The road east from House Ardyn always looked harmless from the windows.

  From above, it was just a pale line through winter fields – servants, carts, and conscripts came and went along it while nobles talked about “the capital” and “duty” and never once pictured the mud on a boot.

  From ground level, with my boots actually in that mud and the manor shrinking behind me, it felt like a verdict.

  [WORLD QUEST: FIRST HOWL IN THE DARK]

  [Time Until Erasure Event: 13 Days, 03 Hours, 49 Minutes]

  The numbers ticked down with the calm cruelty of an executioner counting steps.

  Wind worried the edges of my cloak, tugging away the last of the manor’s coal-smoke smell and replacing it with open air – frost, damp soil, a distant streak of forges from the city still hidden beyond the hills. Rime crusted the ditch grass. Wagon ruts had frozen hard.

  If I blurred my eyes, this could’ve been any other noble’s son heading to the capital to play hero.

  If I closed them, I saw rope.

  So I kept them open.

  [Class: Void Sovereign (Lv. 1)]

  [Progress to Next Level: 68%]

  Another pane hovered nearby, faint but insistent:

  [Void Echo (Lv. 1)]

  [Available Echoes:]

  – Garron, Human Guard (Basic Martial Instincts / House Ardyn Protocols)

  Garron’s name pulsed once, tentative, as if asking permission. I let my focus brush it.

  Cold slid down my spine, precise as a blade. My posture shifted without my say-so: shoulders set into the approved guard stance, chin tilting just enough to widen my field of view, weight settling on the balls of my feet. My gaze swept to high ground, to tree lines, to angles of approach.

  My thumb twitched along the sword-hilt at my hip in a motion that remembered leather that wasn’t there.

  Habits. Not mine.

  A pale, hollow outline flickered at the edge of my vision – Garron’s stance, Garron’s height, Garron’s way of standing at just the right distance from any superior officer. It lingered half a heartbeat, then sank into me like breath into lungs.

  [Effect: User may briefly manifest an echo of a slain being, gaining partial access to their instincts, skills, or presence for a limited duration.]

  It fit too easily. That was the dangerous part.

  I pulled back before it could settle deeper. I’d already lived one life built out of other people’s orders. I wasn’t going to let their ghosts write this one for me.

  The road dipped between a stand of bare-branched trees. When I climbed the next rise, the manor was finally gone from sight – no banners, no stone walls, no tower silhouettes. Just empty land and the thin gray road.

  For three breaths, there was only the crunch of frost and the soft rush of wind.

  Then I heard hooves.

  They came from behind. Fast. Controlled. The sound of animals drilled to run in formation. Steel chimed faintly with each stride.

  House Ardyn wasn’t going to pretend none of this happened, then.

  I didn’t get out of the road.

  I turned.

  Three riders swept into view over the hill, cloaks snapping, breastplates catching what little light the sky gave. Black cloth, silver falcon, polished steel. Neat. Clean. Official.

  The man in the center reined in a few paces away, mud spattering his horse’s legs. Lines at the corners of his mouth spoke of years in armor, not ink at desks. A red sash marked his rank.

  [Target: Human – House Ardyn Knight-Captain]

  [Name: Varyn]

  [Status: Armed / Focused]

  [Alignment: House Ardyn / Dominion Loyal]

  [Threat to Quest Objectives: Moderate]

  The other two riders flared out a little, not enough to look like an encirclement, just enough that I’d have to move through one of them to go past. They didn’t look at each other to do it. Reflex.

  Garron’s echo stirred, half-ready to salute.

  “Rael,” Varyn called. He didn’t need to shout. His voice was the kind that had been obeyed often enough it no longer bothered with volume. “You picked a bad day for a walk.”

  I said nothing.

  He frowned faintly when I didn’t shift aside. “By order of Lord Ardyn, you are to return to the manor at once.”

  The System slid a new line into place:

  [Status: House Ardyn Directive – Recall Attempt]

  The rider on his right snorted. Younger, new steel, the arrogance of someone who still believed the banners meant protection.

  “You’ve stirred enough dust for one morning,” he said. “Drawing on your own guard? In front of half the staff? Your father’s being generous offering you the chance to explain instead of chaining you up.”

  His disdain snagged on “guard” and “staff” like burrs. There was a word he hadn’t said yet. It sat behind his teeth like a habit.

