Arc I: The Riverland
Twelve hours earlier
The river ran slow beneath the dusk.
It was said that the River Nareth never stopped moving, even when the world did.
Its waters wound like veins through the kingdom — carrying fish, silt, whispers, and war.
At the ferry outpost of Branmeadow, dusk settled thick as ash. The air smelled of wet reed and iron. A few barges rocked lazily by the docks, their ropes creaking against wooden posts.
A man named Korran Hale, ferryman and part-time watchman, sat upon the edge of the pier with his boots in the water. He watched the current ripple around his feet and spat into it, watching the spit drift like a tiny ghost.
"They say the king's gone half-mad," came a voice behind him.
It was Willem, one of the dock guards — younger, red-haired, his cloak too big for him. He leaned on a pike that had never tasted blood.
Korran didn't turn. "You'll want to keep your voice lower than that, boy."
"Lower than the frogs?" Willem asked, smirking. "The whole river croaks it now. They say he bleeds the princess to wake old gods."
Korran's jaw tightened. "You say that again, and the next boat that drifts down this river will have you in it."
The boy shrugged, half amused, half afraid.
"Still," he muttered, "folk are uneasy. The tides've gone strange. The Nareth runs higher every night, even with no rain. The old woman from the mill says she saw a ship's light on the southern bend — no sails, no sound, just drifting against the current."
Korran finally looked up. His eyes were the color of the water — dull and deep. "Ships don't drift upriver."
"That's what she said."
The ferryman rose, wiping his hands on his tunic. Across the dark expanse, the far bank lay hidden beneath fog. The reeds swayed as though something moved among them.
He listened. Only the night — the chirring of crickets, the faint rush of water.
But the river had a different sound tonight, a low hum beneath the surface, like breath caught in a giant throat.
"You hear that?" Willem whispered.
Korran frowned. "I hear the river."
"No," the boy said. "The river's listening."
Korran chuckled — a dry sound that didn't hide the tremor beneath. "You've been drinking the brewer's ale again."
Yet even as he said it, he felt the air change. A wind crept in from the south, carrying the scent of salt — something that should not have reached this far inland.
Both men turned toward the horizon.
Through the dusk, far down the curve of the Nareth, a faint flicker appeared — not torchlight, but something colder, steadier, like a reflection that refused to fade.
It lingered for a heartbeat. Then another joined it. Then a third.
Korran's throat went dry. "Fetch the horn," he said softly.
Willem stared, frozen. "It's just—"
"Now."
The boy scrambled away. Korran stayed by the water's edge, his eyes never leaving the dark ribbon of river stretching southward. The lights were still there — moving slowly, deliberately, as though drawn by the current itself.
He whispered to no one, voice almost drowned by the wind:
"Storms don't come from the sky no more… they come sailing."
The river gave no answer — only the long sigh of its current, carrying secrets toward the heart of the realm.
Arc II: WAR'S END
When the heavens quarreled, it was men who burned.
And when men grew weary, the gods fell silent.
— The Oaths of Old Wars, Hermsbrone Archives
The river carried its whispers west.
Past reed-choked bends and hollow mills, it wound through fields turned to ghostlight, through valleys where only wind dared remember.
By dawn, the current had gathered what men left unsaid—the taste of fear, the scent of salt, the hush before the storm—and bore it toward the dying lands.
Beyond the reach of the Nareth, where soil hardened to stone and the sky forgot its color, the land rose into the ashen highlands of Hermsbrone.
The wind there had the sound of memory—slow, mournful, and eternal.
And upon its crown stood the fortress called War's End.
Its black walls loomed through the morning fog, each stone a scar of battles past. The mists coiled around its towers like spirits too weary to wander further. For a thousand years it had watched the western horizon, silent and steadfast—a monument not to victory, but to endurance.
The axe broke the hush with a slow, deliberate rhythm.
Each strike sank deep into the trunk, dull thuds rolling across the fog-laden hills. The air hung thick with mist, tasting faintly of salt from the western sea.
The man's breath came white; his beard rimed with frost. Around him, the forest stood still—not lifeless, but listening.
When the final blow split the wood, the tree groaned and fell, its weight shaking the sodden earth. The man paused, scarred hands resting upon the axe haft. For a moment he looked upon the fallen trunk as one might look upon a slain beast—without triumph, without regret.
He gathered the firewood in his arms and made his way down the narrow path, his boots crunching upon the frost-hardened ground. The climb back toward the fortress was long; the air thinned as he ascended.
Above him, the horns of the watchtower sounded through the fog—deep, solemn notes that told the land its guardians still endured.
Through a break in the mist, the fortress revealed itself upon the hill's crown: black stone walls, stark against the pale horizon.
War's End.
It rose as though carved by gods long forgotten—its battlements veiled in cloud, its windows dim with the red glow of forge-fire. Even from afar, it seemed less built than remembered.
Erwin of the Seven rode his horse the last stretch toward the gate.
