The night air was sharp, laced with the scent of pine and burnt ozone. Aria crouched beneath the twisted roots of a fallen duskwood tree, her breath even, eyes fixed on the jagged ridge ahead. Just beyond that rise lay Black Hollow Bastion—an abandoned outpost from the Warring Centuries, now reactivated by Voryn's warbands.
They had to see it. They had to confirm the rumors whispered by the captured traitor before her death—that Voryn was preparing a weapon of old flame and corrupted bone.
Beside her, Tobias knelt in stillness, his presence a quiet, calculating anchor. The others had wanted to come, but this mission demanded silence, speed, and subtlety. Of the triplets, Tobias was the blade in shadow.
"Scouts rotate every seven minutes," he whispered. "I counted five in the last patrol."
"And the ward line?" Aria asked.
He flicked his fingers toward the slope. "Layered. Rune-script woven into the terrain. Not natural—Hollow Fang artistry."