  [New Target: Human – House Ardyn Knight (Coren)]

  [Status: Armed / Overconfident]

  Varyn gave him a tiny look, then ignored him.

  “You’re under pressure,” he said to me instead. “No shame in it. The Dominion summons you, there’s priests and prophecies and timers in your head, some beast in the yard mouths off at the wrong moment and the guard mishandles it—”

  He flicked fingers, as if brushing away a fly.

  “Things happen. That’s why we have discipline. You come back. We call Garron’s death a tragic lapse, blame a training accident, you stand in the chapel, say the right words, take a few lashes to keep the ledger clean. Then we ride to the capital. Together.”

  He extended a gloved hand, palm up. An offer disguised as a command.

  He’d used the same tone when I was younger and sulking, refusing to come in from drills. Back then it had meant hot food and a scolding instead of another hour in the yard.

  Back then, I hadn’t seen the cells under the manor.

  “I’m not going back,” I said.

  The knight on Varyn’s left – older, a thin scar cutting along his jaw, the look of someone who’d seen enough campaigns to stop bothering with illusions – shifted in his saddle.

  [New Target: Human – House Ardyn Knight (Joren)]

  [Status: Armed / Cautious]

  “You don’t have a choice,” Coren said. “You’re house property until the Dominion decides otherwise.”

  There it was.

  The word slid under my skin like cold wire.

  “Property,” I repeated.

  My hand found the sword-hilt. I didn’t draw. The leather under my palm was enough to anchor the anger.

  Joren’s gaze flicked to my fingers. “You drew steel in the east courtyard,” he said quietly. “In front of servants. In front of a beast.”

  The last word had weight. The kind you used for something you’d kick without thinking about it later.

  “Joren,” Varyn said, voice tightening, “that’s enough.”

  He looked back at me. The command tone dropped; something almost weary slid into its place.

  “You’re better than this, Rael. Whatever that girl did, whatever Garron did, you don’t throw away your place over a moment.”

  A lash. A brand. A scream that would become “corrective action” in a report.

  Mira’s eyes when she’d looked up at me in the corridor, braced for the blow she’d seen a hundred times land on others.

  They’d still do it even if I went back.

  They’d do it especially if I went back.

  “You’re telling yourself a story where this gets cleaned up,” I said. “You talk to my father. He smooths a few words. The priests forgive the mess so long as the body’s in the right place when they need it.”

  “Because that’s how the world works,” Varyn said. “There is structure. Process. You don’t smash it because you’re angry. You use it.”

  [Title: Enemy of Humanity (Hidden)]

  [Progress: 3%]

  The System seemed very sure I wasn’t using their structure the way they wanted.

  “You said once,” I said, “if I ever lost myself in battle, you’d knock sense into me before I disgraced the house.”

  A flicker of confusion crossed his face. “When?”

  “Three years from now,” I said. “On the northern front.”

  Coren shifted, a bark of laughter dying when he saw my expression.

  Varyn’s knuckles whitened on the reins. “Rael–”

  “I’m done being your weapon,” I said. “And I’m done letting you decide which broken bones count as ‘discipline’ and which count as murder.”

  Coren’s hand dropped to his sword-hilt again. His horse tossed its head, picking up the tension.

  “You’re speaking treason,” he said. “Listen to yourself. You draw on us here, that’s it. You’re done. The Dominion–”

  “Already killed me once,” I said.

  He blinked. “What?”

  I moved.

  The sword came free in a hiss of steel and cold air. Garron’s echo snapped into place in my muscles, aligning distance and angle the way he’d done a thousand times in the yard.

  Coren had just enough time to be outraged that I’d moved first.

  I stepped into his horse’s space, ducking under the animal’s swinging head, and cut up. The blade slid through the gap where his breastplate met his hip, exploiting a seam every House Ardyn soldier knew about and relied on discipline to compensate for.

  Coren’s mouth opened around a half-formed insult. He slid sideways out of the saddle, armor ringing against frozen ruts.

  [Target: Coren – Human Knight]

  [Status: Armed → Dying]

  [Resolution: Terminated]

  Joren was already moving. He’d seen enough battles not to freeze. His sword came down in a hard, clean arc aimed to split my skull.

  I brought my blade up.

  Too slow. Half a heartbeat off. The kind of mistake that ends things.