The sentinels upon the tower saw him approach and called aloud:
"Horse!"
"Open the gate!"
The iron doors groaned apart. He passed through without a word, hooves clattering upon the cobblestones, the sound swallowed swiftly by the fortress's silence.
Within, the yard thrummed with quiet purpose—the hiss of steel upon whetstone, the clank of armor, the crackle of forges that never slept.
Erwin dismounted, the old horse blowing steam into the dusk. He led it to the stables beneath the northern wall, the smell of hay and iron thick in the cooling air.
The yard was empty now—training had ended hours ago—but the echoes of it lingered: roars of instructors, the ring of blades, the breath of young men trying to outlast the day. All that remained was the stillness that follows noise, the kind that makes silence feel alive.
A raven perched upon the thatch, watching him with the patience of something that had seen men come and go too often to care.
Inside the yard, the fortress breathed its usual rhythm — hammer against anvil, steel against stone, the murmur of fires dying low. War's End never truly slept; it merely waited between storms.
He had just set the firewood by the storehouse when he heard the noise — voices gathering near the post-yard. Curious, he followed. A small crowd had formed beneath the high balcony where the Lord Commander often spoke. At its center stood a boy, pale and trembling, his voice breaking through the air like a wound that refused to close.
"I saw it!" the boy cried. "By the realm, I swear it true! They're all dead!"
Erwin slowed. The lad's cloak was torn, his eyes hollow. His hair was still matted with ash, his face pale with sleeplessness. Something in him looked scorched from the inside.
"What killed them?" someone demanded.
"And where are the bodies, boy?"
The question seemed to unravel him further. His words stumbled out like stones tripping over one another.
"I—I couldn't bring them back… not all of them. The road was long, the horses wouldn't move. They were gone before I—" His voice faltered. "There was… nothing left. Not a sound. Not even blood."
A ripple went through the men — uneasy, mocking, fearful.
"Gone? Gone where?" one called. "The wind take them?"
Erik's lips quivered. "It wasn't wind. It was like the air itself went still — like it was waiting. Then everything was… quiet."
Laughter broke through the crowd like a cruel wind.
"Hear that? The boy left his ghosts behind!"
"Maybe the shadows chased him home!"
But not everyone laughed. A few older men watched in silence, eyes narrowing. Even Erwin felt the cold crawl up his spine. The boy was trembling, but not lying. He had the look of someone who had seen something the world was not built to hold.
The crowd fell still when the heavy steps of the Lord Commander crossed the courtyard. His voice carried like iron drawn from the forge.
"Enough."
He stopped before the boy, the light of the setting sun turning the steel on his breastplate to fire.
"What is your name?"
"Erik, my lord."
The Commander studied him. "You say your regiment is gone?"
"Yes," Erik whispered. "Gone. All gone."
"How?"
He hesitated. "I don't know, my lord. There was a sound — like thunder without sky — then silence. I called to them, but no one answered. I… I rode back alone."
A murmur spread, uneasy, low as thunder.
The Commander's tone hardened.
"You'll rest. At dawn, you'll speak before my scribe. Until then, hold your tongue. We deal in truth here, not fever dreams."
Erik bowed his head, the shame in him too raw to hide.
The Commander turned and strode off, leaving silence in his wake—silence that no man wanted to fill.
The soldiers dispersed in uneasy clusters. Erwin lingered. He had seen boys break before, seen them tremble after their first blood. But this was different. Whatever Erik had seen had hollowed him.
He turned back toward the stables, the weight of the evening pressing upon him. Even as he walked, the boy's words clung to him like smoke: They're gone… all gone.
War's End was old—older than the crowns it served. It had heard too many such words in its time. The forge-fire hissed as if in answer, and the wind shifted through the courtyard with a voice that almost sounded like memory.
Behind him, the boy still stood alone, the fading sun painting him in red. Somewhere in the distance, a hammer struck three times—slow, heavy, deliberate.
Erwin paused, glancing back once more. "The gods help you, lad," he murmured.
But the gods, as all in War's End knew, had been silent for a very long time.
The yard had emptied, leaving only the soft rasp of wind against the walls.
Erik stood where the others had left him, alone beneath the dying light, staring at the place where laughter had mocked him moments before.
Then a voice came from behind — low, certain.
"I've seen it too."
Erik turned.
A boy leaned against the wooden fence at the edge of the yard, one leg propped upon the rail, arms folded across his chest. He couldn't have been older than Erik, yet there was something in his stillness — something that didn't belong to boys.
"You…" Erik began, unsure his voice would hold. "You believe me?"
The boy nodded once, eyes unreadable. "That you saw it? Aye. I did."
Erik frowned, stepping closer. "Who are you?"
"Ren," he said simply. "One of the new recruits. Arrived this morning."
The name hung there a moment before Erik spoke again. "You've seen it?"
Ren's gaze drifted toward the dark horizon beyond the walls.
