The moon hung swollen and veiled behind a gauze of stormclouds. Wind whispered like an unseen choir through the sleeping camp of Caedren's retinue, a hush before some primal storm. The fire had died low, casting only a dim orange halo over the frost-laced stones, and around it the soldiers and scouts tossed in restless sleep. Even the animals sensed it—horses shifting in their tethers, ears twitching, hooves pawing the ground. Only two among them remained still—Caedren, seated beneath a withered yew, polishing the edge of his sword in slow, methodical strokes, and Lysa, asleep beside the embers, her breath shallow, her body too still for comfort.
She was dreaming again.
But this dream felt colder than any before. It did not begin with warmth, or with memory—it began with absence. She stood in a field of broken statues, each one carved in her likeness, yet each wearing a different face. Some older. Some twisted by grief. Others smiling as if victorious. Their eyes bled gold, and the earth beneath them steamed like breath upon iron. The sky above cracked like porcelain, fragile and threatening collapse, revealing not light but stars that turned and stared back with the slow, deliberate gaze of something ancient. Every breath felt like drowning in fog.
A child's voice echoed behind her.
"Do you remember your name?"
Lysa turned. A girl no older than ten stood before her, barefoot in ash, her skin pale as bone, her hair white as milk. Her eyes were black with the storm, whorled like thunderclouds, and wide with something far older than innocence. She was Lysa. But younger. Unscarred. Empty. An echo not yet filled.
"I'm you," the child said. "But not yet."
"What is this place?" Lysa asked, her voice small in that endless place.
"The space between the second and third wound," the child replied. "Where memories become prophecies."
The girl reached out, took her hand.
"I saw what's coming. I saw what you'll do."
"What will I do?"
The child smiled with sorrow. A smile that knew grief like scripture.
"You'll open the last gate."
The field cracked underfoot. Stone and ash split apart as if pulled by unseen hands. A scream, not heard but felt, rippled the statues. They toppled, arms breaking, heads shattering. The sky shattered completely, and from the fracture spilled not light, but names—names Lysa did not know, but that screamed recognition into her blood.
And Lysa fell.
She awoke with a scream, drenched in sweat, her fingers trembling. Her limbs felt frozen, but her veins burned. The fire beside her had gone out. Caedren was at her side in a moment, his blade half-drawn.
"You're shaking," he said, gripping her shoulders.
Lysa met his eyes, still wide with the echo of that dream. "I saw… a version of myself. She told me I would open the Third Gate."
Caedren stood in silence for a long moment. Then he moved to the fire, fed it dry wood from the stack, the sparks spitting like whispered curses.
"We need to get to Noris," he said finally. "Now."
Lysa blinked, wiping sweat from her brow. "You think Noris can help?"
"No," Caedren said, voice low, gaze fixed on the flames. "I think someone's about to try to kill you."
They broke camp at dawn, cutting through the frost-laced hills of Kharrow's Ridge under a sky the color of old wounds. Snow had fallen in the night, dusting the rocks and trees with white silence. Smoke had already risen from the west—long, black columns smearing the horizon like ink across parchment. Westvale had been torched, just as Caedren feared. But not by cultists. The banner left behind was unmistakable—black raven wings over red flame: the sigil of Duke Rhend. The message could not have been clearer. He had declared war—not on the cult, but on the king.
As Caedren rode at the head of the column, a scout emerged breathless from the mist, his cloak soaked, his breath coming in ragged clouds.
"My liege," he gasped, sliding from his saddle. "There's word from the riverfront. Noris has broken from hiding. He leads a host of easterners under a new standard: the Crest of Stars."
Caedren's knuckles whitened around his reins. That symbol—an ancient sigil of forgotten peace—was meant to unify, not divide. "He's making his move."
The scout nodded. "He's calling it a return. A coronation."
Caedren exhaled through his teeth. "Then it begins. The kingdom fractures in truth."
That night, as the camp settled in uneasy quiet, a lone figure approached under the guise of shadow. No armor, no heraldry. Just a dark cloak and the calm of a practiced killer. His name was Arik of the Pale Knife—once a child of the cult, now turned mercenary, his fee paid not in coin but prophecy. His dagger had tasted the blood of thirty nobles and four kings. And now, he had been promised a song of his own if he delivered Lysa's heart.
He crossed the outer line undetected. Slipped past the guards with ghost's steps. Reached her tent. Pulled aside the flap.
And stopped.
She stood waiting for him.
Fully awake. Sword in hand.
"How did you know?" he asked, surprised not by her preparedness, but by the calm in her voice.
Lysa's eyes glowed faintly, just beneath the surface. "I've been dreaming your face for days."
He lunged without hesitation.
She parried.
Steel clanged like thunder. Her stance was raw, unrefined—but her hands moved with eerie precision, as if guided by another will. The fight was brutal, the kind that left no room for words. Arik landed a gash across her ribs. She didn't flinch. She drove her blade through his lung.
He collapsed to his knees, blood bubbling from his lips. But he smiled.
"You're not stopping the song, girl," he whispered. "You're singing it."
Then he died.
Caedren entered moments later, sword ready, gaze sharp.
It was already over.
He looked down at the body, then up at Lysa.
She wiped her blade with a trembling hand, blood still wet on her side.
"I'm not the one we should fear," she said softly, not looking at him. "It's what's inside me."
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because he feared she might be right.