CHAPTER 1
"This isn't like before."
The thought struck Armin as the warhorns sounded again-deeper and longer than any cry he had ever heard from the tribes of men. The note shook the very air, rolling through the stone walls and into his bones, as if the whole world was being reminded of something ancient it had tried to forget.
He stood still, breath held, listening as the sound lingered far longer than it should have. It did not fade the way a shout did, or scatter like the clatter of steel. It endured, stretched thin across the valley, pressing against the silence that followed. Even after the horn fell quiet, Armin felt it echoing in his chest, slow and heavy, like a second heartbeat.
The fights he'd known were small things-quick, frantic clashes in the underbrush, where his father and brother swung their blades with desperate strength and shouted like wounded beasts. Steel clattered, men screamed, and the forest swallowed the rest. Those battles had felt loud then, wild and even terrifying.
But this… this was something else entirely.
Another horn answered from farther away, then another, until the valley trembled with their voices.The sounds overlapped, layered atop one another, rising and falling in a slow, deliberate rhythm. It was not chaos-it was a signal. A calling.
The stone beneath Armin's feet seemed to hum in response, as if the fortress itself recognized the sound. Even the banners hanging from the walls stirred, though there was no wind strong enough to justify it.
A faint scent drifted through the open window-one that Armin did not recognize. Armin swallowed hard,suddenly aware of how small he felt within the walls meant to protect him.
The tribes of men fought over land, water, pride, women.Their fights were loud, brief, and often forgotten as soon as the ground grew quiet again. Victories were claimed by whoever still stood, and defeats were buried alongside the dead.
The elves? They marched for a reason far heavier-one worshipped in old songs and carved into stone long before Armin was born.
He had no word for it. Not one that belonged to humans.
But the elves did.
They called it war.