The ravens were gone by noon, but their message clung like a splinter: PAID IS NOT FORGIVEN.
They moved east through narrow cuts, the wind carrying the Spire’s hum on its back. By evening, Ysra led them into an abandoned quarry, a stone bowl where earth had once been carved and abandoned.
“Two nights,” she said, planting her spear. “We build strength here, then strike again.”
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Training in the Quarry
The quarry turned into a school.
Dominic drilled the freed farmers into a line, teaching them to anchor their weight on each other instead of fear.
Kael taught shadows: not invisibility, but the art of being overlooked.
Mireya stamped ugly rhythms into dirt until the ground remembered it could resist the Spire’s song.
Lena bound raw wrists, sharpened weapons, and listened to grief w
