Brann’s vision swam, the world shrinking to a blur of gray stone and the red-black sheen spreading across it. The wound burned with every shallow breath, a fire that guttered low as if the next gust might snuff it out entirely. His body shook, cold seeping in deeper than blood loss alone could explain, his own power turning traitor and frosting his skin in patches of pale blue. He tried to draw air, to move a hand, anything, but only a shudder came, and the weight of unconsciousness pressed harder with each heartbeat.

  Above him the ceiling wept faint drops that spattered on the frost, ringing louder than they should have in the silence. The smell of iron hung thick, sour on his tongue.

  Therun’s boots struck hard against the stone as he turned from the ruin of their fight. His stride was long, certain, though the set of his jaw betrayed thought. The mouth of the alley spat him out between the two carts into the square where the night was breaking, pale bands of sunlight bleeding through gaps between roofs…dawn would not wait for him.

  The frozen collapse of the tunnel entrance glittered at the end of the street, jagged shards catching the morning light like broken glass. He cursed under his breath. The townsfolk of Avanwall would wake soon, and curious eyes could not fall on this. No one could suspect the veins of passage carved beneath their streets.

  The tunnels were more than stone and earth, more than a clever trick, they were the veins of a hidden kingdom, lifeblood ready to be called where needed, binding the realm tighter than walls and banners ever could. Built by the order of the prince, whispered by Kassyn’s tongue into eager ears, they could carry an army unseen, shielded from storm or snow. A serpent burrowed beneath the skin of the land.

  Therun’s lips curled into something like pride, though it never reached his eyes. He could almost see it, regiments moving silent as shadows, striking where no foe expected…a kingdom’s strength hidden underfoot.

  He shook his head, he had no time for such thoughts, not if Brann’s blood stilled before he could be caged. He wanted the man alive, the soldier whose fight had carried old echoes in every blow. Alive, Brann was worth ten corpses. Alive, he might tell truths he himself did not yet know and Kassyn would no doubt reward him handsomely.

  Therun glanced once toward the frozen wreckage, then to the horizon where dawn promised more prying eyes. His course was set first seal the hole then, he would reach the hidden entrance outside the town, circle back through the dark veins of the earth, and return for his prey.

  Time was the wager now…Would the soldier bleed out in silence, claimed by cold and stone, or would Therun find him clinging to life, a prize not yet lost to the grave?

  Brann’s thoughts drifted like leaves on a half-frozen stream, pulled one way, then another, with no strength to steer them. He had always fought, always endured, but now endurance seemed a hollow word. The talisman Torvil had given him, an anchor in the chaos, was gone. His veins sang with disorder, shards of power lashing without aim, more wound than weapon.

  Blood soaked the earth beneath him, warm at first, then chilling as the wind found it. His mind stumbled backward through time or what fragments of time he still owned. He saw again the day he had woken in the broken shadow of the White Tower, the jungle pressing close with its endless hunger, every breath a fight, every step a bargain with death. He remembered the red-eyed man, his smile sharp as a blade, and the price of the bargain that had dragged Brann back to a world he no longer knew. Faces came then, one after another, a flood of memory more painful than the bleeding wound in his side: Oakrin with his weathered hands and stubborn will, Lysa and Riven with their laughter that carried light into his darkness, Torvil and Kett standing unflinching beside him, soldiers that have died to protect him when he didn’t even know their name, bound to him in this storm of blood and shadow. Friends won, friends lost, yet each had staked a part of themselves upon him. Too many eyes still counted on him to stand, too many voices yet unheard if he fell here. He could not give up, yet he could barely keep his eyes open.

  If he lived, if, he would change his approach to this world. Too many times had the world taken him by surprise, not it was his time to get the upper hand. At that point he had a moment of clarity: Healing, regeneration, the quiet mastery of the body, a druid’s gift. He had scoffed at it, once, seeking the strength of stone and frost instead but now he knew the truth. Flesh was as much a battlefield as steel and shadow. A powerful druid could morph, change the body as it suited him…he would learn that, no, he would master it.

