As the knights surged down the rolling hills like a tide of iron, their war cries echoing against the rising wind, a different sound rose behind them—quiet, but no less powerful.
Atop a ridge just beyond the frontlines, where the grass was still untouched by trampling hooves, stood Isode and a circle of veiled priestesses draped in robes of pale ivory.
Their garments fluttered in the gust, forming a ring of soft white around a single golden censer that swung gently from a chain. They knelt in unison, their hands clasped, lips moving in silent fervor before their voices united in a solemn chant.
"O Maiden of Justice and Purity, bless thy children, who ride into the shadow of war…"
The air shimmered above them as holy glyphs circled upward from their fingers, radiant with divine light.
Feathers of golden luminescence drifted downward, dissolving into the charging knights like embers in reverse—sanctifying, bolstering, transforming mortal resolve into something near divine.
