The last note of Liora's voice seemed to cling to the air, hanging between stone and sky. Then it was gone.
The soldier had stopped breathing sometime during the lullaby. His features had softened. Not in peace, perhaps, but in release. That would have to be enough.
No one spoke for a long moment.
Even the wind felt reluctant to pass through Karsen Vale. The banners overhead were motionless. The silence of the abandoned patrol hung like a shroud over everything.
Veyra's throat ached.
She stepped forward, her boots crunching softly against gravel and blood-soaked earth. She knelt beside the young man Liora had held, his head still cradled gently in her lap. Without a word, Veyra reached down and folded his hands over his chest. Her gloves were stained now, but she didn't flinch.
"Help me with the others," she said quietly to Kellen and Malen. "Deyla—stand watch. South ridge."
The team moved without hesitation.
One by one, they lifted the fallen with careful hands. The bodies were light. Lighter than they should've been. Hunger. Or long marches. Or fear.
Cloaks were drawn from saddle rolls and spread over the dead—deep navy and charcoal gray, the old military colors of the outer districts. Veyra took care to tuck each edge neatly, fastening the corners under their shoulders and feet.
They found one soldier's badge still pinned to his belt. The name etched beneath the crest read Joran Halde. Age 22. Southreach watch.
She tucked it into her own pouch.
When the bodies were lifted onto the walking horses, she paused beside them. The others stepped back, giving her space.
The breeze stirred faintly now. A distant crow cried from beyond the wall.
Veyra raised her chin.
"They were loyal," she said aloud, voice low but clear. "They stood the line. Even if we don't yet understand the silence that followed."
Her eyes passed over each cloaked form. Then to Liora, still kneeling, dazed but steady. She met Veyra's gaze without looking away.
"We carry them not as fallen weight," Veyra continued, "but as truth. We will not forget them. And we will not let their end be buried by cowardice or conspiracy."
She placed one hand over the chest of the nearest soldier. The fabric still held warmth.
"Let them rest beyond fear. Let the Lion's path carry them home."
Then she stepped back, voice gone to a whisper.
"Ride slow. Let the Vale remember their names."
—
The clearing was small—just enough space for the sun to cut down through the trees in angled shafts of warmth that didn't reach the ground. The air smelled of turned earth and moss. The scent of blood had faded into leather and pine. But still, Liora felt it clinging to her skin.
She stood near the edge of the trees, sleeves rolled past her elbows, her knees damp from kneeling in the underbrush. One of the cloaks had slipped slightly from a shoulder during the walk. She reached down to smooth it back over with careful hands. Her fingers shook.
Malen worked in silence nearby, the small spade from his medical kit carving into the soft soil. He murmured something under his breath—maybe a name, maybe a prayer.
Liora glanced up and saw them: Veyra, Deyla, and Kellen standing slightly apart, voices low but weighted. Veyra's arms were folded, the sun tracing her jaw in pale gold. Her face was calm, but not at peace. It looked like it always did when she was thinking too hard—when something didn't fit.
"I don't like this," Deyla was saying, one hand resting on the hilt of her blade. "We rode the whole stretch through the Vale. Nothing. No sign of conflict. No alarm. Not a crow in the sky."
"And yet three men lie dead at the gate," Kellen muttered. "Not even dragged off the road. No burn marks. No sign of beasts or blade tracks."
Veyra was quiet for a moment. Then: "Because it happened after we passed."
Liora felt her stomach twist.
Deyla straightened. "You think it was meant for us."
"I think," Veyra said slowly, "someone knew we'd come through this way. And they knew we'd stop."
The trees around them creaked faintly in the wind. A bird chirped once, then went silent.
Liora's breath caught.
She looked down at the young man she had sung to sleep, his body now wrapped and ready for burial. His features had been sharp, proud—eyes full of something still burning when he'd looked at her, desperate for comfort. He'd whispered something, just before the end, though she hadn't understood it.
She wondered if he'd known.
If any of them had.
The sound of earth hitting cloth was soft but final. Malen stood and stepped back. Kellen moved beside him without a word, lifting the last shovel. They would bury them deep, mark the place only in stone.
"We'll send word to Fort Dalen," Veyra said. "Deliver what they carried home to their kin."
Liora looked up at her, heart still thrumming.
And for the first time that morning, Veyra looked back—not as commander, not as protector—but as something quieter. A presence at the edge of grief, tempered by rage.
Liora swallowed and looked away, her eyes stinging.
They buried the dead in silence.
It came back to her as they smoothed the last mound of earth.
Not clearly. Not like something spoken in the light. But like breath caught between sobs. A final offering.
Cerin—his name now etched into her heart as much as the pouch Veyra had taken—had leaned closer as his grip slackened, his lips brushing her wrist where the pulse fluttered like wings.
She had thought he was asking for the song again.
But now she remembered.
Not the sound, but the shape of it.
Not "again."
Not "mother."
"Lion's heir."
Whispered like it was holy. Or final.
Liora felt a cold rush bloom in her chest. He hadn't been looking at her when he said it. His gaze had drifted past her, into the dust and light—toward the tall figure in black and leather, with eyes like winter steel.
Toward Veyra.
Cerin had known something. Or sensed it. And now he was gone, buried under the pines of the Vale.
Liora turned away, her brows still faintly drawn. But before she could take another step, a low voice drifted from nearby.
"She earned it."
