The road to the northernmost outpost narrowed as it climbed, stone giving way to scrub and wind-scarred earth. Aya rode at the head of the column, her cloak pulled close, Seth, Shin, and Masa flanking her as Frost Fire kept a disciplined distance behind. Seth rode closer to her, silent as ever, his men moving with the ease of soldiers who knew how to disappear into rough terrain.
The outpost should have been visible by now—its watchtower rising from the ridge like a spear.
It wasn't.
When they reached the crest, they found the gates standing open, banners limp and unguarded. No sentries. No smoke from the cookfires. No sound but the wind scraping against empty stone.
Aya dismounted first.
"This place doesn't feel raided," Shin said quietly, scanning the walls. "No blood. No signs of a struggle."
Masa frowned. "Then where did everyone go?"
Aya didn't answer. She stepped through the gates, boots crunching on gravel, eyes moving over the barracks, the stables, the armory—all intact. Too intact.
"They didn't flee," she said at last. "Seems like they marched."
Seth dismounted beside her. "Recently."
Before Aya could respond, hooves thundered from the rear. Bela came riding hard, reins tight, her braid loose from the wind.
"Found signs," she said as she pulled up. "Tracks heading west of here—heavy boots, horses. The garrison moved out in formation."
"To where?" Aya asked.
Bela wiped dust from her brow. "A village, a quarter day's ride from here. Small. Farming settlement. Looks like they went to reinforce it."
Aya was already swinging back into her saddle.
"Then we follow," she said. "Now."
***
They rode hard and fast.
The land grew rougher as they left the outpost behind—rutted paths cut by carts and old war scars, low brush whipping at cloaks and reins. Aya kept the pace relentless, not reckless, but unyielding. She did not look back to see if the men followed.
Seth watched her from the corner of his eye.
He had ridden beside nobles before, lords who mistook speed for courage, commanders who barked orders to hide uncertainty. Aya did neither. She rode like someone who already knew what they would find and had accepted it before it happened.
Her posture never wavered.
The wind tugged loose strands of her dark hair, snapping her cloak behind her like a banner, but her gaze stayed forward, fixed on a horizon only she seemed to see. No visible anger. No fear. Only a tightening focus that unsettled Seth more than rage ever could.
She's done this before, he realized.
Not just ridden into danger—but ridden toward loss.
Frost Fire adjusted instinctively to her pace. Seth hadn't given an order, yet his men spread slightly, riding quieter, weapons checked without being told. Even Thorne, usually loose-limbed and sharp-tongued, rode silent.
Aya's guards flanked her closely—Shin to one side, Masa to the other. Seth noticed the way they watched her, not as guards watching a charge, but as men guarding something fragile without ever treating it as such.
He had seen that look before.
On soldiers riding beside their captains into ground they might not come back from.
Aya lifted one hand briefly, signaling a minor adjustment to the route Shin had drawn, skirting a low ridge, avoiding open ground. Her men followed without question.
She wasn't guessing.
She was reading the land.
Seth's jaw tightened.
His mother had once told him that leaders from the House Svedana didn't command power like a weapon. They listened to it, the way others listened to breath or heartbeat.
If that's true, he thought, watching Aya ride, then she's already listening.
The road dipped.
The air shifted.
And then—
The smell reached them before the sight.
Smoke—old, bitter, soaked deep into the ground. Burned grain. Burned flesh.
***
The road dipped.
And the village lay below them.
What had once been a scatter of low stone homes and timber roofs was now a blackened hollow carved into the land. Walls stood where buildings had been—jagged ribs of stone, cracked by heat. Roof beams lay collapsed inward, burned through and fused together like snapped bones.
No banners. No smoke rising.
Only the aftermath.
The fields nearest the village were trampled flat, grain crushed under boot and hoof alike. Carts lay overturned, wheels shattered. A well had collapsed in on itself, its stones blasted outward, the bucket rope burned clean through.
Bodies lay where they had fallen.
Soldiers first—Northern men by their armor, lighter plate scorched dark, blue-and-silver cloaks reduced to stiffened ash. Some were facedown in the dirt, hands still clawing for weapons that hadn't saved them. Others were slumped against walls, throats opened, shields split clean through.
The villagers lay among them.
A woman near the road, her shawl burned into her skin. A man sprawled beside a broken cart, one hand still gripping a sack of grain that had spilled uselessly into the mud. Near the center of the village, a child's small shoe lay alone, half-melted, its pair nowhere in sight.
The silence was absolute.
No birds. No insects. No wind.
Aya dismounted before anyone could stop her.
Her boots touched ash and packed earth, and she didn't flinch. She moved slowly at first, eyes sweeping the ground, the walls, the bodies—not counting them, not yet. Taking in angles. Patterns. The kind of quiet that only followed intent.
"This wasn't chaos," she said quietly. "This was a targeted approach."
