CHAPTER 60:
The moon hung low and swollen over the ridge, its light bleached pale by the winter cold. It was the Cold Moon — the longest night of the year, the night when the veil between worlds grew thin, when old stories said the shadows walked closest to the fire. But tonight, the valley wasn’t quiet. Bonfires blazed in the market square, their golden light spilling over the snow, and nearly three hundred people had gathered — not for war, not for council, but for something new.
We called it the Vigil.
I stood on the wooden platform at the edge of the firelight, wrapped in a thick wool cloak, watching them come — families carrying blankets, elders with drums, children chasing each other through the drifts, their laughter cutting through the crisp air. Cole stood at my right, Kael at
