The war did not begin with a grand declaration.
It began with marching.
Columns of soldiers moved out of Varreck's capital before dawn, their armor dull beneath the grey sky. War horns sounded only once, low and deliberate, as if the kingdom itself was reluctant to wake the sleeping conflict.
Hills stood among the newest recruits, a short sword hanging awkwardly from his belt. The armor issued to him felt heavy, unfamiliar. Around him marched men who had fought wars long before he had even heard of Dragon banners.
Some looked at him with curiosity.
Others with doubt.
A boy in the king's army rarely survived long enough to prove anything.
One soldier beside him tightened the straps of his gauntlet and muttered the familiar greeting.
"Vein steady."
Hills answered quietly.
"Blood holds."
The words had become common among Varreck's soldiers. Some said the king's Blood-Bound power flowed through the army like an unseen current, guiding battles in ways ordinary commanders could not explain.
Hills did not know if that was true.
But he had felt something stir the day he stood in the Hall of Accord.
And the memory had never left him.
The army reached the frontier three days later.
Smoke rose in thin lines across the distant hills.
Villages had been abandoned. Roads lay empty except for broken wagons and scattered belongings left behind by fleeing families.
Captain Edrin, the commander of hills unit, studied the valley from a rocky outcrop.
"The Dragons move faster than we thought," he said grimly.
Another officer spat into the dust.
"They always do."
Hills followed their gaze.
Across the valley floor, the Dragon-origin host had already formed its lines.
Dark banners fluttered above armored ranks. Their warriors wore scale-shaped plates that glimmered like reptilian skin. Some carried curved blades, others spears engraved with ancient markings.
They were not raiders.
They were an army.
The order to prepare came quickly.
Shields raised.
Spears aligned.
Archers moved into position along the ridge.
Kael's hands trembled slightly as he drew his sword.
He tried to steady his breathing the way the palace instructors had taught him.
Around him the soldiers whispered familiar words before battle.
"By blood and breath."
"Vein steady."
Kael repeated them under his breath.
Not as ritual.
As courage.
The first clash came suddenly.
Dragon infantry surged forward across the valley, their formation tight and disciplined. War horns sounded from their lines—deep, almost animalistic, echoing through the hills.
"Hold formation!" Captain Edrin shouted.
Arrows darkened the sky.
Hills raised his shield just in time as a shaft slammed into the wood with a violent crack.
The two armies collided moments later.
Steel met steel in a storm of noise.
Hills barely understood what was happening at first.
A Dragon warrior rushed toward him, blade raised high. Hills reacted instinctively, blocking the strike clumsily and stumbling backward.
The enemy soldier pressed forward, confident.
Too confident.
Something strange happened then.
For just a moment, Hills felt the same sensation he had felt in Varreck's hall.
A faint pulse.
Not sound.
Not sight.
More like an awareness guiding his movement.
His body shifted slightly to the left without conscious thought.
The Dragon warrior's next strike missed completely.
Hills reacted.
His sword drove forward.
The enemy soldier collapsed.
Hills stared down at the fallen warrior in shock.
He had never taken a life before.
But there was no time to process it.
More Dragon soldiers rushed forward.
The battle spread across the valley like wildfire.
Shouts echoed everywhere. Shields broke. Horses screamed.
Yet something strange continued to happen around hills.
He moved with a strange clarity.
Not faster.
Not stronger.
Just… correct.
He blocked when he needed to.
Struck when openings appeared.
Dodged blows that should have landed.
One veteran soldier fighting beside him noticed.
"You move like the king," the man shouted over the chaos.
Hills didn't answer.
Because he wasn't sure the movement belonged entirely to him.
Hours later the Dragon army began to retreat.
Varreck's commanders pushed forward, reclaiming the ridge and forcing the enemy host back toward the eastern passes.
The battlefield slowly fell quiet.
Broken weapons littered the ground.
Smoke drifted across the valley.
Hills sat on a rock, exhausted, staring at the blood on his sword.
Captain Edrin approached him slowly.
"You fought well for your first battle," the captain said.
Hills nodded silently.
Edrin studied him carefully.
"You know," the captain continued, "soldiers talk. Word spreads quickly in an army."
"What word?" Kael asked.
"That the boy who warned the king…" Edrin said, "fights like the Blood itself is guiding him."
That night the army camped along the captured ridge.
Fires burned low as soldiers rested and tended to the wounded.
Far away in the capital, Varreck would soon hear reports of the battle.
And among those reports would be a curious detail.
A young soldier.
A messenger from the frontier.
A boy named hills.
Who fought his first battle as if the Blood-Bound had chosen him for something greater.
Meanwhile, far beyond the battlefield, the Night House remained silent.
But the ancient stones had begun to shift again.
Slowly.
Patiently.
As if watching the war unfold exactly as it expected.