The farewell had no music.

  No heroic trumpets, no cheering crowds. Only the rhythmic sound of leather being tightened, steel checked one last time, and low voices exchanging precise orders in the dim light.

  The northern squad assembled in the outer courtyard of Valthera beneath a lead-colored sky that hadn’t yet decided whether to become dawn or remain night. Mist curled around the horses’ legs, giving them a ghostlike appearance.

  Garrick Corvain walked along the line. He was not a man for long speeches; his inspection was silent and lethal. He wasn’t looking for visible mistakes—he was looking for nerves, distractions, that flicker of doubt in the eyes that could cost a life on unknown ground.

  He stopped before a woman with copper hair braided tight down her back. Her gaze never left the horizon.

  “Lysa, you’re with me at the front,” Garrick ordered. “I want your energy readings before anyone sets foot on unfamiliar soil.”

  She nodded without a word. As a tracker, she was worth more than ten ordinary soldiers. She didn’t see paths—she saw the traces power left behind in the air.

  Garrick moved on, halting before a broad-shouldered man with an old scar slashing across his eyebrow, giving him a permanently fierce look.

  “Torren,” Garrick said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Rear guard. If something tries to flank us, I want it alive long enough to regret being born.”

  The veteran let out a dry chuckle, a metallic sound that seemed to cut through the cold.

  Finally, Garrick pointed at a young man with thin glasses and fingers stained with bluish ink that refused to fade. Efren was the youngest, a seal specialist who preferred scrolls to swords.

  “Efren, you stay close to me. If we find runes in those ruins, you speak before my blade leaves its sheath. Understood?”

  The boy swallowed, hands trembling slightly, but he held his commander’s gaze with a determination Garrick acknowledged with a small nod.

  “We’re not going to hunt monsters,” Garrick declared, raising his voice so the whole squad could hear. “We’re going to find out what’s waking them. Don’t look for glory—look for the truth. And bring it back.”

  From the steps of a nearby house, Selene watched in silence, arms crossed against the wind. Kael stood beside her, trying to maintain his usual confident front, though his fingers fidgeted with the edge of his tunic.

  Elira stood straight, hands clasped before her in forced calm. She had seen Garrick off many times before, but this morning the air felt different. Heavier.

  Lucan stood farther back, half-hidden in the shadow of a stone arch.

  He wasn’t family. He wasn’t a soldier. He didn’t belong in this farewell scene—and yet he felt each hoofbeat echo in his chest.

  Garrick approached his family before mounting. He looked at Selene with an intensity that needed no words.

  “Take care of the house,” he said simply.

  “I always do, Dad,” she replied with a smile.

  He ruffled Kael’s hair with a gloved hand, a gesture the boy pretended to hate but secretly cherished.

  “And you—try not to break anything expensive.”

  “No promises,” Kael shot back, regaining his usual tone.

  Lastly, Garrick’s eyes met Lucan’s. The contact was brief—barely a second—but Lucan felt the veteran’s assessment. There was no distrust there, only mutual recognition between two people who understood the weight of a weapon.

  Garrick gave a single nod of respect, then mounted his black stallion.

  The gates opened with a heavy groan. The northern squad departed without fanfare, slowly swallowed by the mist beyond the road.

  Lucan felt a strange emptiness watching them disappear. It was the sensation that the board of the world was shifting—and he was still a piece that didn’t know which square it stood on.

  The Virell house lay under a thick silence when Renar crossed the threshold. He wasn’t wearing full armor, but he carried the invisible weight of the secrets he had uncovered in the archives.

  He set his cloak over a chair and stood in the center of the room, staring at the cold fireplace. His thoughts were a chaos of crossed-out reports and dates that didn’t lie.

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  Maelis emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a cloth. She stopped when she saw the tension in her husband’s shoulders. She approached slowly, resting a gentle hand on his arm, feeling the muscle rigid as iron.

  “They left?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Both squads,” Renar replied without looking at her. “Garrick leads the northern one.”

  Maelis sighed, sharing her friend Elira’s worry. She knew Renar better than anyone; his unease did not come from outside danger.

  “Don’t worry about them, Renar. They’re the best we have.”

  Renar let out a long, bitter breath. When he finally looked at her, she saw guilt in his eyes.

  “I’m not worried about the ones who left, Maelis. I’m worried about what stayed.”

  She lowered her gaze. She understood perfectly. They were talking about Lucan.

  “He doesn’t seem like a bad person,” she murmured. “You said he’s been training with Selene and Kael. He’s shown discipline. He doesn’t seem… resentful.”

  “I’m not worried he’s resentful,” Renar replied, his voice hardening. “I’m worried that one day he’ll decide this place doesn’t deserve to be defended. Why should he protect us? The kingdom cast him aside, called him an anomaly. Now he lives among us as if nothing happened—but the mark is still there.”

  Renar sat on the edge of the table, forearms on his knees.

  “I’m worried we’re living alongside a weapon that might decide the enemy isn’t outside the walls… but among those who chose his fate.”