  Something cold and wrong slid over me like a second skin. My stance adjusted a fraction. Wrist angle, foot placement, weight distribution – all tilted into an impossible perfection.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  [Void Echo – Spectral Alignment (Minor)]

  [Duration: 1.3 seconds]

  Steel met steel and held instead of collapsing my guard. Joren’s eyes widened a fraction. His weight was already committed. There was nowhere for his sword to go.

  I knocked his blade aside and drove mine in under his arm. Plate squealed; flesh yielded.

  He grunted, breath punched out of him, hand clamping reflexively at the wound. His sword dropped. He toppled after it.

  [Target: Joren – Human Knight]

  [Status: Armed → Neutralized]

  [Resolution: Terminated]

  Cold flooded my forearms, then burrowed deeper, threading into nerves and bone. For an instant there were three extra shadows at my shoulders – Garron’s nervous vigilance, Coren’s leaning aggression, Joren’s protective stance – all layered over my own.

  The Void took them.

  [Void Echo (Lv. 1) – Updated.]

  [New Echoes Absorbed:]

  – Coren (Aggressive Swordplay / Overcommitment Habit)

  – Joren (Defensive Prioritization / Formation Awareness)]

  Their instincts slid in like ice water, shocking but horribly compatible.

  The world snapped back into clarity.

  Varyn was still in the saddle. His horse trembled beneath him, picking up a fear its rider was trying not to show.

  Two dead men lay between us. One had been laughing a minute ago.

  “Rael,” Varyn said, very quietly now. “Stop. Think. You kill men in your own banner on the road to the capital, there is no mending that. No story I can tell your father, no favor he can call in. The Dominion will brand you traitor. The king will hang you, with or without a trial.”

  “They already did,” I said. “I’m just getting my money’s worth this time.”

  [Enemy of Humanity (Hidden) – Progress: +2%]

  He flinched at whatever my face looked like when the notification flashed.

  “This isn’t you,” he said. “This… thing in your head, these… timers, they’re eating you. Come back. We fix it. We keep the beast in the cells where it belongs. We–”

  There it was again.

  “The beast,” I said. “You mean the girl in the courtyard.”

  His silence was long enough to be an answer.

  “Discipline will be handled by the house,” he said finally. “As it always has been.”

  The echo hit me before the words finished leaving his mouth.

  Stone walls. Torchlight. Damp in the air. Chains bolted into rock.

  Mira on her knees, arms shackled behind her back, ears pinned flat against her skull so hard they shook. A priest’s hand on her head like he was blessing an altar.

  A brand, glowing red in a brazier. Shaped like the sunburst the Dominion loved to paint on flags and children’s books.

  “Purification,” said a bored voice.

  She screamed when the metal touched skin.

  The vision snapped. The road slammed back under my boots. My fingers hurt; I’d clenched the sword-hilt hard enough to grind leather.

  [Warning: Echo Cross-Reference – House Ardyn Discipline Pattern]

  [Projected Outcome if Standard Procedure Applied to Subject: Non-Human Servant (“Mira”):

  Lethal Punishment: High Probability]

  Varyn had no idea the System had just thrown a future in my face.

  “You do that,” I said, “and the next time I come back, it won’t be the cells that burn first.”

  My boot hit his stirrup before he could move. I yanked. He fell out of the saddle like he’d been training conscripts, armor dragging him down.

  He rolled, somehow keeping his head from cracking on the road. Experience. Survival. He got one knee under him and reached for his sword.

  The pommel of mine smashed his wrist. Bone gave with a sick, familiar crunch.

  He grunted, the sound more anger than pain. His fingers would never close the same way again.

  His sword clattered out of reach.

  I planted my boot in the center of his breastplate and pushed, pinning him to the frozen road.

  “You said,” I murmured, “if I lost myself one day, you’d knock sense back into me.”

  “I did,” he ground out. “Consider this me trying.”

  His eyes were still searching my face for the boy he thought he knew.

  “You’re looking for the wrong person,” I said.

  The System hummed, hungry for a different kind of decision.

  I raised my sword.

  His throat worked. “If you kill me here, no one will temper your father. No one will argue for restraint. They will take it out on everyone beneath you. On her. On all of them.”

  It was the only argument that mattered at all.

  The blade hissed down—and slammed into the road an inch from his ear, burying itself in frost-hardened earth.

