At dawn, the mist was still heavy over the fields, thicker than before, pale and cold as if the clouds had descended to smother the earth. From the walls of the Hollow, the world looked drowned in a white sea where nothing moved—yet every man and woman on watch felt the presence of something hidden within that haze.
Kael had been on the wall since before the first light broke the horizon. His crimson eyes cut through the gloom better than any torch. The boy stood beside him, wrapped in a heavy cloak, still bleary with sleep but too tense to close his eyes again.
“They’ll come at dawn,” Kael said quietly, almost as if speaking to himself. “Cowards love the cover of fog.”
The boy swallowed hard. “How do you know?”
Kael’s answer was a thin, sharp smile. “Because that’s what I would do.”
