"No." He didn't sound offended. "They earned their freedom from Death Lords. Asking them to follow one into battle would feel like being dragged back into chains."
"So what, I give the speech?" She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "The outsider who made everything worse?"
"The mortal who stands beside me without flinching." His gaze was unwavering. "The woman who came here to fix what she damaged instead of hiding behind my power. They've spent decades learning that Death Lords take. You're offering to give."
The ground shuddered. A crack split the cobblestones at her feet. The tremor rolled through Nightfall like a death rattle, and a ward-stone at the nearest intersection flickered twice and went dark.
"Besides." His mouth curved, just slightly. "You're better at making people believe in impossible things."
"That's not?—"
"It is." He caught her hand, squeezed once, then released her. "I'll be there. They'll know my power backs whatever you say. But the words should be yours."
She stared at him. The Reaper. Stepping back so a mortal could lead.
"You're sure about this?"
"I'm sure about you."
Her throat tightened. No time to process that. No time for any of it.
She started toward the central square.
The path wound between close-built houses, and even now she could see traces of the life here. A communal table set beneath a bone-arch canopy, long enough for dozens, its surface scarred from shared meals. Window boxes where someone had coaxed pale silver moss into growing, the only living thing she'd seen in the Forsaken realm that wasn't one of Dante's black roses. A children's corner where smooth stones had been stacked into small towers, a game abandoned mid-build.
These people had taken the materials of despair and made a home from them. And it was falling apart.
The square was packed when they arrived. Hundreds of souls pressing close, translucent forms shimmering in the dying light. Warriors ringed the perimeter. Families huddled in tight clusters.
Dante stopped at the platform's edge. Didn't follow her up.
The crowd noticed. Murmurs rippled outward. The Reaper hanging back. The mortal woman stepping forward alone.
Brynn felt every eye on her as she climbed onto the raised stone. The cold circlet pressed against her forehead. The bandages on her wrists stood out stark white.
A broad-shouldered blacksmith pushed to the front, arms folded. "We know what's happening to the realm. What we want to know is why we should listen to you."
Fair. Brutally fair.
She hadn't prepared for this. Hadn't expected to be the one standing here with a crowd waiting for answers. Her hands wanted to shake. She didn't let them.
"Because I owe you the truth about what's killing your home."
She held the blacksmith's gaze.
"Caelum of the Mourned has been sabotaging the wards for months. Weakening the barriers. Destabilizing the realm piece by piece. Everything you've been feeling—the tremors, the failing ward-stones, the corruption in the air—that's him. That's been him all along."
The murmurs that rippled through the crowd carried shock. They'd expected anyone but him.
"But I made it worse." She didn't let herself look away. "The gateway I opened tore through defenses that were already barely holding. I didn't know. That doesn't matter. I accelerated the collapse, and I'm not here to pretend otherwise."
Someone in the crowd made a sound of disgust. A woman pulled her children back another step.
"So you're here to apologize?" The blacksmith's voice was flat. "While our home crumbles?"
"No. I'm here because I'm the only one who can close what I opened. And I can't do it alone."
The ground heaved. Stone cracked near the fountain with a sound like snapping bones, and a child cried out. When the tremor passed, no one had fled.
