Noctis stood at the king's war table.
Maps spread across its surface, layered with fresh ink and layered annotations. Small carved figures marked units, patrols, and known monster sightings. The light was gray, morning struggling through a haze behind stained-glass windows.
"We have forty-eight hours," the king said.
His voice was stripped of ceremony now—focused, efficient.
"Scouts saw Vilekin packs circling the town. Dreadlings in the alleys. We need your plan, swordmaster."
Noctis traced a path across the map with his finger.
"Echohowler pack on the northern ridge?" he asked, confirming.
A captain nodded. "Yes. Panther Horror with them. Ember Warden to the south. Dreadlings—Whisper Crows, Mire Lurkers—following the waterways. They could be testing the defenses."
Noctis's thoughts sharpened.
"If the Echohowlers breach, illusions will spread," he said. "They cause panic. I'll assign torch squads to those sectors, and pair new men with Iron Cobra and Frostspike veterans. No one patrols alone. Dreadlings hunt singles."
He moved markers.
"The civilians," the king pressed. "What about them?"
"They shelter in the cathedral," Noctis answered. "Bright lamps, thick walls. Dreadlings avoid strong light and enclosed crowds. Medics stay close, runners cycle through. No one waits near the old stone bridge—the cracks make it too easy for Mire Lurkers."
As he spoke, old memories stirred.
He had seen illusions break lines before. He had watched new soldiers freeze and die. That knowledge edged every word.
The king studied his face.
"If the Vilekin swarm?" he asked quietly.
Noctis tapped the edge of the map where oil traps were marked.
"Then we trigger the oil here," he said. "Torch crews stand ready. Swordmasters and veteran units reinforce the main gate. New recruits always paired with someone who's survived this kind of chaos."
He paused.
"If illusions overwhelm a sector, we fall back on a three-bell signal. No heroics. We regroup, not chase shadows."
He thought of their nerves. Of how fear crept in between drills. Of how even his own mind, in this borrowed body, carried scars.
"I need them on strict routines," he thought. "Constant drills, clear rotations. No gaps. If I slip, they slip."
The king placed a hand on his shoulder.
"The town survived last time because of your choices," he said. "I trust you'll get us through again."
Trust. Heavy and sharp as any blade.
Noctis nodded once.
He left the war room with formations already laid out in his mind, duty pressing like a weight on his ribs.
The siege unfolded like a nightmare repeating itself.
On the first night, Noctis walked the southern wall, boots thumping softly on worn stone. Torches burned at regular intervals, throwing orange light onto anxious faces. He counted squads as he passed, nodding to veterans, checking the grip of younger soldiers on their weapons.
He sent orders down the line.
"Check the oil traps again," he told one Iron Cobra veteran. "Report Ember Warden's position every quarter hour."
Below, the city pulsed with nervous life.
Runners darted between towers. In the streets, civilians moved toward the cathedral, torches lighting their way. Somewhere farther out, howls echoed, distance still shrouding their exact location.
A lamp squad called up to him.
"Ember Warden moving, commander!" a voice shouted. "Eastern barricade!"
"No scattering," Noctis called back. "Two ranks. Shields up. Torches high."
He watched from above as the Ember Warden's fire rolled toward the barricade. Oil traps flared, creating a wall of flame that forced the monster to shift. Soldiers held their positions, shields locked. Two recruits nearly bolted; veterans grabbed them, forced them steady.
Dreadlings skittered through dark alleys—Mire Lurkers along the water, Whisper Crows swooping from rooftops. Noctis coordinated lamp patrols to sweep those routes, using light as another weapon.
Messages arrived constantly.
"North gate pressured by Panther Horrors."
"Echohowlers increasing howls—illusions thicker."
"Noctis redirected Frostspike units, doubled torches in illusion-heavy streets. His mind spun with patterns: where to reinforce, where to let pressure bleed off, where to accept risk in order to protect something more vital.
Each time he passed a fallen soldier, he forced himself to look.
He noted armor, age, position. He did not allow himself to detach entirely. But he also did not let visible grief slow his steps.
Feel it later, he told himself. Move now.
When Ember Warden's fire finally bit through the southern barricade, the night turned into chaos.
Flames roared up, lighting entire streets. Stone cracked. Oil burned too hot. Noctis sounded the three-bell signal—clear, ringing commands that cut through panic.
"Fallback!" he shouted. "Don't chase! Reinforce the inner line!"
He joined the swordmasters, blade moving in clean, practiced arcs. Dreadlings fell at his feet. Vilekin pushed and were forced back. Every motion was efficient, stripped of anything unnecessary.
Inside, a storm raged.
Faces blurred together in his memory, but he knew he would recall them later, one by one, when the noise stopped. For now, he focused on steps, swings, signals.
