Viktor opened the pack, hesitating.
Outside, drums pounded. Firelight danced on the canvas walls.
He cleared his throat.
“The Kryonites move farther north…”
“You’ve said that.”
Viktor touched the map, dragging a finger along the northern border.
“They’re nomads. I’m told the drought drives them farther than ever before—beyond the fissures—”
“Captain Feindoran, leave us.”
Gabriel looked to Viktor, paused, then obeyed.
“Seraphim.”
Viktor bowed as he passed.
The tent felt eerily still in his absence.
Storne turned.
“Sit. Tell me who sent you beyond Kryon.”
Viktor didn’t sit.
“I was sent as a scout. Do you wish me to speak as such—or from my rank?”
“For this moment,” the commander leaned forward, “you’ll speak to the only man in this unit who’s crossed into Oustinon.”
Oustinon.
Jagged cliffs. Bottomless gorges. Meteors like fireflies.
Smoke-choked skies.
A blasted land of ash and violence.
No crops. No trees. No mercy.
Storne studied Viktor—not for what he said, but for what he’d survived.
He eyed the pack in Viktor’s hands.
“Who sent you up there?”
“Zeporah’s son.”
“He didn’t,” the commander said at once. “Shedid.”
He tapped Casqadia. “The queen.”
Viktor let out a breath.
“I told him I couldn’t get past the fissures. That the winds howled through them like knives. That I couldn’t make it alone.”
