Night lingered heavily above the outpost.
Four hours before dawn, the camp was a dim sprawl of firelight and armor. The rain had stopped, leaving the ground slick and breathing mist.
Kaal tugged awkwardly at the oversized soldier's tunic he'd been given. The sleeves swallowed his wrists, and the belt hung uselessly loose. He looked like a child trying to play soldier.
The second-in-command, Captain Irel, watched him from a few steps away — tall, scarred, and calm in a way that made the younger men stand straighter just by being near him. He adjusted the strap of his blade and glanced at Kaal.
"You'll freeze before we even march," he said flatly. "Tie the belt twice."
Kaal fumbled with it, muttering. "Doesn't fit."
"Nothing fits before war," Irel replied. "You grow into it, or you don't come back."
He said it so simply that Kaal didn't know how to answer. The camp around them hummed with quiet activity — soldiers checking straps, sharpening blades, sharing brief words that sounded more like prayers than plans.
Kaal looked toward the barracks where the Chief had spoken earlier. The torches there burned lower, as if the air itself dimmed in his presence.
He lowered his voice. "He's… strong, isn't he? The Chief."
Irel's eyes flicked toward the same direction, his jaw tightening. "Strong?" He huffed a short, humorless breath. "Boy, when he walks past, even the fire forgets how to burn."
The captain turned away, watching a group of soldiers form up. "Half these men can't even stir their Essence properly. They fight with fear and steel. But him…" He trailed off, shaking his head. "He doesn't need to draw his weapon to win."
Kaal's fingers brushed the leather-bound book hidden inside his tunic — The Book of Ashes. Its weight comforted him in ways he didn't understand.
"What about you?" he asked. "Can you… use it too? That essence thing?"
Irel gave a faint smirk. "A spark, when I'm lucky. I can make a candle flicker if I bleed for it. But don't mistake that for power."
He looked at Kaal fully now. "Real strength isn't how bright you burn — it's how long you stand in the smoke."
Kaal nodded slowly, not sure he understood, but liking how it sounded.
A horn echoed softly through the fog. The low thrum rolled over the camp — a signal.
Irel straightened, eyes sharp again. "Get your things, boy. We move before dawn."
Kaal swallowed. His hands trembled slightly — not from cold this time, but from something alive beneath his skin.
A faint warmth pulsed under his ribs, responding to the call of morning like a sleeping ember remembering its purpose.
He looked toward the dark horizon, where unseen fires waited to be lit.
---
The outpost stirred as the horn faded.
Breath steamed in the cold, curling through fog that clung to the earth like mourning cloth. The clank of armor and the murmur of orders filled the air, muffled and distant, as if the world itself held its breath.
Kaal stood at the edge of the courtyard, clutching the straps of his too-large pack. The soldiers lined up in silent ranks — six columns wide, ten men deep. Behind them, carts creaked with supplies, spare weapons, and the faint shimmer of Essence lanterns flickering through the mist. The torches looked weak this morning. The cold ate light.
Captain Irel moved through the rows, his presence firm but steady. He stopped once, pressed a hand to a soldier's shoulder, then moved on. Everyone's eyes, however, drifted toward the same place.
Toward him.
The Chief Commander stood near the front, speaking slowly with the outpost commander. His armor looked carved from blackened steel, its edges traced with faint frost. Every breath he took came out as mist — not from the cold, but from the pressure of his Essence leaking into the air. The men around him kept their distance, though none dared step back.
Even the torches near him bent slightly away from his presence.
Kaal couldn't help but stare. So that's what real power feels like…
He didn't know why, but something deep inside — the same warmth that stirred when he practiced the Book's dances — seemed to tighten. Almost like it was afraid.
A horn sounded once. Deep, hollow, final.
The Chief lifted his hand slightly, and the sound died.
"Form up," his voice carried — low, even, and sharp enough to cut the fog. "We move now. By dusk, the forest's edge. The tribes won't have another sunrise."
No one questioned him.
The lines shifted, boots striking wet ground in rhythm. Shields clanged, and the formation began to move — a slow march into the dim light of pre-dawn.
Kaal stumbled after them, caught between the rear ranks and a supply cart. He'd never seen so many soldiers together. The road ahead was narrow, carved between low hills and dripping trees. It led east — toward the Emerald Veil, the forbidden forest that divided Sapphire and Ruby.
He had heard the soldiers whisper about it the night before: a maze of towering trees, rivers like glass, and creatures that breathed magic thicker than air.
They said even the wind in that forest had teeth.
The march was long, broken only by the dull crunch of boots and the steady rhythm of drums. Every now and then, Kaal caught glimpses of faint light drifting above the soldiers' heads — wisps of Essence aura, subtle and human, like the ghost of heat before a fire catches.
Kaal's eyes lingered.
He wondered if that same burning in his chest — that pulse he felt when he danced — was the same thing. The same "Essence" everyone whispered about.
Maybe he wasn't so different from them. Maybe.
As they reached the first ridge before the forest, the Chief raised his hand. The entire column stopped.
Ahead lay a stretch of shadow.
The trees were so tall they blocked the early sun, and the air beyond them shimmered faintly — not with mist, but with power. The border between kingdoms and chaos.
"This is where they nest," the Chief said, almost to himself. His voice was quiet, but it rolled through the ranks like thunder. "We set camp here. Scouts move out. I want every trail, every campfire, every heartbeat in that forest marked before dusk."
Captain Irel saluted sharply. "Yes, sir."
The Chief turned his gaze eastward.
Something in his expression shifted — not anger, not anticipation, but a cold kind of certainty. "The Duke will have his peace," he murmured.
Kaal stood behind the last line of men, barely breathing. The forest seemed to whisper his name.
And the books beneath his tunic burned faintly against his chest, as if warning him of what was about to come.
To be continued_