. Stay, and the storm swallows you both."
The mist thickened.
"Go." Zeva's voice turned sharp.
"Go, child of the crack, before your name's buried beneath ash."
A final pulse from the Wind Wyrm's scale.
Then the mist swallowed her.
And Shina ran.
By dawn, Emberfall's outer camp smelled of blood, scorched earth, and stubborn survival.
Shina hadn't slept since leaving the Mist Caves, Zeva's words grinding against her skull like jagged stones.
She was halfway through tightening the wrappings on her arm when a voice, light and amused, spoke from above her.
"You look like hell. Well — worse than hell. Hell with a limp, maybe."
Shina spun, knife already half-drawn.
A girl leaned against a tent pole, one foot hooked lazily behind the other. White-blonde hair, cropped short. Teal eyes gleaming like sharp glass.
Lira Valenne.
"Who the hell are you?" Shina growled.
Lira grinned.
"Your new problem, apparently." She held up a glass vial filled with something shimmering blue.
"Got word from Emberfall's brass. I'm to whip your wind-slinging ass into shape before you blow us all into the next kingdom."
Shina frowned.
"I don't need a handler."
"Good. 'Cause I'm not one. I'm a treasure-hunter, sweetheart. I just want to make sure you don't kill yourself with this."
She tossed a folded cloth to Shina.
Inside — the Wind Wyrm's scale, powdered and mixed with herbs.
"Potion form. Should ease the bond, let you feel the wind proper. Drink it, and the wind listens better."
Her smirk turned wicked.
"Also might make you puke. Side effect."
"Why are you helping me?"
"Because Emberfall pays well. And because watching you nearly take your own head off in the last vault was hilarious."
Shina scowled, but her fingers closed around the vial.
"Fine. One drink. Then you're out of my way."
"Sure, sure." Lira gave a mock salute.
"But when you start flying, don't forget who made it happen."
The wind whispered around them, curling like a knowing smile.
Night fell early in Vortrex, the sky bruised purple and black.
A rebel outpost east of Emberfall lay quiet — too quiet.
The lone sentry barely noticed the figure moving at his back before twin daggers flashed.
A wet gasp.
Serak the Twin-Fanged stepped over the corpse, her pale skin gleaming ghostlike in the dying torchlight. Slitted green eyes glinted with amusement as she wiped her blades on the man's cloak.
The camp beyond was half-asleep. Drunk warriors, scattered dice games, cookfires dying low.
Perfect.
She moved like mist — one by one, slipping into tents, leaving slashed throats and wide-eyed corpses in her wake. Not a wasted motion. Not a sound.
Near the command tent, two officers argued over maps.
Serak slid behind one, a hand over his mouth, dagger through the base of his skull.
The other turned too late.
"Wh—"
A flick of the wrist. A throat opened.
Blood splattered parchment.
Serak knelt by the dying man's ear.
"Your king sends his regards." Her voice a silk-draped knife.
On the way out, she scrawled a sigil in blood on the tent wall — the mark of the Black Blades.
A message.
Nowhere is safe. Not from me.
And the night swallowed her whole.
The fire in the Howling Pact's camp burned low, throwing jagged shadows across the clearing.
Mazen sat alone, turning the scorched Fire Serpent scale between his fingers.
A slow, steady pulse — like a heartbeat not his own.
The night stirred.
A figure approached — tall, broad, armor glinting faintly, the weight of his presence pressing down like a storm about to break.
Mazen tensed, hand drifting toward his dagger.
"Relax, boy. If I meant to end you, you'd already be a smear in the dirt."
The voice was rough, weathered by decades, yet steady as stone.
Mazen rose to his feet, defiance stiffening his spine.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Someone your father made bleed."
The words hit like a blow.
Before Mazen could respond, a voice cut through the air.
"Stand down, Arkios."
Shadow of the North stepped from the tent shadows, his expression sharper than Mazen had ever seen.
He approached the towering stranger with a rare, measured nod.
"Grand Master Khan Duren."
A beat.
"Didn't think the old mountain would walk this far from his temple."
Khan grunted.
"Didn't come for you, Shadow."
His eyes fixed on Mazen.
"Came for him. The world's shifting, and when it breaks, he'll be standing in the rubble. Either a man, or a monster."
"What do you want with me?" Mazen asked coldly.
Khan pulled a leather satchel free, unstoppering a vial filled with molten gold liquid. Within, fragments of the Fire Serpent's scale shimmered like hot coals.
"Drink it. Bind the flame properly, or die from it later."
Mazen hesitated.
"Why the hell should I trust you?"
"Because this war's bigger than your petty grudges, boy. And because your father would've laughed at your hesitation."
Shadow's voice softened a fraction.
"He means it, Mazen. Duren doesn't make empty threats. Or empty offers."
Mazen clenched his jaw, snatched the vial, and downed it in a single burning swallow.
Fire scorched his throat, lightning arcing through his chest. The scale's heat bloomed in his skin — not wild now, but fierce, sharp, and his.
When the pain faded, Khan nodded once.
"Better."
He turned to Shadow.
"When the earth splits, send him east."
Without another word, the Grand Master vanished into the night.
Mazen stared after him, the Fire Serpent's power thrumming beneath his flesh.
"Who the hell was that?"
Shadow gave a humorless smile.
"The last man alive who fears your father's name."
And the fire crackled on.