A general in my legions enters—still half-armored from the fight—steps from the shadows, his eyes tired.
“The worst of them are… gone,” he says. “Mindless. Masielle’s not the only one he hollowed out.”
He doesn’t need to say what that means.
There are pyres already being built on the far ridge.
The air tastes like endings.
I drag a hand down my face and force myself to focus.
“We’ll do as we did at the Eyrie,” I say. “Contain them. Give the healers and remaining Dreamwrights something to study. If there is any way to unwind what Idris has done, we will find it.”
“And if there isn’t?” Thorne asks, voice tight.
“Then we make sure their deaths mean something,” I answer. “Just as Masielle’s will.”
My heart—this new, tender thing Alina keeps touching with her hands and her words—feels like it might crack.
He does not get to do this.
Idris does not get to carve through my lands, hollow out my people, and walk away laughing.
I will bury him so deep in the bones of Nightfall that not even memory will find him.
The three of us—fire, water, stone—turn our attention to the main battlefield one last time.
The worst of this battle is over.
But there will be more, I can feel it.
The village stands, though wounded.
Walls cracked, roofs fallen, streets torn and buckled where the ground fought back against the invaders.
We’ve already set crews to work—raising temporary shelters from shaped stone, funneling clean water into shattered cisterns.
I’ve sent word down the root-ways to The Barrow.
Reinforcements will arrive before nightfall. Food. Blankets. Medics from the Marches’ outlying posts.
“Lord Dagan!”
Varen—Stone’s Edge’s headman—approaches, bowing low. His beard is singed at the ends, but his eyes are clear.
“Speak,” I say.
“We’ve taken count,” he reports. “Most of the villagers are accounted for. Some injured, a few dead, but those you already know.” His jaw flexes. “We mourn Masielle. But we thank you for granting her rest.”
My chest tightens.
“You send word along the root lines if anything shifts,” I tell him. “If anyone shows signs of tampering. We answer immediately.”
“We will, my Lord,” Varen promises. “The Marches stand with you.”
I incline my head.
The earth beneath us settles, just a fraction.