"I didn't have to see it," he said quietly. "It never shows itself to the open… it inflicted havoc on my village."
Erik's throat tightened. "I'm… sorry," he said softly.
Ren nodded, not in acceptance but in remembrance. Erik looked at him, searching for something human to hold onto — yet found only a quiet void staring back.
Still, beneath that silence, something bound them.
Two boys, strangers to one another, tied by the same unseen terror.
And for the first time since Calvanry, Erik didn't feel entirely alone.
Above them, the horns of War's End moaned once through the fog — a long, mournful sound that carried across the hills like a warning. The forge-fires dimmed, and the wind rose from the west, heavy with the scent of salt and rain.
Somewhere beyond the walls, unseen in the dark, the world was shifting again.
Arc III: The Night's Watch
War's End Fortress, Dusk
The horns faded, leaving behind a silence that seemed to breathe.Night came slowly to War's End, not with stars but with smoke. The forges dulled to embers, the hammer-song stilled, and the great courtyard dimmed to the restless glow of torches along the ramparts.
Erik stood by the armory steps, fastening the leather straps of his gauntlet. The bruises from the day still throbbed, each one a reminder that the world above the river had not believed him. Across the yard, Ren leaned against a barrel, sharpening his blade with deliberate, patient strokes.
"Still on duty?" Erik asked, voice low.
Ren glanced up, a faint half-smile flickering. "Sleep doesn't take kindly to me. Figured I'd return the favor."
They took their posts along the northern wall. Below, the fog rolled like a slow tide through the pines. The torches burned steady, but their light felt weaker than usual, as though the night itself drank from the flame.
"You ever been out there?" Erik asked.
Ren's eyes followed the dark line of the forest. "Once," he said. "Hunting bandits for a lord who no longer remembers my name."
"What happened?"
"The forest happened."
Erik didn't press further. He had learned that some silences were not meant to be broken.
The hours bled into each other.The fortress stirred behind them—voices muffled through stone, boots echoing faintly in the inner yard. The smith's dog barked once, then whimpered and went quiet.
"Something's off," Erik said.
Ren didn't answer at first. His gaze had drifted to the horizon, where the fog met the sea. "It's the air," he said at last. "Tastes like storms but smells like iron."
A door creaked below. The Lord Commander emerged onto the lower parapet, wrapped in a dark cloak. His hair was silvered by age, his eyes sharp with the weariness of men who had lived too long in duty's shadow.
He called up to them. "You two — eyes wide tonight. The western scouts haven't returned from their run."
"Yes, my lord," they answered together.
The Commander lingered a moment longer, studying the sea. "If they're late, it's the fog's doing," he muttered, more to himself than to them. Then he turned and vanished back into the keep.
The minutes stretched thin. Erik began to pace, boots scuffing against the stone. Every sound seemed amplified—the hiss of the wind, the creak of timber, the slow beat of his own pulse.
Ren broke the quiet. "When the world holds its breath like this," he said, "something's listening."
Erik frowned. "You mean the thing from your village?"
Ren's face was unreadable. "Maybe. Maybe it's something older."
A shout came from the western tower—faint, sharp, and cut short. Both boys turned, hands to their blades. The echo died fast. No other sound followed.
Ren looked toward the fog. "There," he whispered.
At first Erik saw nothing. Then the mist rippled—as though something vast moved beneath it, silent and slow. The torches nearest the wall guttered, their flames bowing toward the thing, whatever it was, as if drawn by breath.
"Do you see that?" Erik breathed.
Ren nodded once. "I did."
And then, just as suddenly, the fog stilled. The torches straightened. The night returned to its normal, heavy quiet.
Neither spoke for a long time.
Finally Ren said, "Tell no one. They'll call you mad twice in one lifetime."
Erik nodded. But as he looked westward, his hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. For the first time, he wondered whether War's End truly earned its name—or if it was only waiting for war to find it again.
Arc IV: The Rescue in the Western Fog
War's End Fortress, Nightfall
The fog thickened as night fell, swallowing the fortress walls until even the torches looked drowned.By the time the horns sounded from the western tower, the light had turned the color of ash.
Erwin of the Seven stood in the yard, already armed. "Another signal?" he asked.
The watchman nodded, breath quick. "The scouts from Tower Reach haven't returned, ser. Lord Commander wants a search."
Erwin's jaw tightened. "How long overdue?"
"Four hours."
That was long enough to die twice over.
Erwin turned to the men gathering by the gate. Erik was already among them, sword at his side, eyes raw from the cold."You volunteering, boy?" Erwin asked.
"Yes, Ser," Erik said without hesitation. His voice carried the edge of defiance.
"You've seen enough death for one season."
"Then I'll know how to look for it."
A ghost of a smile crossed Erwin's face — grim, approving. "You're learning the wrong lessons fast."
From the shadow of the stables, Ren stepped forward. "If the boy's going, I'll go as well."
