The castle of Eden was a tomb waiting for a funeral.
Word had spread. The army was coming. The people huddled in their homes, doors barred, whispering prayers to gods they barely believed in anymore.
In the west tower laboratory, Noella was not praying.
She was making poison.
It was a simple, vicious paste—a concentrate of nightshade berries, hemlock sap, and a binding agent. She coated fifty iron caltrops with the mixture, her hands protected by thick leather gloves.
Not to kill. To incapacitate. A man with the toxin in a foot wound would be hallucinating and paralyzed within minutes. A burden on his comrades. A drain on morale.
Kael entered, his face grim. "Scouts just returned. The Tombsrose force crossed the Stone River at dawn. They're making good time. They'll reach the Blackwood edge by tomorrow afternoon."
Noella didn't look up. "Numbers?"
"As the dispatches said. Two hundred infantry. Fifty cavalry riding ahead as scouts. The chanters are with the main column, in an armored wagon."
An armored wagon. Smart. Protected from arrows, but not from what Volsei could do.
"And their morale?"
Kael grunted. "Confident. They're singing marching songs. They think they're on a punitive raid against a village of farmers."
Good. Overconfidence bred blindness.
"The volunteers?"
"Ready. Scared shitless, but ready. They believe in you, Princess."
Noella finally set down the last coated caltrop. She stripped off her gloves.
"They shouldn't believe in me. They should believe in the plan. In the terrain. In their own will to survive."
"It's the same thing," Kael said softly. He gave her a look that was both weary and proud. "Your father is in his solar. He wants to see you."
\-\--
King Alistair looked old. The lines on his face seemed carved by a chisel of pure dread.
"Noella. You don't have to do this. There is still time. We could… we could treat with them. Surrender me. Offer tribute."
"They don't want tribute, Father," Noella said, her voice gentle but firm. "They want annihilation. And me. As a specimen. Surrendering you would just be the first course."
"I cannot bear the thought of you on that field. If you fall…"
"I won't fall." She said it with a conviction she didn't entirely feel. "And if I do, I will have fallen fighting. Not kneeling."
Alistair's eyes glistened. He reached out, took her hand. His grip was weak.
"You are so much like your mother. She had that same fire. That same… unbearable strength." A single tear traced a path through his stubble. "I am sorry I could not give you a safer world."
Noella squeezed his hand. For a moment, she wasn't a strategist or a princess. She was just a daughter.
"You gave me a world worth fighting for. That is enough."
She left him there, staring into the fire.
\-\--
She found Volsei on the battlements again. He was looking south, towards the Blackwood.
"Can't sleep?" she asked, joining him.
"I don't need much sleep," he said. "And the Ether is… restless tonight."
She followed his gaze but saw only stars. "What does that mean?"
"The veil feels thin. Agitated. Like a pond after a stone is thrown. My actions at Ironridge… they may have drawn attention from the other side."
A new variable. A potentially catastrophic one.
"Will they intervene?"
"Unlikely. The Council is cautious. They'll watch. Gather data. But if they see an opportunity to strike at both a human army and me at once…" He left the thought unfinished.
"So we must win quickly. Decisively. Leave no opening."
"Yes."
They stood in silence for a long time. The wind picked up, cold and smelling of distant rain.
"What was your mother like?" Noella asked suddenly. The question surprised even her.
Volsei went very still. "Why?"
"You said you took your knife from the man who killed her."
He was silent for so long she thought he wouldn't answer.
"She was human," he said finally, the words dragged from a deep, sealed place. "A herb-witch in a border village. She took in a wounded shadow-being. My father. He left before I was born. The village called her a demon-whore. When the Scourge ended and the purge of 'tainted' blood began, a Tombsrose soldier came to cleanse the village. He killed her in our garden. I was eight. I took his knife and ran into the woods. I didn't know what I was. Not until later."
The story was told in a flat, emotionless monotone. But Noella heard the universe of pain beneath it.
A half-breed. An outcast from both worlds. No wonder he saw everything as paper.
"I'm sorry," she said. It felt inadequate.
"Don't be. It's just data. It explains why I hate them. Why this…" He gestured towards the south, towards the coming army. "…feels less like boredom and more like justice."
Noella looked at his profile, etched against the night sky. She understood him then, truly. Not just as a weapon, but as a person. A mirror of her own isolation.
"After this," she said. "Win or lose. We burn Tombsrose to the ground."
He turned his head. His light brown eyes captured the starlight. "I thought you wanted to build something."
"I do. But some things need to be burned clean first."
A ghost of a real smile touched his lips. Not almost. A real one.
"Alright."
A comfortable silence fell between them. For the first time, it wasn't just a pact. It was a companionship.
"We should rest," Noella said eventually. "Tomorrow is a long day."
"You should rest. I'll keep watch."
She nodded. She turned to go, then stopped.
"Volsei."
He looked at her.
"Come back tomorrow. Not for the plan. For… this."
She didn't know what 'this' was. The alliance? The conversation? The fragile understanding?
He seemed to.
"I will," he said. A promise.
Noella descended the tower stairs, the cold knot in her stomach replaced by a different, warmer, more terrifying feeling.
Hope.
Dawn was still hours away.
The night held its breath.
And in the south, an army of two hundred and fifty men slept, dreaming of an easy victory.
They would not dream for much longer.