Seth slid from his saddle a moment later, Frost Fire and the rest of the men spreading instinctively to secure the perimeter. His gaze tracked the cuts, the burn patterns, the way doors had been smashed inward—not fled from.
"Small unit," he said. "Fast. Disciplined."
"Western," Aya muttered, voice tight. "Search for survivors."
Seth nodded and ordered the nearby men to follow Aya's instructions.
She stopped near the edge of what had once been a home. The doorway was gone, the threshold blackened smooth. Inside, the floor had collapsed inward, revealing a dark square where a cellar door had once been sealed shut.
Her breath caught—just once.
"There must be someone left alive," she said.
Not hope.
Knowledge.
Aya knelt beside a fallen Northern soldier near the doorway, who seemed to have been defending the caved-in cellar door. His armor was split at the side, blood dark and tacky against the dirt. She reached out, fingers hovering just above the stain.
Seth stepped forward sharply. "My Lady, you really shouldn't—"
"I know," she said, without looking at him. "But I have to see."
Aya's fingers pressed into the blood.
And the world tilted.
***
Fire. Not wild—placed.
She saw boots first, trampling grain, kicking doors inward. Heard steel strike steel, fast and efficient. The Northern soldiers had formed ranks—too late. A horn lifted, a call to alert somenearby Southern forces, but shattered mid-note as a blade split the man's throat.
A scream cut off.
A woman dragged back by her hair, struck down when she clawed. A child shoved behind a cart.
Movement blurred. Faces without names. Western sigils flashing through the smoke. Orders barked low.
Take stores. Burn the rest. No delays.
She felt the soldier's last stand—pain blooming white-hot at his side, his shield splintering. He fell near the house, vision tilting. Through the smoke, he saw hands—small—being pulled down a cellar ladder. A woman sealing the door from the inside, smearing ash over the latch, pressing her body against it.
Quiet. Quiet. Quiet.
Steel rang again. The world dimmed.
***
Aya gasped.
Her knees hit the ground, breath tearing from her chest as the vision ripped away. For a heartbeat, she didn't know where she was—only heat, blood, ash, and smoke still clinging to her skin.
And for some reason, Seth felt something like a knife under his ribs.
The air around Aya pulled, thickened, the old pressure he'd learned to recognize too late in life. Blood magic never stayed contained. It reached—searched—for witnesses, for anchors.
He staggered a step closer, his men reacting awkwardly, not knowing what to do, blades half-raised without command.
"Lady Aya," Masa ran to her side and held her shoulders. "Aya!"
Seth's jaw clenched as he fixed his eyes on her. He could feel it now—the echo of other lives brushing the edges of his mind. Fear not his own. Pain layered over memory. And beneath it all, something colder.
"Lady Aya," he said, voice low, steady. "Come back. By the heavens, I think you've seen enough."
Her eyes snapped open.
Gray stormed with red at their edges.
"They came from the West," she said hoarsely. "No more than fifty. They didn't linger. This wasn't slaughter for sport—it was for supply. They passed through to go to the nearest gates."
She pushed herself upright, swaying once before steadying. Her gaze locked on the ruined house, the collapsed floor.
"Some villagers survived."
Without waiting, she crossed the threshold, shaking off Masa's hold on her.
The floorboards groaned faintly as she stepped onto them, ash shifting underfoot. The air was stale, heavy with burned wood. She knelt, brushing debris aside until her fingers found the outline of another cellar door—charred, sealed, hidden well.
Aya knocked once. Soft. Deliberate.
No answer.
She knocked again, slower this time.
A sound came then—not a voice. A breath held too long. The scrape of fabric. Something small shifting.
"Please don't be afraid," Aya said gently. "We're here to help."
The latch creaked.
The door lifted a fraction—and stopped.
A pair of eyes appeared in the darkness. Wide.
Aya lowered herself to her knees, placing her sword on the ground between them.
"My name is Aya," she said, coaxing. "We came from the capital, Athax."
The eyes that looked back at her blinked, but did not make a move to open the door further.
"You're safe now," she said.
Not a promise. A statement.
After a long moment, the door opened.
They came out slowly. Three children first—thin, soot-streaked, clutching each other's sleeves. Then two young women, one with blood dried in her hair, the other shaking so hard, her teeth clicked.
No one cried.
They only stared—at the bodies, the ruins, the armed strangers—waiting for the lie to reveal itself.
Aya rose and turned, lifting her hand.
"Shin," she said quietly. "Send word to the King and my Brother in Athax. Let them know what happened here."
Shin moved immediately, but his eyes stayed on her.
On the faint tremor in her fingers.
On the blood still staining her hand.
Power lingered around her like a held breath—unsettled and awake.
"Seth," she turned to him. "I need your fastest rider."
Seth nodded. "Where do you need him to go?"
"To Vetasta," she replied. "Alert the Warden of the North. I need the Northern armies ready."