  He flinched anyway.

  I leaned on the hilt, letting the point bite deeper. The sound of metal grinding stone filled the space between us.

  “I’m not wasting a captain’s echo on panic,” I said. “You’re more useful alive and afraid.”

  [Resolution: Target Spared.]

  [Void Echo: No New Data Acquired.]

  He stared up at me, breath fogging in the cold air.

  “You’ll ride back,” I continued. “You’ll tell my father exactly what happened. That Rael Ardyn killed two knights on his own road and kept walking east. That he chose outsiders over his house. That he said the word ‘beast’ like it choked him.”

  His jaw clenched.

  “And you will tell him,” I added, leaning harder on his chest, “that if Mira dies in a cellar labeled ‘discipline’, then whatever I do next is his fault. Not mine.”

  Something in the System clicked into place.

  [Conditional Marker Created: “Mira – Retaliation Trigger on Confirmed Death or Irreversible Harm.”]

  Labels for threats. That figured.

  I pulled my sword free of the road and stepped back.

  Varyn lay there for a heartbeat longer, chest heaving, eyes on the sky like he expected it to offer an explanation. Then training dragged him upright. He cradled his ruined wrist against his chest as he staggered back to his horse.

  I turned away before he managed to mount.

  Hoofbeats pounded off toward the manor a minute later.

  Alone again, with two bodies on the road behind me and three echoes simmering just under my skin, I walked.

  By the time the sun had clawed its way higher, the frost had started to soften into slick patches of mud. The air smelled less of coal and more of wet earth and something burning very far away.

  The manor bells had gone silent.

  The screams hadn’t.

  They came in scraps on the wind. A cut-off cry. A hoarser shout. The ugly thud of something big hitting something soft. The noise of soldiers who knew no one important was listening.

  [Situational Alert: Nearby Conflict Detected.]

  [Distance: ~280 meters]

  The road curved around a small copse of twisted trees. Above them, a strip of smoke clawed at the pale sky – too thin for a innfire, too dirty for cookfires, just the right kind for wagons and panic.

  I stepped off the road and cut across the frozen grass.

  Garron’s instincts nagged about cover and vantage. Joren’s fed me angles and positions – if you were putting a squad down with orders to “correct” someone in a hurry, you’d stand them here, here, here. Coren’s wanted me to sprint straight in and worry about the rest afterwards.

  I let all three run under the surface while I picked the path that didn’t make me a silhouette on a hill.

  The trees broke around the lip of a shallow hollow.

  Four wagons: three upright, one on its side with a broken wheel. Canvas ripped open, crates and sacks and bundles of worn belongings scattered in the mud. A clay icon of some small forest spirit lay shattered near a puddle.

  Beastkin were herded into the center of the hollow – men, women, children, all with fur at ears or tails or jaw. A few older ones had stepped in front of the rest, arms thrown wide as if that would matter against steel.

  Steel didn’t care. The six soldiers wearing Dominion half-plate certainly didn’t.

  One had a young boy by the scruff, holding him off the ground as he kicked and clawed. Another held a sword under a woman’s chin while she knelt, hands limp at her sides. A third kicked through fallen crates, scattering whatever his boot found.

  The man in charge stood a little apart, armor bearing a neat sunburst over the heart. His boots were too clean for real work.

  [Target: Human – Dominion Attaché]

  [Status: Calm / Irritated]

  [Class: [Redacted by Dominion Authority]]

  [Threat to Quest Objectives: Severe]

  “You run from relocation orders, ignore summons, slink along the roads like rats,” he was saying, “and then complain the frontier is unsafe.”

  He sounded bored.

  He flicked two fingers. The soldier holding the boy cuffed him. The crack echoed up the hollow. The kid sagged, ears ringing, feet kicking weakly in the air.

  In the last life, I’d seen scenes like this from a distance and told myself “not our jurisdiction.” Told myself “the Dominion has its reasons.” Told myself “I’ll help more people by not making trouble.”

  The rope hadn’t cared about those justifications.

  I walked down into the hollow.

  “Put him down,” I said.

  Helmets turned. The noise dipped.

  The soldier holding the boy tensed. The kid went very still.

  The attaché looked me over – the cut of my clothes, the sword at my hip, the lack of any sunburst of my own.

  “And you are?” he asked.

  “Not yours,” I said.