  The orange glow from the crystals throbbed against the frost that still clung to the stones. Meltwater trickled down, warm against his cheek where his blood already cooled, he sight, heat meant blood flowing faster, life spilling quicker into the dust. His chest rose shallowly, each breath a stone dragged uphill.

  He tried again to rise, to push an arm against the wall, but his body mocked him, limp and stubborn as a corpse already claimed. Footsteps echoed then, faint but sure, not the shuffle of chance but the stride of intent. Someone was coming…each beat of boot on stone reverberated in his skull, louder than his faltering heartbeat. Therun? Back to bind him? Or another shadow sent by fate to claim what little breath remained? A hoarse laugh scraped from his throat, bitter and weak.

  It did not matter. Nothing did, not who he was, not the purpose he had once served, whatever that might have been. Not allegiance to banners or kings, serpents or stones. In that moment all he could summon was the weight of his eyelids and the slow, treacherous pull toward darkness.

  Still, deep inside, that seed of defiance was growing. If he was to die, it would not be without clawing back one more breath, one more heartbeat, screw the gods and their capricious ways, he would carve his own path, make his own way.

  He would not die here, not forgotten in a hole of stone, not bled dry for nothing. The thought of death, black and endless, sank claws into him, and fear twisted into spite. If he must claw his way back from the brink, then he would make the world itself pay the price. Plotters, schemers, assassins, kings and queens, all of them would break beneath his heel. He would grind their ambitions into dust, not for justice, not for mercy, but because he would not be left to die like this again.

  From their ashes a new kingdom would rise, one that owed nothing to their thrones or their crowns. A place wrested from ruin, born of spite and sharpened by justice. If he lived, he would see it made so, if only to laugh at the faces of the dead gods who had left him to suffer.

  His oath was silent, yes, but it was spoken with power, spit into the teeth of death itself.

  The sound of footsteps grew louder in the tunnel, steady as the ticking of a clock, but his eyelids sagged heavy. He tried to glare into the dark, to meet whatever foe came for him, but strength drained faster than blood from his wound, in the end all his thoughts and oaths, his curses or the love for his friends, went silent as darkness swallowed him whole.

  He dreamed.

  The blackness wrapped him whole, but in it lay warmth, the scent of earth after rain, the whisper of a river gliding over stone. The house stood proud above its banks, walls white as chalk, vines climbing the hills in endless green rows. Water spilled through carved channels, glittering in the afternoon sun, feeding the land so no drought could touch it.

  Autumn lingered in the air, a sweetness borne on the breeze, heavy with the promise of harvest. Grapes hung fat and purple, sagging the vines until they brushed the ground. His fingers twitched as though they remembered plucking fruit once, long ago, though his mind did not…

  A voice, light as laughter, bright as dawn was calling for him: “Brannoc!”

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  His heart stuttered. He knew that voice. He knew her. The memory clung like a half-forgotten song. Her face was sunlight, her hair the color of chestnuts touched with fire…Aerin. The name struck him, and something in him quickened, blood stirring where moments before it had nearly stilled.

  He moved without thought, crossing the threshold of the house. Warmth embraced him, richer than any cloak. The smell of spiced apples and cinnamon hung thick in the air as Aerin smiled from the hearth, setting down a steaming pie, eyes lingering on him with warmth that thawed more than flesh.

  At the table sat an older man, lined with years but sharp-eyed, his presence heavy with quiet authority. Brann knew him, though no memory told him why. Father...was he Aerin’s father? The man poured a glass of wine, deep red, rich as blood.

  “Sit, Brann,” his voice steady as the land itself. “Four days from now, we’ll gather the grapes. Will you still be here, or will the army call you away once more?”

  Brann heard his own voice, softer than he remembered it, carrying a note of peace he had thought lost forever. “I don’t think there are any battles now. So yes, I’ll be here.”

  “Good,” the man said, the corner of his mouth lifting. “An extra hand will help.”

