The woman did not move.
Her cloak fluttered in the ashen wind, but her feet were bare against the corpse-littered ground. She stood as though untouched by the rot and ruin around her. The crows gave her a wide circle, as if even carrion feared to come near.
Kaelen's hand twitched toward a sword that was not there. "Who are you?"
"Names," she said softly, "are chains. Best not to keep too many."
Her voice was wrong. Too clear. It carried across the battlefield like a bell tolling in fog. Kaelen's shard throbbed in answer, a pain that spread through his ribs.
"Answer me," he snarled. "Or I'll—"
"You'll what?" Her eyes gleamed, gold beneath the dusk. "You'll tear your own heart from your chest trying to wield what you cannot master?"
Kaelen's jaw tightened. He had heard those whispers before — in the delirium of fever, in the dreams where his sister's blood never dried from the altar. But this woman spoke as if she knew.
"You carry a rib of the Silent God," she continued. "A shard carved from the bones that sleep beneath the mountains. It sustains you. It corrodes you. In time, it will decide what you are."
Kaelen staggered back. "That's impossible. The gods are chained."
The woman tilted her head. "Chained, yes. Sleeping, yes. But never dead. Not while men still whisper prayers in fear."
Her words chilled him more than the cold air. For a moment he swore the sky itself darkened, the dusk bleeding toward night. His shadow twitched at the edge of sight — not following him, but straining toward her, like a hound scenting blood.
"What do you want from me?" he asked.
At last, the woman smiled. Not kind. Not cruel. Simply inevitable.
"To walk," she said. "The gods stir. When the sun rises again, the world will break. And you…" She reached out, fingers hovering inches from his chest where the shard pulsed. "…you will choose which chains to shatter."
Kaelen's breath caught.
Then the ground heaved.
Far away, in the mountains, a sound tore across the world — stone screaming against stone. Black rivers bled faster, steaming as they cut through the valleys. The battlefield shook, corpses rolling in grotesque unison.
The woman in red lowered her hand. "It begins."
From the corner of his eye, Kaelen saw movement — not the woman, not his shadow, but men. Soldiers, armored in the rust-red sigils of the Hollow Crown, picking their way through the corpses toward him. Hunters.
The woman's cloak fluttered once, and she was gone, leaving only a whisper in his mind.
When they call you abomination, remember — they are not wrong.
Kaelen turned, unarmed, his shadow quivering like a drawn blade.
The soldiers had seen him. And they raised their spears.