Valthera woke before the sun.

  Torches still burned along the stone courtyards while steel rang softly against steel and orders were spoken in low voices. There was no chaos. No shouting. Only restrained, disciplined… heavy movement.

  Soldiers marched in organized lines, carrying provisions, weapons, rolled banners. Horses snorted into the cold air of dawn.

  Two different standards waved beside the main gate of the Stronghold.

  The first would depart east.

  Small villages. Disappearances. Symbols carved where they should not exist.

  The second would march north.

  A town reduced to death and ash. Runes drawn incorrectly. Energy out of control.

  These were not patrols.

  They were war squads.

  Alaric watched from the top of the main stairway. Back straight. Face calm. Hands folded behind him.

  But his eyes were not on the soldiers.

  They were on the gaps they left behind.

  Every commander who said goodbye was a wall moving away from Valthera.

  Every unit that passed through the gates was strength that would not be there if something struck from within.

  “All ready,” reported a gray-haired captain, a scar crossing her cheek.

  Alaric nodded.

  “Return with answers. Not unnecessary heroics.”

  She gave a faint smile.

  “If we find something worth heroics… we’ll see.”

  She turned and mounted.

  The horns sounded low and deep. The gates opened for the first squad.

  Renar stood a few steps away, arms crossed, jaw tight.

  When the second squad began to move, he spoke without taking his eyes off the gate.

  “Send me with tomorrow’s group.”

  It wasn’t a request. It was an offered solution.

  Alaric didn’t look at him immediately.

  “No.”

  Renar turned his head slightly.

  “I’m the best choice to lead in unknown terrain.”

  “And I need the best here.”

  “If this is a distraction,” Alaric continued calmly, “we need someone capable defending the Capital.”

  The words were logical.

  The reason… was too.

  But Renar was not a young soldier. He knew how to read between lines.

  It wasn’t only strategy.

  Alaric didn’t want him far away if anything involving Lucan happened.

  Renar held his gaze a moment longer.

  Then he nodded once.

  “Then I hope you chose well.”

  The gates closed behind the last group.

  The noise of the outside world faded.

  And for the first time in years, Valthera’s main courtyard felt… too large.

  Renar stared at the emptiness they left behind.

  And something old—something he hadn’t felt since past campaigns—settled uneasily in his chest.

  The feeling of walking into something…

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  no one yet understood.

  At one of the training fields

  Training ended with the sky painted orange and gold.

  Lucan breathed steadily, though sweat ran down his temple. Selene spun her weapon once before slinging it over her shoulder. Kael dropped onto the grass, staring up at the sky.

  “Tomorrow I’m beating you,” he muttered.

  Lucan almost smiled.

  “That’s what you said yesterday.”

  “And one day I’ll be right.”

  Selene looked at both of them, then said casually,

  “It’s late. Come have dinner with us.”

  Lucan blinked.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “That wasn’t a polite invitation,” Kael added from the ground. “It was a friendly order.”

  Lucan hesitated.

  He wasn’t used to that. To being included without reason. To someone assuming he belonged there.

  But in the end, he nodded.

  The Corvain house wasn’t large, but it was warm. Wooden walls, soft light, the smell of fresh food in the air.

  No stone corridors.

  No echoing footsteps in empty halls.

  Elira opened the door before they knocked.

  “So this is the famous training partner.”

  Her smile was calm, genuine.

  Lucan inclined his head respectfully.

  “Thank you for having me.”

  “Thank you for making sure these two come back in one piece,” she replied, stepping aside.

  Dinner brought small laughter, stories about clumsy training falls, Kael’s exaggerated complaints, Selene’s quiet corrections.

  Lucan spoke little, but he listened.

  And little by little… he relaxed.

  Until Elira said something simple, almost in passing:

  “You have a very particular way of tilting your head when you think. It reminds me of someone I knew years ago.”

  Lucan looked up.

  “Someone from here?”

  She frowned slightly, thoughtful.

  “No… not exactly.”

  She kept looking at him a second longer than normal.

  As if a memory was trying to surface but couldn’t quite find the right door.

  Lucan felt something strange in his chest.

  Familiarity.

  Like he had sat at a table like this before.

  Like he had belonged somewhere like this.

  But that memory didn’t exist.

  Or not for him.

  He lowered his gaze to his plate.

  For the first time in a long while, he wasn’t training.