  Brann chuckled, shaking his head. “Don’t count on me too much. I’m clumsy, as you well know.”

  A low laugh rumbled from the older man, warm as the fire. “Well, the gods can’t make us all perfect.”

  They shared the laugh together, brief but true, and Aerin laid before them slices of pie, golden crust steaming, the sweetness of apples filling the air. Brann reached for the fork, the warmth of home settling around him like a mantle he had thought never to wear again.

  He woke to the same cinnamon scent that had lingered in his dream, sweet and sharp all at once, he could almost taste the pie. For a moment he thought himself still in the vineyard house, safe beneath its roof, but the air here was heavier, clinging to his lungs like damp cloth. His eyes fluttered open slowly, the light cutting into him until shapes began to form.

  She stood there, just as she had in the dream. The same hair, the same lips he remembered pressed to his once.

  “Aerin,” he whispered, the word cracking like dry wood.

  Her gaze found him, but the warmth he had dreamed of was gone. Her eyes were cold, hard as river stones: “You look well enough,” she said. “For a corpse.”

  The words sliced sharper than any blade but Brann could say nothing.

  “We buried you, Brann. No body, no grave, just a stone and a lie. Lost in battle, they said. And with you, all our plans swept away like chaff in a storm. Yet here you are. Alive, if you can call this living. Not so whole, but…changed. You’ve learned new tricks, I see.”

  Brann forced himself to meet her gaze, though his head throbbed with the effort. Thoughts swirled like broken glass, but he gathered them one by one until they formed something like sense. “It’s not simple…I don’t understand it myself. Somehow, I was taken… to another realm. I lost much of myself there, memories, pieces I still haven’t put back. I’ve been clawing them together, one shard at a time.”

  Her laugh was soft but bitter, twisted at the edges. “So trapped in another world, practically the same excuse as every other man in my life.”

  His brow furrowed feeling the sting, he wanted to sting back. “Wait… there were other men?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t be an ass.” She leaned closer, her voice low, sharp as frost. “The truth is, we had a plan, and you were the keystone of it. Then you vanished. We were left crying after your ghost while the world moved on. And now I find you again, not returning to us, not fighting for what we built, but crossing blades with mercenaries in a forgotten alley.”

  Brann took a long time before he could form words. His chest labored for breath, each one scraping through his throat like broken glass. His body was nearly spent, life force bleeding away until even the cold within him had gone quiet. His ice, once eager to answer, lay still, tempered by exhaustion and the wound that drank too much of him.

  At last, with a strain that bent his voice thin, he said, “I’m sorry. It was never my intention to abandon you. But the truth is…I don’t remember. Not you, not this plan you speak of. I have no idea what I was meant to be. Perhaps…perhaps we should start from scratch.”

  Silence stretched between them. Her eyes searched his face, sharp as a hawk’s, looking for cracks in his words. Then her lips parted, and her voice came soft, laced with disbelief. “You truly don’t remember, do you?”

  Brann gave a slow nod. The motion sent pain spearing through his skull, and he clenched his teeth against a groan.

  “Damn,” Aerin muttered, half under her breath. But then her tone shifted, as quick as a turn in the wind. “Well, in that case…” Her lips curved into a smile that lit her features with sudden, startling brightness. “We get to start all over again. It might be fun.”

  The smile lingered a heartbeat too long, and Brann could not decide if it warmed him or chilled him.

  “But time,” she said, her voice cooling once more, “is against us. I’ll let Father explain it to you again.”

  Aerin stood and crossed the room, skirts brushing against the floorboards. She rapped three times upon the door, the sound echoed like a signal long rehearsed. A moment later, the hinges groaned and a man stepped inside.

  “This is Dorian Marrek,” Aerin said simply, her eyes never leaving Brann’s. “My father.”

  Brann squinted through the haze that still clung to him. The man’s face was familiar, though whether from memory or dream, he could not tell. “I…remember the face,” Brann rasped, each word pulled out like a tooth.

