The journey home was quieter than the journey east.
The roads they had once traveled with uncertainty now felt familiar beneath the hooves of their horses. Frost still clung to the mountain peaks, but the first signs of spring had begun to awaken the valleys. Small streams flowed where thick ice had once ruled, and birds cautiously returned to the forests.
The frontier had survived another season.
But its scars remained.
The villages still rebuilt their homes.
The burned supply depot remained a blackened skeleton against the hillside.
And somewhere beyond the mountains…
The unseen enemy still waited.
For Alistair, Julian, and Evadne, the ride back to Ravenswatch was filled with reflection rather than conversation.
Each carried lessons that could not be written in reports.
⸻
By t
