The horn’s echo hadn’t faded when I understood it. Not with logic but with memory.
The hero has returned.
The thought struck me like a blade driven between my ribs—not pain, not fear, but a certainty so sharp it stole my breath. I felt it in the way the air recoiled around Eron, in the way the Watch tightened its focus, in the way the heavens stopped pretending this was still a trial.
The demons knelt, every one of them, not in terror but in recognition.
“My king,” the armored figure repeated, head bowed. “You called.” I hadn’t but the world had. And the gods knew it.
The Knight-Commander’s face went pale beneath her discipline. She took a single step back, then caught herself, jaw tightening. “This is an abomination,” she said. “All units—hold formation.”
The knights obeyed, but the