By the time the breach was sealed, the southern street was a charred scar.
The wall still stood. The town had not fallen. But the cost lay around them in bodies and burned homes.
He walked the line after, checking torch squads, confirming medics reached the wounded, giving brief, steady nods to anyone who met his gaze.
The second night was worse.
Exhaustion clung to him like a second cloak. His legs felt heavier; the sword strap seemed tighter. The casualty lists from the first night echoed in his head—names and numbers he could not quite let go of.
He tightened his belt anyway and went back to the walls.
Formations were thinner now.
New faces filled the gaps left by the dead. Noctis looked at them and thought, Do I trust you to hold? Did I teach you enough? Did I place you well?
He adjusted the north gate rotations, expecting the Echohowlers to test that weakness. He was right. Their illusions came stronger, more insidious than before.
He watched one young soldier stumble toward phantom flames only he could see, stepping right into a waiting Panther Horror's path. Noctis's shout came too late. The recruit vanished in claws and teeth.
He sent in Frostspike veterans to restore order, their presence and shouted commands cutting through the illusions more effectively than any single torch.
Through heat, smoke, and screams, Noctis kept moving.
He made decisions as quickly as he could, knowing each one might cost someone their life—or save a dozen others. Every order carried weight. Every delayed reaction could become a name on the next list.
His mind tracked positions, oil reserves, torch levels, the sound of the Echohowlers' chorus. He felt his own body fraying at the edges—arm muscles trembling from overuse, throat raw from shouting.
Inside the dream, his emotional response stayed muted by sheer necessity.
He logged fear, anger, grief—but stored them away rather than letting them take over. Tactics had to come first.
When the second night finally eased into a grim, smoky dawn, he stood once more at the wall, armor blackened and dented, fingers stiff around his sword hilt.
Below, the town still stood.
The cathedral's lamps still burned.
Fewer faces looked up at him now, but they did look—and in their eyes, he saw a fragile respect, a clinging hope that as long as he kept moving, they still had a chance.
He let himself breathe once, slowly.
The dream did not end. The siege would go on. But for a moment, on this wall, Noctis felt the full clash within him: the relentless, disciplined commander and the human underneath who knew exactly how much each of these nights was costing.
Then he turned back to the maps, already calculating the next rotation.
Noctis did not let himself feel much during the siege.
Emotion sat behind his ribs like a caged animal, pacing, teeth bared—but he kept the cage locked. Anger, grief, even brief surges of pride, all forced down beneath the cold surface of command. He knew what happened when rage took over in a battle like this: formations broke, orders went unheard, people died who might have lived another hour.
We cannot afford anger now.
Every time another medic fell, a part of him wanted to slam a fist into the nearest wall, to shout at the sky or at the monsters tearing his lines apart. Instead, he catalogued the loss. Medics were force multipliers; losing even one changed the math of survival for dozens of soldiers.
Did my rotation order come too late? he asked himself, not gently.
He replayed the last hour in his mind: when he had moved the medics from the east side to the south, how long they had been exposed, whether he had trusted a shaky squad for too long. Each failure was a mark entered into an invisible ledger. He could not erase them. He could only try to ensure they did not repeat.
When the final assault of that night burned itself out, fatigue crashed over the defenders like another wave.
Men and women slumped where they stood, backs against cracked walls or half-burned barricades. Some stared blankly ahead, seeing nothing. Others let their heads hang, shoulders sagging with a weight no armor could carry.
Noctis did not sit.
He stood, watching, comparing.
He counted bodies in his head, losses from this night set against the numbers from the night before. He reviewed each choice, each order that might have shifted a death from one name to another—or prevented it entirely.
I should have replaced the left flank sooner.
He saw again how that line had faltered, then broken under pressure, and how his hesitation—waiting to see if they would recover on their own—had cost lives.
The oil trap at the east wall saved more than I expected.
He allowed himself that one small acknowledgement. That decision, at least, had balanced some of the others. It had bought time, preserved a handful of squads that would be needed tomorrow.
How do I keep them moving tomorrow?
That question pressed hardest.
It wasn't enough to survive tonight. The siege pattern suggested more waves. The next threat might be weaker—or worse. The soldiers needed rest, but they also needed to stay ready. If they collapsed entirely, fatigue would kill them as surely as monsters would.
At the barricade edge, bodies were gathered in still rows.
Noctis looked at them, one by one. Faces young and old. Armor marked with unit insignias he knew by heart. People who had trusted his plan, his orders, his judgement.
Every name matters.
He had promised the king, the citizens, and the recruits that they would hold. That the town would stand as long as he drew breath. That promise, he realized, did not come with a clause that spared him from counting the cost.