  Dorian spared him a measured glance before turning to exchange a few quiet words with his daughter. Then he moved to the table and sat, his presence filling the space.

  “Well, Brann,” he said, voice rough as gravel but carrying the weight of authority. “I’ll not waste your strength with pleasantries. I’ll give it to you short, and brutal. The people of this kingdom are prisoners, plain and simple. They’re allowed to play in their sandbox, but never beyond its borders. You must have seen it yourself, if your travels have taken you far enough. Every road ends. Every path is cut short. No one leaves.”

  He leaned forward, hands folding together. “They tell us the routes are dangerous, and dangerous they are. But not so dangerous that no alliances could be made. Druids are scarce now, rarer with each passing year, and alone we humans are brittle. United, we could be iron, yet the king sees no value in such unity. Or perhaps he sees too much.”

  His eyes flickered, dark as he pressed on. “And what of the tunnels? Carved under every major city, lined with crystals that do more than light the way, they tell us those passages are for troop movement but what army needs such power buried in the stone?”

  Brann’s heart thudded heavy in his chest. He thought of the frozen tunnel, of orange crystals pulsing in the dark.

  Dorian’s gaze held him steady. “Add to that the whispers from Duskmire, strange creatures, strange magic. Rumors point to General Edran’s hand in all of it. And the borders sealed, no soul permitted to pass beyond them.” He sat back, his face hard as quarried rock. “Put the pieces together, and the shape is clear enough. This is no normal kingdom, it is an experiment. Or at least, that is what we believe.”

  Brann’s throat worked, his lips dry as stone. “We?” he asked, voice thin but sharp.

  “Ahh…” Dorian’s sigh filled the room, heavy with the weight of years. “We are a brotherhood, Brann…The Shroud of Tharn. It pains me to remind you of this, for once you stood among us. We seek the truth in all things, this kingdom, and perhaps of the world beyond its borders. We seek balance in all, no matter the cost.”

  Brann’s lips cracked into the hint of a smile, bitter as the taste of blood still thick on his tongue. “Tharn of the Hanging Tree...You chose a fine god to light your way.”

  Dorian’s eyes narrowed, but his voice was calm, steady as stone. “It is only on the precipice that true change comes. Despair strips away the lies. Pain makes us see clearly. That is why we walk in Tharn’s shadow, however this time the pain will not come from us” He leaned closer, his gaze sharp as a blade. “But let us not linger on theology, what matters now is this, where do you stand? Will you help us unravel this mystery, or will you walk away again into silence?”

  The air between them thickened, as though the walls themselves waited for Brann’s answer. Aerin watched from the side, her smile faint, unreadable, but her eyes burned with a spark that told him the choice would not be allowed to pass lightly.

  Brann met Dorian’s gaze, unflinching, though his body still trembled with weakness. “I’m no longer the man you knew,” he said, each word roughened by strain, but steady with conviction. “What has happened to me this past year has changed me to my core. And perhaps that is for the better. I will help you, not because I owe you or your brotherhood a debt, but because I want answers for myself. Yet hear me clearly, depending on those answers, our paths could diverge. Is that acceptable to you?”

  Silence filled the room, heavy as a storm waiting to break. Aerin’s lips parted, but no words came. Her eyes shimmered with a strange mingling, fear of what he had become, love for the man she remembered. Dorian’s expression was harder to read, but the weight in his gaze betrayed the same conflict. They stared at Brann not as at a stranger, and not wholly as at a son returned, but something caught between.

  At last, Dorian inclined his head, slow and deliberate. “That is acceptable to me.”

  Brann gave a short nod, sharp despite the pain lancing through his skull. “Good. Then I must ask a favor, send a messenger to the woods near Avanwall, to a druid named Torvil. He is the one who trained me and we cannot afford him making rash decisions in my absence.”

  For a moment, Dorian and Aerin exchanged a glance, the silence between them speaking louder than words. Something unspoken passed in that look, wariness, calculation, perhaps even surprise. Then Dorian gave a curt nod: “It will be done.”