Erwin studied him briefly. There was something unsettling about the calm in that young face — not arrogance, not fear, just an absence of both. "Fine," he said. "Two veterans with us. No torches till we reach the outer pines."
The gate groaned open. Fog spilled inward like smoke.
They rode out six strong, the sound of hooves smothered by the mist. The world narrowed to the circle of breath around their mouths and the dull glint of metal in moonlight.
No bird called. No wolf howled. Even the wind had left them.
After an hour, they found the first sign. A campfire still smoked beside the road, coals hissing wet in the fog.Erwin dismounted and crouched low, gloved hand sifting through the ash. "Still warm," he murmured. "They weren't gone long."
No tracks beyond the camp. No drag marks. No prints at all.
One of the veterans spat into the mud. "It's like they vanished clean off the road."
"Nothing vanishes clean," Erwin said. "Something took them."
They moved on.
Minutes became hours, though none could say how long truly passed. The fog warped distance — the road behind seemed to fold in on itself, and the trees ahead bent as if listening.
Then came the horse.
It stood alone by a shallow stream, reins torn to ribbons. Foam clung to its lips, and its eyes rolled white, seeing things beyond the world. It made no sound when Erwin approached, only shivered like a leaf in winter.
"Gods," whispered Erik. "That's Jareth's mount."
"How do you know?"
"The scar on its flank. He named it Ghost."
Erwin laid a hand on the beast's neck — cold as riverstone. "The saddle's still wet," he said. "He rode not long before…"
He didn't finish. The silence did it for him.
They found the first body soon after — half-buried in the marsh, as if the earth itself tried to hide it.No wound marked the flesh. The man's skin was pale, translucent, veins ink-black beneath. His eyes stared open, a film of frost glazing them though no frost had touched the ground.
Erwin knelt, breath misting. When he pressed two fingers to the throat, the skin cracked like thin glass.
"Not burned," he murmured. "Not cut. Just… hollow."
The veterans shifted uneasily. "What could do that?" one asked.
"Nothing I've met and lived to name," Erwin said.
Erik swallowed hard. "Ser, I've seen this before. In Calvanry."
Erwin looked up sharply. "You're certain?"
"Yes." His voice trembled. "It's the same emptiness. The same silence after."
Ren stood apart, eyes lost in the fog. "It doesn't show itself," he said softly. "Not to the open."
The men turned toward him. His voice was calm, steady. "If you look for it, it hides. If you fear it, it listens."
One veteran muttered a curse. "What are you babbling, boy?"
But Erwin's eyes narrowed. "He's right. The quiet isn't peace. It's waiting."
Something shifted in the fog — a whisper, low and wide, like breath drawn through a thousand throats. The horses snorted and backed.
"Form up," Erwin ordered. "Blades out."
A pale light flickered briefly ahead, too soft for torchfire. It moved once, then stilled.
Erwin motioned one of the veterans forward. The man obeyed, stepping into the grey, his torch held high.They watched the glow of it fade.
Then — nothing.
The torch reappeared a dozen paces away, lying on the ground. No sound, no scream. Just the hiss of wet flame dying in the mud.
"Back!" Erwin barked. "Take the body! We're leaving!"
Two men hoisted the corpse onto a horse, its weight stiff, limbs unbending. The flesh felt colder than stone.
They turned as one, leading the horses. The fog pressed close, dense as cloth. Erik felt the air tighten, cold sinking into his bones. Somewhere in the grey, voices whispered — not words, but shapes of them. He heard his name once, twice, then gone.
He stumbled. Ren caught his arm, pulling him forward. "Don't listen," he said. "That's how it follows."
Erwin's voice cut through the mist. "Keep moving!"
They horsed and as they came within sight of the gate, the watchmen upon the tower spotted them and cried out—
"Horsemen!"
A horn sounded loud and clear and the gate began to roll open.
They broke from the fog in a rush — the fortress lights ahead like the eyes of salvation. When the gate closed behind them, the silence burst like a held breath.
The veterans crossed themselves. Erik leaned against the wall, chest heaving. His sword hand shook.
Erwin stood apart, staring back into the darkness beyond the gate. His eyes reflected the last dying torchlight.
"What did you see, Ser?" Ren asked quietly.
"Nothing," Erwin said. "And that's what frightens me most."
The Commander's Hall, War's End Fortress
By the time they reached the fortress, night had fallen like a shroud. The gates of War's End opened to their torches with a groan that echoed into the mist, and the men rode in silence — no words, no laughter, only the weary rhythm of hooves and the dull weight of what they carried. When they dismounted, the body was laid across a cart, shrouded in the same cloak that had failed to keep its owner warm. The fog followed them even into the yard, as though unwilling to be left behind.
The hall of command was lit by iron sconces that burned low, their flames thin and uncertain. The stone walls bore marks of old wars — cracks that had never been mended, banners faded to the color of old blood. Outside, the wind scraped against the shutters like claws.
