Smoke trailed above the eastern peaks like fingers clawing at the heavens. As Kael and his companions approached the outer settlements of the realm, it became clear that the Forgotten had not merely returned—they had claimed.
Villages once teeming with life now stood silent, their homes untouched by fire or blade. Instead, they pulsed with strange energy—wards etched in unfamiliar glyphs, sigils drawn in blood and starlight. Life had not been destroyed. It had been… rewritten.
"This isn't conquest," Aelira murmured, crouching to inspect a sigil burning softly in the stone. "It's reclamation."
Kael nodded grimly. "The Forgotten believe this land is still theirs. That we're the trespassers."
They reached a village square where children once played. Now, at its center, rose a tree—one that hadn't been there before. Black bark. Leaves of silver. It throbbed with power. At its roots, blood stained the earth, circling a half-buried stone tablet.
Lin approached it cautiously, fingertips glowing as she channeled a detection spell. "This tree… it's a boundary marker."
Kael's eyes darkened. "They're redrawing the lines. Not just of territory—but of history."
Suddenly, a shadow stirred from the edge of the square. A woman stepped forward, her hair silver-white, her eyes swirling with memories not her own. She wore robes of deep crimson and violet, and on her brow shimmered a crown of threads—tangled, living.
"You returned," she said. "The one who walks the broken lines."
Kael tensed. "Who are you?"
"I am Veira of the Hollow Thread," she said. "Last daughter of the Thirteenth Pact. We who were erased remember our names now. And you, Kael of the Prism, have awakened us all."
Aelira's blade was half-drawn. Lin stood ready beside her.
But Veira didn't attack. She stepped forward slowly, palms open.
"We do not seek war," she said. "We seek restoration."
Kael studied her. "You sealed villages in runes. Rewrote lives. Marked land with blood. That's not restoration. That's domination."
Veira's smile held sorrow. "When the gods tore our threads, they called it order. When we sew them back, you call it invasion."
Behind her, more figures appeared—men, women, children—all bearing the mark of the Forgotten. But their eyes held more than power. They held pain.
Lin looked to Kael, uncertain.
Kael stepped forward. "If you want peace, why march on the capital?"
"Because that's where the rot still sits," Veira said. "The Lords of Pacthaven, the High Circles, the Eternal Watchers—they kept the lie alive. We bled for that city, and were cast out of memory."
Kael exhaled slowly. "Then we need truth. And it starts with what you really want."
Veira's expression hardened. "A place. A voice. A reckoning."
She handed Kael a scroll. Bound in golden thread, sealed with a crest older than the current empire.
"This is our claim," she said. "To be delivered to the new Council—if there is one still willing to listen."
And then, her gaze sharpened.
"But if the council refuses… if they burn our truths… then blood will speak where ink could not."
Kael took the scroll. Heavy. Sacred. Dangerous.
Aelira stepped beside him. "They're giving us a chance."
Lin added softly, "Or an ultimatum."
Kael turned to Veira. "We'll go to the capital. We'll deliver your message. But understand this: I walk the threads between fates—not as a king, not as a pawn. If the Forgotten spill innocent blood… I will not stand with you."
Veira bowed. "Then pray they listen."
As Kael and his companions turned westward toward the capital, the wind shifted again. Not cold. But charged.
Beneath the soil, old roots stirred.
Above the sky, threads shimmered.
And across the land, boundaries began to blur—not just between nations, but between myth and memory, blood and belonging.
The war to come would not be one of armies alone.
It would be of truths.