  He wasn’t restraining his strength.

  He wasn’t thinking about the mark.

  He was just… sitting at a table.

  With a family.

  And that feeling, warm and soft…

  made him feel good.

  And sad at the same time.

  The door opened when they were nearly finished eating.

  Firm steps. Heavy. Unhurried.

  Selene looked up first.

  “Dad.”

  Garrick Corvain entered, removing his leather gloves. Tall, broad-shouldered, the bearing of someone who had worn armor for half his life. He wasn’t intimidating through aggression, but through presence.

  He stopped when he saw Lucan at the table.

  His eyes dropped briefly to the boy’s posture. Straight back. Still hands. Alert.

  Soldier, he thought instantly. Or someone trained like one.

  Elira stood.

  “You made it just in time.”

  Garrick set his sword belt over a chair and stepped closer.

  “So you’re…”

  “Lucan Veyr. Nice to meet you.”

  “So you’re the boy from the tournament.”

  There was no hardness in his voice. Only direct assessment.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Garrick studied him another second.

  Then gave a half smile.

  “The first boy Selene brings home and he turns out to be a fighter. I suppose that fits.”

  Selene nearly choked.

  “Dad!”

  Kael burst out laughing.

  Lucan looked between them, confused.

  Elira intervened smoothly.

  “Ignore him. He thinks he’s still funny.”

  The tension eased, but Garrick didn’t stop observing Lucan as he sat.

  He didn’t see danger.

  But he did see something… contained.

  The conversation shifted when Elira asked more quietly,

  “Did they tell you anything else?”

  Garrick nodded, fatigue lining his voice.

  “Movements on two fronts. Too many teams deployed for it to be coincidence.”

  Lucan lowered his gaze to his plate, but his ears sharpened without meaning to.

  “Does it have to do with the energy reports?” Elira asked.

  “Yes. And older things.”

  He paused briefly.

  “Ancient seals.”

  The word struck Lucan internally.

  “Energy that shouldn’t be active,” Garrick continued. “Symbols no one has used in generations.”

  Selene noticed Lucan had gone still.

  Too still.

  “Is it serious?” she asked.

  Garrick sighed.

  “We’re sending a lot of strong teams. More than I like seeing away from the Capital at once.”

  Lucan wasn’t listening like a guest anymore.

  He was listening like someone afraid of recognizing himself in those stories.

  Seals.

  Energy that shouldn’t exist.

  Marked people.

  He lowered his gaze to his hands.

  Selene watched him quietly.

  She didn’t ask anything.

  But she understood those words had weighed on him more than on the rest.

  Alaric’s private chamber was dim when Eldric entered.

  There were no formal greetings.

  Just two men who had seen too much together.

  “Close the door,” Alaric said.

  Eldric obeyed.

  Maps lay across the table, fresh ink marking two separate areas.

  “I heard you deployed squads,” Eldric said.

  “I had no choice.”

  Alaric pointed east.

  “Disappearances. Symbols carved with precision. Dark energy… but stable.”

  Then north.

  “A town destroyed. Ancient runes done wrong. Power unstable. Violent.”

  Eldric watched in silence.

  “Not the same hand.”

  “That’s our belief.”

  Eldric rested his fingers on the edge of the table.

  “During my years away, I heard rumors. People searching for fragments of ancient seals. Pieces. Forgotten ruins.”

  Alaric looked up.

  “For what?”

  Eldric shook his head slowly.

  “I don’t know. But no one looks for those to do something small.”

  The silence grew heavy.

  “This didn’t start now,” Eldric murmured. “It just stopped sleeping.”

  Alaric exhaled slowly.

  “How many squads left?” Eldric asked.

  Alaric answered without hesitation.

  “The first already departed. The second leaves in a few hours.”

  Eldric did the calculation in his head.

  Valthera was still protected.

  Yes.

  But if something attacked from within…

  or if the real target had never been outside…

  then they had weakened their own center.

  “We’re more exposed than it seems,” he said at last.

  Alaric did not disagree.

  When Eldric left the chamber, night had already covered the Capital.

  He stopped atop the wall, looking over Valthera’s lights below.

  The wind moved his cloak softly.

  Something was approaching.

  He didn’t know if it was war.

  He didn’t know if it was fate.

  But he knew one thing with uncomfortable certainty:

  Lucan stood right in the middle of it.

  End of Chapter 6