Erwin stood before the long table, his cloak still damp from the mist. Behind him, two men carried the shrouded body they had brought from the woods. The cloth was stiff with frost, edges gleaming faintly where ice had gathered.
The Lord Commander watched in silence. He was a tall man, grey as the walls, his voice rarely raised above a murmur. When he finally spoke, it was without looking away from the bundle on the floor.
"Unwrap it."
Ren and Erik obeyed. The cloth peeled back with a sound like tearing paper. The corpse beneath looked neither wounded nor whole — skin pale as milk, eyes open but clouded white, lips blue and cracked. A thin frost clung to the lashes, though no snow had fallen in days.
No blood. No burns. No signs of struggle.
The Lord Commander stepped closer, his boots echoing faintly. "When did you find him?"
"Near the outer ridge," Erwin said. "About half a league past the mistline. No other bodies, only this one. His horse was still wandering nearby."
The Commander crouched, studying the corpse. "Frozen?"
"Not by weather," Erwin answered. "The ground was damp. No frost anywhere else."
A pause. The torches hissed.
"You're certain?"
"I've seen men frozen by the sea winds," Erwin said. "This is not that. Whatever did this took the life from him before the cold did."
The Lord Commander's gaze flicked toward Ren and Erik. "And the others? Witnesses?"
Ren shook his head. "The fog moved like it was alive, my lord. We heard nothing but the wind."
Erik swallowed. "There was something else out there," he said softly. "Something we couldn't see."
Silence followed, long and heavy. The Commander straightened at last. "Seal the body in the crypt," he ordered. "No fire. No rites. Until we know what killed him, none will touch the corpse again."
He turned to Erwin. "Double the watch on the western wall. No one rides beyond the ridge without my word."
"Yes, Commander."
As Erwin saluted, the Lord Commander's eyes lingered on the pale corpse one last time. The frost around its mouth seemed to glisten in the torchlight, as though it were whispering to itself.
"Whatever walks in that fog," the Commander said quietly, "it means to test our walls."
Erwin didn't reply. The air in the hall had grown colder. Even the torches seemed to burn slower.
Nightfall at War's End
Sleep would not come to Erik.
The wind had changed.
It hissed through the cracks of the barracks like something searching — slow, measured, almost breathing. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the fog again, curling and whispering, and the man's frozen face staring up from the mud.
He turned on his cot, pulling the blanket tighter, but the cold still crept in, thin as smoke. Around him, the others slept — Ren among them, still and calm, as though born to silence. A candle guttered near the door, its flame shivering without air.
Erik sat up. The wind outside was stronger now, moaning through the narrow windows. It came in waves — three slow pulses, then a pause. The same rhythm he'd heard in the marsh. The same rhythm that had moved through the fog like breath.
He rose quietly, boots whispering against the floorboards, and stepped outside.
The courtyard lay drowned in half-light, snow beginning to fall in thin, ghostly strands. The watchfires burned low, their embers red as dying eyes. Somewhere in the stables, a horse snorted and stamped once — then silence again.
Erik looked toward the western gate. Beyond it stretched the black expanse of the hills, and somewhere beyond that, the sea. The air carried the faint tang of salt.
He told himself the cold was only wind, the whispers only memory. But when he listened closer, he could swear the wind shaped his name — soft, curious, almost kind.
"Erik…"
His breath caught. He gripped the railing of the wall walk until his knuckles whitened.
From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw movement beyond the walls — pale shapes adrift between the trees, gone the instant he looked full upon them.
He whispered to the empty air, "You can't have me."
Only the wind answered — the same rhythm, the same breath.
Three long sighs, then stillness.
The snow fell heavier. Somewhere far off, a horn sounded once, low and mournful.
War's End slept on.
But the night was listening.
Arc V: Crest Keep — A Private Chamber
The chamber smelled of damp stone and cooling wine. Outside, the Keep moved with its usual rhythms — servants passing in muted procession, torches gleaming at the gate — but here, in the shadowed room beyond the throne hall, the world narrowed until it was only two people and the weight those two carried.
Naerya stood by the window, one hand resting on the sill. The dusk painted her hair the color of old silver. She wore no crown now; the queen dowager's robes hung on her like a memory. When she turned, her face had that patient hardness of a woman who had watched love die and kept her duties.
Akimbo entered without fanfare. He closed the door behind him and waited until the servants' footsteps died away in the corridor before he spoke.
He was a tall man of dark skin and broad shoulders, his bald head gleaming faintly in the candlelight. His years had carved dignity rather than frailty into his face; he moved with the deliberate calm of a man who had seen too much to rush toward anything again.
"Your Grace," he said, and the title was a small thing that held everything between them.
Naerya's eyes shadowed. "You heard the council, Reach," she said. "You know what they mean by an envoy from the Iceese."
Akimbo inclined his head. "I have heard, Your Grace. Reports are thin—only whispers for now. But a ship upriver, moving against the normal traffic… that is not the work of merchants."
