Life in Oakhaven returned to a semblance of normalcy, but something had fundamentally changed. The villagers looked at Nox and Serian with a new kind of respect, a mixture of gratitude and a healthy dose of awe-tinged fear. They were no longer just the quiet farmers at the edge of the valley. They were its protectors.
Nox fell back into the rhythm of his farm, but his senses were now always alert, his perception extending beyond his fields, a quiet, watchful presence over the entire valley. The void within him was awake again, a sleeping dragon that he knew could be roused at any moment.
One morning, a month after the Baron's departure, a new visitor arrived in the valley. It was not a soldier or a tax collector. It was a young woman, dressed in the simple, dusty clothes of a traveler. She had dirt-streaked hair and eyes that burned with a fierce, familiar intensity.
She walked straight to Nox's farm.