  [Social Check: Failed.]

  [Dominion Attaché’s Attitude: Dismissive]

  “The Dominion does not recognize the authority of stray minor nobles on enforcement sites,” he said. “These creatures are in violation of protocol. They will be corrected and processed.”

  Corrected. Processed. Purified. Erased. Their thesaurus for cruelty was longer than their holy book.

  “You’re holding a child like a rabbit over a fire,” I said. “Try saying ‘processed’ again with a straight face.”

  A murmur ran through the beastkin. The soldier with the boy adjusted his grip like he was about to snap the kid’s neck out of spite.

  “Last warning,” the attaché said. “Turn around and walk back to whatever hole you crawled out of. The frontier is hard enough without sentimental heroes getting in the way.”

  Hero.

  The System flashed my hidden title again like it thought I might have forgotten.

  [Title: Enemy of Humanity (Hidden)]

  We disagreed on a lot of things. On that, surprisingly, we matched.

  I drew my sword.

  “That’s the problem with you people,” I said. “You only call it ‘sentimental’ when someone wants the blood on the ground to be yours for once.”

  The attaché’s eyes cooled. His hand lifted.

  Gold light gathered at his fingertips, tracing lines in the air. They connected into a sigil that hurt to look at straight-on – sunburst motifs, built from geometry and arrogance.

  [Warning: Dominion Authority Skill in Use.]

  “Kill him,” he said.

  The soldiers moved like they’d been waiting for that order.

  The first lunged at me with the clumsy confidence of someone who’d practiced most of his swings on hay bales. I stepped inside his reach and drove my blade up under his breastplate. He folded over the steel with a grunt.

  [Target: Human Soldier]

  [Resolution: Terminated]

  The second tried to circle. Joren’s echo whispered about formation gaps. I kicked his knee sideways; something snapped. He went down in the mud with a howl. I carved his throat open as I passed.

  The third came from behind, boots sliding in churned earth, sword raised for a killing blow at my exposed back.

  Garron’s patrol instincts shrieked. Coren’s aggression dragged my body toward the attack instead of away. Void Echo flared.

  My outline lagged behind me for a fraction of a heartbeat, a ghost superimposed on my body, hands correcting hands. The blade came up at the only angle that mattered.

  Steel hit steel and slid away instead of crushing my spine.

  [Void Echo – Spectral Alignment (Minor)]

  [Duration: 1.1 seconds]

  My return swing slid into the gap at his neck. Warmth splashed my face. The Void tugged at it like it wanted to claim temperature as data, too.

  Three down. Three left. The attaché finished his sigil.

  Light jumped from his hand.

  It didn’t arc. It didn’t twist. It simply existed at one point in space and then at another, crossing the distance with a contempt for physics that made my skin itch.

  It hit where I’d been standing the moment before and turned the air into white fire.

  The ground screamed. So did two beastkin who’d been too close. Their fur curled, their skin blistered. The air smelled like burnt hair and incense.

  The System tried to name the spell. The Dominion slapped a red bar over the text.

  That told me enough.

  I rolled, cloak smoking at the edges, Void snarling cold under my ribs where the heat had tried to get in.

  “Impressive reflexes,” the attaché said, already weaving a second pattern. “Name.”

  “Rael,” I said.

  He opened his mouth, probably to attach “of House something” to it, but I kept talking.

  “The one who kills you.”

  The gold lines in the air thickened, forming a more complex sigil. This one felt heavier even from here, like it wanted to settle over the whole hollow and squeeze.

  I reached for Garron’s echo. It screamed about cover, about how you don’t rush casters in the open unless you want to die teaching a lesson. Coren’s wanted me to sprint straight through the burning air and see if my sword could reach faster than the spell. Joren’s argued for using the wagons, breaking lines, anything but frontal.

  Under them all, the Void kernel pulsed. The thing the System had carved behind my sternum when it named me.

  [Unsafe Invocation Detected.]

  [Access: Void Sovereign Core]

  [Proceed? Y/N]

  My neck itched where the rope had bitten last time.

  Y.

  Sound thinned. Color bled out. For a heartbeat, it felt like the world took one step to the left without me and left me balanced on the edge where reality didn’t quite know which way to settle.

  Then motion came back all at once.

  I moved.

  It wasn’t speed. It was wrongness. Distance shrank in a way that wouldn’t look right if anyone tried to draw it. Gravity blinked.