Kellen was standing just a few paces off, arms folded, the corner of his mouth quirked in something not quite a smile. His Beta scent was calm—dry oak and worn leather, steadier than anything else in the camp.
Liora blinked, surprised. "You heard that?"
Kellen snorted. "You ask a question that heavy in a quiet camp, someone's bound to catch it." He stepped forward, gaze flicking once to Veyra's back—still turned, still working the saddle straps with mechanical precision.
"She was thirteen the first time they called her that," he said, more gently now. "Right after a skirmish near Hollowbend. Old commander had fallen. The troops were scattered. Veyra stepped in. No title. No command chain. Just... took the field like she was born to it."
Liora's throat tightened. "Thirteen?"
"Fourteen by the time they stopped questioning her orders." Kellen's expression softened, the rough pride in his voice cutting against the cold edges of memory. "The Lion's Heir. It's not just her bloodline. It's how she carries it. Even when it's a weight."
Behind them, Veyra said nothing. She hadn't turned. But her shoulders had gone still, her grip on the saddle loosened.
Liora swallowed hard.
"She doesn't talk about it," Kellen added, quieter now. "But if Cerin said it before he died... it means he believed in her. And he wanted you to know who she was."
Liora looked down at her hands. Her fingers were still faintly stained with earth.
She nodded once. "Thank you."
Kellen gave a soft grunt and turned away, leaving nothing behind but the faintest scuff of boots on the packed road.
Only then did Veyra look back at her—briefly, unreadable. But something in her eyes looked shaken.
—
The gates of Karsen Vale groaned open on their rusted hinges, not with the weight of resistance, but with something worse: ease.
Veyra entered first.
Her boots struck the packed dirt in even rhythm, each step echoing between narrow stone corridors and abandoned parapets. Wind tugged at the ends of her dark cloak, whistling between shuttered windows and half-lowered flags. Somewhere in the distance, a door creaked softly—unlatched, unattended.
She kept her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.
Behind her, Kellen and Deyla rode in silence. Liora, seated on Kellen's horse, sat straight but still. Malen followed last, eyes scanning every rooftop and alley slit with quiet unease.
But there was no resistance.
No signs of battle. No blood. No hurried retreat.
Only absence.
The few commoners that remained peered from behind cracked shutters and partially barred doors—civilians clinging to quiet routines like moss clings to forgotten stone. Veyra approached a lean-faced older man near the grain store, his eyes sunken with suspicion.
"Where are the guards stationed here?" she asked.
He didn't meet her gaze. "Gone," he muttered. "All of them. Left two days ago. Said there were orders."
"What kind of orders?"
"A courier rode through. Said the garrison was needed back at Fort Dalen—immediate reassignment."
Veyra's eyes narrowed. "Did he carry a seal?"
The man hesitated, scratched the back of his neck. "Didn't show one. Wasn't on an army horse either. Just passed through fast and loud, like he knew we wouldn't stop him."
Veyra turned away from him slowly, her mind already sketching out possibilities. A false courier. A planted message. Soldiers diverted, leaving the border exposed—conveniently just before her own arrival.
It hadn't been an accident.
Someone had cleared the board.
Behind her, Deyla dismounted and moved toward a shadowed side alley, scanning for signs of rushed withdrawal. Kellen remained mounted, watching the rooftops, his expression unreadable. No bodies. No violence. But the scent of fear still clung to the stones—not fresh, but recent.
Veyra's gaze drifted up toward the ridge of the southern wall, where the flags still hung limp.
The Vale had been emptied like a cup left too long in the sun.
They did not speak much on the way back down the ridge.
The shadows stretched long behind them, spilling out from the broken walls of Karsen Vale as though the town itself exhaled unease. Veyra led the column northward, her horse picking a careful path along the overgrown trail that curved just beyond bowshot of the abandoned fort.
It wasn't the place she feared.
It was what had been removed from it.
They reached the edge of a thinned copse—a patch of bare clearing ringed by pine and dry rock, enough space for a small fire, tethered horses, and tents out of sight of the road. The sun was bleeding out across the treetops, thick orange falling to bruised blue.
Veyra dismounted first, landing in a controlled drop, her knees bending slightly to absorb the impact. Kellen followed, catching her glance and nodding wordlessly before moving to help Deyla with the packs.
She turned to him after the tents were half-raised.
"I want a sealed missive written. Everything we saw in the town. The state of the garrison. The commoner testimony. The lack of resistance. Make it formal and mark it with my crest." Her voice stayed low, even. "If something happens before we reach Ember Hollow... it cannot be left unsaid."
Kellen paused, one strap of canvas in hand. His dark eyes studied her a moment longer than usual. "Understood."
"Use the secondary code. I don't want this intercepted by the wrong hands."
"Still remember it?"
"I wrote half of it," she said dryly.
That earned her a short breath of laughter—soft, tired. But when Kellen turned away, his posture had changed. Sharper. Alert.
Veyra moved toward the fire ring, crouched to begin laying the kindling. Her body was weary, but not sluggish. She kept her sword within reach—unbuckled but ready.
The scent of pine and cold stone filled the dusk air, but her mind wandered.
Not to Karsen Vale.
Not to Ember Hollow.
But to the sound of an Omega's voice singing beside a dying man in the grass.
She exhaled slowly and lit the flame.
Night had come. And though the fire warmed her gloves, her spine stayed straight, her senses sharp. The wind from the Vale still carried too much silence.
Something was watching. Or waiting.
And she would not sleep deep.