  Light footsteps sounded in the hallway. Aeris appeared first, her sharp, curious gaze always analyzing everything. Behind her, Darian leaned against the doorframe, calm like his father but with a spark of ambition all his own.

  “Did something happen?” Aeris asked, sensing the heavy air.

  Maelis smiled instantly—a mother’s protective smile that hid storms.

  “Just long days, sweetheart. The teams left this morning, and your father’s tired.”

  Aeris frowned, not fully convinced.

  “Is it dangerous out there?” she insisted.

  Renar stood, reclaiming his commander’s mask.

  “It’s always dangerous when we send our best away from the Capital. But for now, your duty is here.”

  Darian shrugged with a confident grin.

  “Then I’ll train twice as hard tomorrow. If the veterans are gone, someone has to be ready.”

  Renar nodded, though his son’s words gave him a pang of unease.

  “That’s never a bad idea, Darian. Go get some rest.”

  When the siblings left, their voices fading upstairs, Maelis spoke again, almost inaudible:

  “We can’t protect them from everything, Renar. Not from war, and not from the truth.”

  Renar looked toward the window. Valthera’s lights shimmered like captive stars in the night.

  “I know,” he whispered. “But I don’t know if we’re ready for the day Lucan decides whether he wants to be our shield… or our sentence.”

  The training grounds were washed in violet light when Lucan arrived. The air carried a chill that made the lungs work harder—a reminder that Valthera’s winter showed no mercy.

  Eldric was already there. He looked like a statue carved from the fortress stone itself, unmoving, watching the horizon where the sun had just died.

  “You’re late,” the old man said without turning.

  “Not late enough,” Lucan replied, drawing his practice blade.

  They began without further words. Steel against steel. The sound of impact echoed across the empty field. Step, turn, block, counter.

  But that night Lucan was clumsy. His mind drifted to dinner at the Corvain house, to Garrick’s words about seals, to Elira’s searching gaze as if trying to remember someone from his face.

  Noticing the distraction, Eldric redirected Lucan’s blade in a circular motion, twisted his wrist, and struck the hilt. Lucan’s sword flew from his hand and landed point-first in the sand several meters away.

  “You’re somewhere else again,” Eldric stated, lowering his weapon.

  Lucan didn’t retrieve his sword immediately. He stared at his hands, trembling slightly as he suppressed the pulse of the mark.

  “What’s the point, Eldric?” Lucan asked. There was no anger in his voice—only a deep emptiness.

  “The point of what?”

  “I train. I fight. I get better every day. But… for what?” Lucan looked up. “To survive? I already learned that. To defend this city? To protect people who don’t even know I exist—or who would call me a monster if they did?”

  Eldric stayed silent for a long moment. Wind tugged at his worn cloak.

  “You train for one reason, Lucan,” Eldric said, stepping closer. “You train so that, when the final moment comes, you have the power to choose.”

  Lucan frowned. “Choose what?”

  “Who you protect. Who you let fall. What kind of man you’ll be when the world asks you to become a weapon. If you’re not strong, others will choose for you. And trust me—you won’t like their choice.”

  Lucan inhaled slowly. Eldric’s words weighed more than steel.

  Suddenly, the old master stiffened. His gaze snapped toward the distant wall beyond the watchtowers.

  “Do you feel it?” Eldric asked, his voice now a lethal whisper.

  Lucan closed his eyes. At first, nothing—just his heartbeat. Then a subtle pressure crawled across the back of his neck. Like an electric gaze. A pulse of energy that didn’t belong to Valthera’s nature. Dark. Unstable. Strangely familiar.

  His mark burned for a millisecond.

  “Yes,” Lucan said, his hand instinctively reaching for his sword.

  Eldric wasn’t afraid—but his jaw was tight.

  “Go home, Lucan. Now.”

  “And you?”

  Eldric didn’t move, eyes fixed on the forest darkness surrounding the Capital.

  “I’m going to see if someone forgot to announce their arrival in our lands.”

  Far from Valthera’s torches, hidden among ancient trees, a figure watched the majesty of the stone city. They didn’t need light to see; their eyes reflected the threads of mana drifting through the air like strands of silk.

  They had felt the pulse. Brief. Distorted. Unmistakable.

  A crooked, bitter smile formed on a face marked by old magical burn scars trailing down the neck.

  “There you are…” the figure whispered, voice like stone scraping stone.

  Fingers brushed the incomplete symbol etched into their forearm.

  They looked toward the towers where soldiers stood watch, unaware of the predator observing them.

  “They took everything from me,” the figure said, voice steady. Fear had long since rusted into something harder. “The kingdom decided who was useful and who was trash. Now… we’ll see if their walls are as strong as their arrogance.”

  They stepped back and vanished into the forest’s absolute darkness.

  Far above, on the wall, Eldric still watched. He saw no one—but he knew.

  The past wasn’t dead.

  It was simply waiting for the right moment to collect its debts.

  And Lucan stood at the center of the bill.

  End of Chapter 7