She took a slow breath and looked out over the city where the River Nareth uncurled like a dark ribbon toward the sea. "They will come with gifts and promises," Naerya said. "They will ply our men with coin and our courtiers with favors. They have always used silver to shine away suspicion."
"And their prince is set to be offered," Akimbo said bluntly. "They will place coin at your daughter's feet and think the crown bound by marriage."
Naerya's jaw tightened. "They speak of Valceryn already—rich, potent, eager. The Lady Veilwarden's whisper reached the Round Rule this morning." She turned, and the corner of her mouth gave the faintest tremor of a smile that was no comfort. "Your Grace," she corrected herself to the open room in habit more than custom. Then she looked at him squarely. "I will not see my daughter bartered like a ledger."
Akimbo pushed a hand over his scalp — a gesture born of habit rather than vanity. His loyalty ran deep — first to the dead king, then to the realm — but his eyes rested now on Naerya as if weighing an old promise.
"You served my lord faithfully," she said, voice a low blade. "You kept watch when others slept. I ask you now, not as Regent to Reach, but as the man who promised my husband—will you keep Saphirra safe?"
He felt the weight of the promise like a second skin. "I promised him, Your Grace. I remember." He did not add the private half of that oath — that he had promised the child herself. It sat in him like coals. "We will not give her to men who would use her name as coin."
Naerya let out a breath that might have been a laugh once. "Your caution is politics in a man's face. The King will hear only of gains — land, silver, allies. He will not speak of daughters and scars." She looked past Akimbo, to some farther place of memory. "He told me once—long ago—that a crown must be heavy. He did not say that crowns could be murder."
Akimbo's face flinched; for a beat the old grief showed through. "Your Grace," he said quietly, "The Chandels will whisper comfort to the King. They always have the ways to soothe a ruler who hears only what he wishes. But the Chandels cannot hide what the Princess bears. The marks she carries from the last rite—"
"—will be seen," Naerya finished. "And men will judge her. Houses will hesitate. Or worse: they will demand proofs, tests, more rites." She squeezed her hand on the sill until the knuckles whitened. "He will not see her as a daughter. He will see her as a means."
A long moment passed. Outside, a bell tolled somewhere in the lower city. The sound seemed small in the great silence that followed.
"What would you have me do?" Akimbo asked at last.
She turned fully to him. In the candlelight, her face was the stillness of a sea before a storm. "Tell no one the whole truth," she said, "not yet. Let the Veilwarden negotiate, let them speak of trade and balance. But move your guards. Place two men the King will never notice — old men, the sort who smell of smoke and are forgotten. Keep Saphirra from the pageants. If there is a pact, I will hear of it before the torches are lit."
Akimbo let out a breath like a drawn sword being sheathed. "And if the King will not listen?"
"Then we make a choice." Naerya's voice was small and steady. "You are old enough to know the cost of choice. If it comes to that, I will stand with my daughter, even if I must stand against the crown."
He had expected heat, fury, pleading; instead came a dreadful calm. Naerya had measured her options and chosen a course that could break them both.
"You would defy Your Grace?" he asked, because the absurdity of court titles stuck in him like a thorn.
She smiled sadly. "I would defy what is beast and call it law. I would keep what is left of our house. I would keep my child."
Akimbo bowed his head. "Then my sword is yours."
She reached out then and laid a weathered hand upon his arm — not a queen's gesture but a woman's plea. "Be silent in the Round Rule. Be loud where steel is needed. Watch the river at dusk and at dawn. Take one of the king's spare galleys, if you must. Move quietly. And—" her eyes found his like a command — "should any friend of Valceryn come courting the Princess, I will need your counsel before the King knows his name."
He nodded. For a long time neither of them spoke. The city hummed beyond the panes, and the Nareth ran dark and slow like a wound.
At last Naerya turned back to the window. "Storms don't come from the sky no more," she said, voice almost a whisper. "They come sailing." The words were not new in Crest Keep, but they landed like a promise between them.
Akimbo stepped back into the corridor and bowed low. "I will watch," he said. "Your Grace."
She watched him go, then, alone, allowed herself a breath that might have been prayer. The night folded around the Keep, and somewhere on the river, oars moved in careful unison.
Naerya stood alone by the window long after Akimbo's steps had faded.
Below, the city sprawled in the fading dusk, its roofs glinting like dull bronze, its alleys veined with the orange pulse of lanterns.
The River Nareth moved slow through its heart, broad and dark, reflecting no moonlight — as if hoarding it.
She had known that sound all her life: the soft churn of current, the whisper of oars from unseen craft, the way the night wind carried voices from the docks.
But tonight it was different.
The rhythm had changed.
It came steady, deliberate — not the scatter of ferrymen or merchants, but a measured beat that belonged to soldiers.
Naerya's fingers tightened on the sill. She could see nothing through the mist, yet she felt it: the slow approach of something vast beneath the river's skin.
The candle beside her trembled; its flame leaned east, toward the open window.
