The city waited to breathe.
Ravenhold's battered walls braced for the impact of the Nightborn horde, while the banners overhead trembled in the sickly sunrise. Ash still clung to the stones from the last assault, painting everything in shades of war.
Seraphina stood above it all, a flame in the gloom, her hand still wrapped around Valen's as if letting go would shatter them both.
He had returned. That was a miracle in itself. But miracles, she knew, were always born of ruin.
Valen's armor was scorched and dented, his hair tangled by wind, but his eyes were clear — a clarity forged in guilt and resolve.
"Report," he barked to the nearest captain.
The soldier, wide-eyed at seeing them together, stumbled to answer. "My lord, my lady, the Nightborn numbers are beyond counting. They will breach within the hour."
Valen nodded. "Then we meet them in the breach."
Seraphina squeezed his hand once, fierce and silent.
They moved down together to the walls, past soldiers half-starved and bloodied, past children carrying buckets of arrows, past weeping mothers who had refused to flee. This was no longer just a fortress; it was the soul of a people, and it would not fall without a scream.
When the first war horns blew, they sounded like the howling of monstrous wolves.
The Nightborn poured forward, their blackened helms glittering, voices raised in an inhuman chant. The earth seemed to shake under their relentless charge.
Valen leapt atop the crumbling gatehouse, his sword high.
"Archers!" he roared, a voice so raw with fury and hope that the men around him straightened like drawn arrows.
"Loose!"
A storm of flame-tipped arrows flew, slicing down into the advancing sea of darkness. Nightborn soldiers fell in droves, but more replaced them, like an endless tide of night.
Seraphina joined him, her own magic rising through her blood like a living star. Her eyes burned gold as she gathered that searing, ancient power within her hands.
A scream ripped through her throat as she unleashed it — a great shockwave that threw Nightborn soldiers backward like rag dolls, crushing their front line under a wave of blazing force.
They faltered.
For a heartbeat, hope seemed to glimmer.
Then a monstrous horn bellowed across the valley, so deep and cruel it rattled their bones.
From the ranks of the Nightborn came a towering figure, armored in onyx, its helm crowned with a black sun. A sword like a shard of night itself rested in its clawed hand.
The Dread King.
Seraphina's breath caught.
Valen felt her tense. "That's him, isn't it?"
She nodded. "He will not stop until every spark of life is crushed."
Valen's jaw flexed. "Then we stop him first."
As the Dread King advanced, the very sky seemed to grow sickly and bruised. Soldiers around him fell to their knees, their spirits broken by his presence alone.
Seraphina stepped forward to meet him, gold fire already dancing around her palms.
Valen was at her side, his sword lifted, eyes locked on the horror stalking toward them.
"You and me," he said, voice low, a prayer of loyalty. "No matter the end."
Seraphina looked at him, and for the first time in what felt like a thousand broken dreams, she let herself believe in them again.
"No matter the end."
They stepped into the red dawn together.