The winter did not merely melt from the Grey Mountains; it surrendered to the green fire of spring.
For the first time in memory, the sharp, jagged peaks of Ironspire were framed not by blinding blizzards, but by cascading sheets of brilliant wildflowers—pale violet primroses, golden buttercups, and deep blue gentians that clung to the black obsidian rock like living velvet. The air, once thick with the freezing drafts of the high altitude, was now warm, fragrant with the sweet, intoxicating scent of damp earth, blooming pines, and the rich, fertile promise of the southern valley below.
The territory was no longer divided. The Blackwood valley had been renamed The Sovereign’s Reach, and the border ravine, once a site of toxic standoff and bloodshed, was now bridged by a massive, newly co
