The silence that settled over the land was not peace—it was the breath before the scream.
Weeks had passed since Kaelen had found me in the mountain pass, since our two lights had merged and driven the Void back into the shadows. The skies remained perpetually overcast, a heavy, bruised grey that never brightened into true daylight, never darkened into true night. There was no sunrise, no sunset—only a slow, dull shift from dimness to deeper gloom, as if the world itself were slowly fading. The wind had stopped changing direction; it blew always from the northwest, steady, cold, carrying the faint, metallic tang of something dying. The rivers ran slower, their waters dark and strangely still. The birds had fallen silent.
Within the stronghold, every moment was filled with purpose. We did
