Chapter 62 – Gavin’s Army Rises
The scent of burning earth hung heavy over the mortal lands.
Where forests once stood, blackened stumps jutted like teeth from the soil. Rivers had turned dark with ash. The moon—what was left of it—bled faint red across the horizon. The Veil’s collapse had not just torn through Aeloria; it had rippled outward, poisoning the human world with the same corrupted energy that now fed the creatures of shadow.
And at the center of it all stood Gavin Hale, no longer the man who had once owned a trembling bride.
He stood upon the ruins of his estate, his sharp features cast in the crimson glow of the dying sky. Around him knelt the first of his soldiers—men who should have been dead, their veins running black, their eyes glazed with hunger and obedience.
They w