The scent of the sea drifted in — faint, but wrong for this far inland.
She whispered to no one:
"The river carries what the winds cannot."
Far out beyond the wharfs, where the Nareth met the Black Sea of Dusk, a shape moved against the current — one ship, then another, their lanterns shuttered, their hulls whispering like blades drawn in water.
By the time the watch-bells tolled the tenth hour, the queen dowager had turned from the window and closed her eyes.
Sleep did not come.
Only the river's pulse — slow, certain, and drawing closer.
The Lady of Whispers
The halls of Crest Keep never truly slept.
Even after the bells tolled midnight, the corridors breathed with the low hum of life — the shuffle of feet, the crackle of torches, the faint ring of water being carried to chambers unseen.
Servants moved like shadows, their eyes trained to see without looking, their tongues tied by fear or gold.
In the southern wing, where the small council held their private quarters, two maids lingered near the Queen Dowager's antechamber, pretending to polish the stone.
They spoke softly, heads bent close.
"Lord Akimbo stayed with her long past the tenth bell," one whispered.
"And the King's man waited outside the whole while. He looked as though he meant to listen through the door."
The other maid made the sign of the Seven, glancing over her shoulder.
"If word of that reaches the Lord Regent's ears—"
"It already has," came another voice.
Both froze.
From the corner of the hall stepped Lady Cyrayne Vale, the Veilwarden of the realm.
She moved like silk through mist — tall, sharp-eyed, draped in smoke-colored velvet.
Her attendants trailed behind her, silent as moths.
"Carry on," she said coolly, and the maids dropped to their knees.
But Cyrayne did not pass them. She stopped, regarding them with that faint smile that never touched her eyes.
"The walls in this keep are thin," she said. "You may polish them, but they still hear better than you think."
She dismissed them with a flick of her hand. When they had gone, she turned to the attendant nearest her — a boy of twelve, quick and quiet.
"Fetch me the old one," she said. "The wine-tender from the Lord Chancellor's quarters."
The boy nodded and vanished down the hall.
Cyrayne's gaze lingered on the door of Naerya's chamber. The candlelight beneath it had long gone out.
She smiled faintly.
"Even the righteous keep secrets," she murmured.
Her steps echoed softly as she walked away, heading toward the servants' passage — a narrow, low corridor that wound beneath the council chambers like a web.
There, in the half-dark, her real court awaited her: cooks, maids, runners, guardsmen too low to wear their names aloud.
Each bent the knee, not out of loyalty, but out of fear — and something like faith.
"Tell me," Cyrayne said, her voice soft as breath. "What did you hear from the vaults? From the tideward messengers? From the queen's own handmaids?"
One by one, the whispers came:
— The Master of Vaults has been hoarding coin for an unseen deal.
— The Warden of Tides sent letters to Iceese long before the council knew.
— The Queen's maid carries messages folded in her apron hems.
Cyrayne listened without writing a word. Her memory was her parchment, her silence the ink.
When they had finished, she rose. "The crown thinks it rules by counsel," she said. "But the realm bends to those who know before others do."
A murmur of assent rippled through the room.
"Go," she told them. "And remember — secrets are worth more than gold, but cost the same when spent unwisely."
The servants scattered like birds startled from roost.
When she was alone again, Cyrayne drew back her hood and whispered to herself, half amusement, half prophecy:
"In Crest Keep, it is not the king's voice that moves the night. It is the one that listens."
The Keeper of Vaults
Beneath Crest Keep, where torches burned blue from damp and the air smelled faintly of stone and dust, Lord Theon Mervail sat alone with his books.
The vault chambers stretched before him — vast, ribbed with archways, heavy with the breath of buried treasure.
Gold gleamed in quiet towers behind the iron latticework; jewels slept in velvet-lined drawers like coiled serpents.
A single candle hissed beside him.
Theon's quill scratched at parchment, pausing every few strokes as though the ink itself might betray him.
He was not an old man, but the candlelight made him seem carved from years — thin, sharp, his eyes quick and always listening.
Outside, beyond the sealed doors, footsteps echoed.
He froze.
Only two kinds of men walked the lower halls at night: thieves and those who sent them.
"Enter," Theon said, without looking up.
The door creaked open.
A young clerk slipped inside, bowing low.
"Your lordship," the boy said. "A message — from the Veilwarden's hand."
Theon's quill stopped.
"Lay it down," he said. "And close the door."
The boy obeyed, setting a sealed letter on the table.
When the latch clicked shut, Theon stared at the wax — the sigil of the Valewarden, a coiled serpent biting its tail.
He did not break it at once.
Instead, he reached for his cup and drank, as if the wine might lend courage where loyalty could not.
Finally, he opened it.
The words were few:
"The king sleeps. The river stirs. Keep the coffers open for tides to come." — C.V.
Theon frowned.
Tides to come.
Only the Veilwarden spoke in riddles that smelled of prophecy and debt at once.
He leaned back, eyes fixed on the vault's black ceiling.
