The silver moss swallowed them whole.

  The moment Ikida pushed through the hanging veils, the forest behind them seemed to seal itself shut—as if Tizra had decided they no longer existed. The air changed. It grew colder, heavier, and unnervingly still.

  Amazal stumbled forward, nearly collapsing as the ground dipped sharply beneath his feet. The path descended into a narrow cleft between stone walls streaked with pale veins of mineral and moss. No birds. No wind. Only the sound of his own breath—still burning, still raw.

  “Quiet,” Ikida muttered.

  The cleft opened suddenly into a cavernous hollow beneath the roots of colossal trees. Their trunks twisted downward like petrified serpents, forming a natural dome of wood and stone. Faint silver light filtered through cracks above, illuminating the space just enough to reveal movement.

  A blade flashed.

  A woman stepped forward from the shadows. Her sword was drawn, its edge hovering inches from Amazal’s throat.

  “Another one?” she said coldly. “Or did Aglithar finally decide to send children instead of soldiers?”

  Amazal froze.

  Ikida raised one hand. “Easy, Cillian. He’s alive. For now.”

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  Cillian’s eyes never left Am

  azal. She was tall, armored in mismatched plates and hardened leather, her posture that of someone who had commanded before—and expected to again. Scars traced her forearms like old maps.

  “Name,” she demanded.

  “A… Amazal,” he answered, his voice hoarse.

  Her gaze flicked briefly to his chains. “Of course,” she said. “A soldier.”

  Before Amazal could respond, a dry chuckle echoed from deeper within the shelter.

  “Not just a soldier,” another voice said. “A question.”

  An older man emerged slowly, carrying a bundle of worn parchment pressed to his chest as if it were armor. His hair was streaked with ash-gray, his eyes sharp—too sharp for someone exiled to die.

  Vaelor.

  “Every soldier sent here means something has shifted,” he continued. “Aglithar does not waste iron lightly.”

  Amazal frowned. “You speak as if you know the empire.”

  Vaelor smiled faintly. “I helped preserve its lies.”

  A heavy presence stirred near the back of the cavern. A man sat there, half in shadow, sharpening a blade against a stone with slow, deliberate strokes. The metallic song—shhh-clink, shhh-clink—echoed softly.

  “Careful, book-keeper,” the man said lazily. “You’ll scare him before I get bored.”

  Cillian’s jaw tightened. “Jadig. Not now.”

  Jadig finally lifted his head. His eyes met Amazal’s—and something in them smiled. “They always look the same when they arrive,” Jadig said.

  “Breathing like hunted beasts. Thinking this place is salvation.”

  Ikida turned sharply. “Enough.”

  The sharpening stopped. Silence flooded back.

  Ikida stepped aside, gesturing for Amazal to fully enter the shelter. “This is what remains,” he said. “Those who survived long enough to understand Tizra does not forgive.”

  Amazal looked at them—at the warrior, the scholar, the killer, and the ghost who had saved him.

  “What is this place?” he asked quietly.

  Vaelor answered. “A sanctuary,” he said. “Built where no tribe dares tread.

  Where even the giants once stood still.”

  Cillian sheathed her sword. “And a prison,” she added. “Until we decide to leave.”

  Jadig smirked. “Or until Tizra decides otherwise.”

  Amazal swallowed. Somewhere deep beneath the roots, the ground gave a distant, hollow groan—as if the land itself had heard his arrival… and remembered him.

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