  The second sigil snapped toward me, light netting out that should have wrapped every living thing in the hollow.

  It hit.

  Heat tried to crawl up my limbs, searching for nerves to cook along. It found the Void instead.

  Cold rose. Not absence – presence of something that refused to be written in light. The Dominion’s spell skated over it like a match struck on oil-slick water.

  The attaché’s eyes widened.

  “What are you—”

  My sword punched through the center of his sunburst.

  [Third Soul Claimed.]

  [Data Conflict: Dominion Authority vs. Void Sovereign.]

  [Resolving…]

  He looked more offended than afraid as the strength went out of his knees.

  “You,” he choked, “are off… script…”

  Good. Someone said it.

  “That’s the point,” I said.

  He slid off the blade and hit the mud.

  The last three soldiers broke. One dropped his sword and ran. One fell to his knees and started babbling prayers at me like I was about to audition for a different pantheon. The last tried to fight and died for the mistake.

  I let the runner go. Let the kneeler stay kneeling.

  Fear could do more work than my sword today.

  The System chimed again, almost eager.

  [Class: Void Sovereign has reached Lv. 2.]

  [New Trait Unlocked: Echo Congruence (Minor)]

  [Effect: Reduces internal conflict between active Echoes. Instinct integration improved.]

  The clamor in my head – Garron’s paranoia, Coren’s aggression, Joren’s shielding reflex – smoothed out. They stopped feeling like three men yelling over each other and more like extra muscle memory I could pick up and put down.

  That should have horrified me more than it did.

  A new pane slid in.

  [Greymaw Hollow – Local Threat Index: Updated]

  [Status: Escalating]

  [Projected Civilian Casualties if Unchecked: High (Non-Human Majority)]

  Another line drew itself below, slower, like the System had to pry it out of something that didn’t want to be quantified.

  [Mira – Survival Probability if House Ardyn Discipline Proceeds Unchecked: 12%]

  Twelve.

  It wasn’t zero. Yet.

  “Sir?”

  The word sounded wrong in that voice.

  I looked up.

  One of the beastkin men stood a few paces away. Gray fur along his jaw, old scars on his forearms, eyes that hadn’t decided if I was a wolf or a flood.

  He kept his hands empty and visible.

  “Are we…” He swallowed. “Are we free to go?”

  Free.

  The Dominion would notice when one of their attachés stopped reporting in. House Ardyn would notice the moment Varyn opened his mouth. The System had already marked Greymaw Hollow’s odds with numbers no priest could spin as “acceptable loss.”

  Nothing about this was free.

  “You should move,” I said. “Cut off the road as soon as you can. Avoid banners with sunbursts. Avoid black falcons even more.”

  He looked down at the dead attaché, then back at me. “If anyone asks who did this… what do we say?”

  No one had done anything last time. That had been the problem.

  “Tell them the Dominion made a mistake,” I said. “And someone they thought was theirs noticed.”

  That wasn’t a name. Yet.

  I climbed back out of the hollow. Up here, the wind was colder, cleaner, less laced with burning hair and holy lies.

  [WORLD QUEST: FIRST HOWL IN THE DARK]

  [Time Until Erasure Event: 12 Days, 21 Hours, 02 Minutes]

  The numbers kept falling.

  Somewhere behind me, House Ardyn’s knight-captain was riding home with a broken wrist and a story his lord wouldn’t want to hear. Somewhere under that house, a priest might already be warming a brand. Somewhere ahead, Greymaw Hollow sat on top of a future the System had decided to call an “Erasure Event” instead of what it was: slaughter.

  The Dominion had written a script where I marched to the capital, smiled for crowds, and burned where they pointed.

  I’d just torn up three pages in the opening act.

  The Void under my ribs didn’t feel guilty.

  It felt hungry.

  [WORLD STATE FLAG: PATH DIVERGENCE – MAJOR]

  [Dominion Scrutiny: Increasing…]

  A new, dim icon appeared at the edge of my vision – a sunburst with a crack through it.

  [Unidentified Dominion Oracle Process has begun observing your actions.]

  Good.

  Let them watch.

  I set my boots toward Greymaw Hollow.

  If the Dominion wanted to see what their “hero” did off script, I could oblige.

  And when they finally decided to answer back, I’d be ready.