He had long since stopped fearing her — but he respected the reach of her shadow.
If Cyrayne knew of the coin set aside for the Iceese envoys, then someone in his own ranks had been whispering.
He rose, tucking the parchment into his sleeve.
"Call for my steward," he told the clerk. "And lock the lower vaults. No coin leaves without my mark."
"But, my lord— the ships—"
"Do as I say."
The clerk ran.
Theon remained still a moment longer, listening. The silence down here was never empty; it was full of murmurs — echoes of coin, ghosts of promises.
He spoke softly to them, as though the gold itself might answer.
"Even in darkness, someone counts the crowns."
Then he turned and walked toward the far end of the vault, where an unlit stair spiraled upward toward the keep's heart.
As he ascended, the torchlight faded behind him, and only his voice lingered — calm, weary, and certain:
"The realm may starve or burn, but the Vault endures."
Arc VI: The Riverland — The Silent Gift
The river had grown restless.
It no longer murmured — it breathed.
Each tide came heavier than the last, pushing silt and branches up against the posts of Branmeadow's dock as though the Nareth itself meant to crawl inland.
Korran Hale hadn't slept since the lights. He sat where he always sat, boots in the dark water, a lantern beside him burning low. The flame bent each time the wind changed, and tonight it changed often.
"Still watching ghosts?" Willem asked, stepping out from the guardhouse with a cloak about his shoulders. His voice tried for jest, but it came out hollow.
"Ghosts don't leave marks," Korran said. He pointed to the bank below — the mud was carved with deep grooves, as if something enormous had been dragged ashore and vanished into the reeds.
The boy crouched, tracing one with his fingers. "Could be driftwood."
"Could be the bones of a ship."
A gust swept the dock. The lantern flickered. Both men turned toward the river. Out on the black water, something bumped against the pilings — soft, slow, deliberate.
Willem leaned forward. "Gods, what is—"
The current rolled, and the lantern's light caught it for just a heartbeat. Not wood. Not rope. A hand, pale and swollen, turning slowly in the eddy before it sank again beneath the dark.
Neither man spoke. The sound of the river filled the silence, thick and wet and endless.
At last Willem whispered, "Do we tell the keep?"
Korran shook his head. "Tell them what? That the water's begun to bleed?"
The boy swallowed, staring into the dark. "Then what do we do?"
Korran reached out and pulled the lantern closer. The flame danced across his eyes — tired, knowing.
"We keep the ferry ready," he said quietly. "If the river's bringing the dead, it won't stop with one."
The wind rose again, carrying with it the faintest scent of salt.
And from far downstream — beyond sight, beyond reason — came a sound like oars striking water. Slow. Measured. Coming closer.
The lantern's flame trembled, then went out.
The world dimmed, listening.
Mist drifted low across the Nareth, curling around the dock piles like pale fingers. Somewhere upriver, the reeds sighed — slow, deep, almost human.
Willem clutched his pike tighter. "Korran," he whispered, "you hear that?"
The ferryman didn't answer. He'd already heard it — the slow, wet groan of timber moving where no current ran.
Out of the fog, something vast and shapeless took form. The first thing they saw was the prow, rising like a monument from the black water. Its hull brushed the pilings, the sound soft but wrong — a moan, a drag, as if the river itself resisted its passing.
The name was etched faintly on the side, letters rimmed in frost:
AELINTH.
Willem stepped back, shaking his head. "That's a sea ship… it can't be—"
"It shouldn't be here," Korran said.
The vessel drifted silent, sails slack and rimed with pale ice. Its masts were stiff as spears, its ropes frozen mid-sway. Through the fog they saw shapes on deck — still, upright, unmoving. The moon caught their faces just once before the mist folded over them again.
Korran swallowed. "They're standing," he murmured. "All of them."
The air turned sharp, biting. Frost crept up the dock posts, thin as breath. Somewhere inside the fog, a bell chimed once — low and hollow, as if rung from beneath the water.
Then the sound stopped.
The river went utterly still.
Even the frogs had fallen quiet.
Korran reached for his lantern, but his fingers were numb. The flame would not catch.
Willem was staring at the dark water below. "What do we tell the keep?"
Korran's voice came barely above the whisper of wind.
"Tell them nothing," he said. "Let the river keep its own dead."
The fog swallowed the ship, carrying it further upstream. The men stood frozen on the dock long after it was gone, the scent of salt still clinging to the air.
And from somewhere far within the mist, faint and rhythmic, came the echo of oars — rowing where no hands lived to row.
The sound faded. The wind sighed once, carrying a final whisper across the water:
"Storms don't come from the sky no more… they come sailing."
The river stilled again, but the wind did not die.
It carried on — southward — bending the reeds, stirring the trees, whispering through miles of sleeping fields until it reached the sea.
And there, far beyond the Nareth's mouth, another wind rose to meet it — one not born of nature but of men, and thrones, and words sharpened like blades.