Vault Exits, Glenfold Ridge – Pre-dawn
The air beyond the catacombs was thick with the scent of wet lichen and pine sap. Mist clung to the ridgeline like mourning veils, and the faintest light bled over the eastern hills, pale and fragile. Aeron emerged first, coin in hand, eyes hard and unreadable.
Harwin stepped toward him but paused. Something in Aeron's face had changed. Not in expression—but in absence.
"You saw something," Harwin said.
Aeron nodded. "I saw too much."
Tarn was the first to speak after the silence. "What now?"
Aeron looked down at the coin, now whole and heavy. The edges still glowed faintly, as though it remembered fire.
"We ride south," he said.
Harwin frowned. "South? Toward Caer Velnar?"
"No. Not yet. That place is sealed in steel and crowns. We ride for the border-holds near the Greywine Crossing. There are men there who still owe Thorne blood. And others who have forgotten."
He turned to the boy. "Tarn. You carry the Thorne banner now. You may not know it yet, but you do."
Tarn blinked, wide-eyed. "I don't even know what it looks like."
"You will," Aeron said. "When it's raised again, it won't be in silk. It'll be in iron."
Elric spat into the moss. "And what are we now? A ghost's errand? Or a rebellion?"
Aeron's gaze cut through him. "Neither. We're what comes before rebellion. Before war. Before fear. We are the vow. We are the reckoning that doesn't knock."
Harwin gave a low chuckle. "You're sounding more like your father."
Aeron turned to him. "Then may the gods have mercy."
Later That Day – The Ash Road Inn, South Velgrath
The inn was little more than a ruin stitched together with tarps and hope, but it served broth hot enough and ale sour enough to pass as honest.
Aeron sat with his back to the wall, listening again—always listening. Merchants whispered of temple knights moving west. Of a fire at Hallowmere that left five priests dead. Of a noble's son gone missing near a ruined watchfort once held by House Thorne.
A barkeep muttered of dreams—black wolves on a crimson field. Teeth like iron. Eyes like moons.
Aeron asked for no names. He only watched the weathered parchment pinned near the hearth:
WANTED: One Aeron Thorne, traitor's blood. Known consorts: hedge knight, child thief, unlicensed healer. High reward. Dead or bled. Signed by the Crown's Hand, Lord Caerwyn.
He tore it down quietly.
"Looks like they remember you too," Harwin said, arms crossed.
Aeron handed him the coin. "Then let them remember the rest."
Harwin flipped it and frowned.
"You etched it?"
"No."
Harwin ran a thumb across the back. Beneath Aeron's name were three tiny glyphs, too fine for mortal chisels. The kind the old folk used. The kind meant to bind oaths.
"What does it say?" Harwin asked.
Aeron stood. "It says I will return what was taken."
Outside, thunder rolled. Not from the sky, but from hooves. A rider approached the inn in haste—dust trailing him like a tail of smoke.
Elric was already at the door, blade half-drawn.
Harwin checked his sword.
Aeron didn't move.
The rider dismounted and pushed through the door, breathing hard.
"Which of you is Thorne?" he demanded.
Aeron stepped forward. "That name's been dead a long time. You're late to the burial."
The rider tossed a sealed scroll onto the table. The wax bore the mark of Velstrom, northern rivals to Caerwyn.
"They say the bloodline's dead. My lord disagrees. He sends an offer. Land, arms, oath renewal. In return, you ride south. Soon."
Aeron opened the scroll, scanning its contents.
Harwin leaned in. "That fast?"
"They're planning something," Aeron said. "They wouldn't offer help unless war was already moving."
He folded the scroll and met the rider's gaze.
"Tell your lord I'll ride. But not under his banner."
The rider hesitated. "Then under whose?"
Aeron reached into his satchel and drew out a torn, weathered cloth. A symbol not flown in twenty years.
A single, leafless thorn branch.
"We carry our own."