By the time the sun vanished behind the clouds, William's arm didn't feel like his.
His shield might as well have been nailed to his bones. His fingers no longer felt the sword hilt; they just clenched because they'd forgotten how to do anything else.
"Push!" Hale rasped beside him.
They pushed.
Germanian shields slammed into the gap, boots grinding over the pile of bodies jammed in it. Hale's board shuddered against William's shoulder. Steel scraped, flashed, cut. Someone screamed. Someone stopped.
Rain came down in heavy slashes, turning the yard into a red soup around their boots. The corpse-heap inside the broken mouth of the gate had risen from ankles to knees to mid-thigh. William didn't look too closely at faces anymore. Helmet or hair—that was enough.
"Front rank, change!" Hobb's voice cracked from the south wall. "One step back! New shields in! Move, you stubborn bastards!"
They shuffled, half-stumbling, half being carried by the line behind them. The man who took William's spot in the very front had a bandage around his head and eyes too wide. William thumped his shoulder once with the rim of his shield as he slid into the second rank.
"Breathe," he muttered. "Stab low. Don't chase."
The man nodded too fast.
Another hit on the gate. The braces squealed. A spike jumped half an inch out of the wood.
"Hold that beam!" someone shouted. Hammer blows rang to his left as villagers slammed the spike back into place.
William's chest burned. His side burned from the spear that had grazed his ribs an hour ago. Or two. Or ten. Time had turned into hits on the gate.
He stabbed at a shadow in the gap. His blade hit something soft; he pulled back quickly before the next shield slammed in. Blood sprayed across his knuckles, washed away by rain.
"Still with me, Lockhart?" Hale grunted.
"Unfortunately," William rasped.
Hale bared bloody teeth. "Good. I'd hate to explain this mess to your father."
William almost laughed. It came out as a cough.
Up on the parapet, Hobb paced like a crow with a bow.
"Arrows!" he barked. "Last bundle! Make every damn one count! Ankles and knees, I swear, if you waste them on shields—"
An archer loosed beside him. The arrow hissed down between boards and legs. A Germanian at the front line went down with a howl, dragged backward by his comrades as they surged up to fill the space.
"See?" Hobb snapped. "Do it like Alric! Alric's dead, but do it like him anyway!"
No one had the breath to laugh.
Another wave. Another crunch.
Another body fell.
Hours blurred. The rain ate them.
The change came in a breath.
The next Germanian push didn't hit as hard. The shields in the gap wavered, pressed, then... eased.
Hale frowned, sweat and rain in his eyes. "What are they—"
A horn blew somewhere beyond the wall.
Not the harsh bark of Felix Blackwell's command calls. A clearer note, followed by another, answered from far off.
One of the kids on the wall blinked through the rain. "I see... banners," he croaked. "White... gold..."
More horns. Hooves, faint at first, then building, like distant thunder starting to remember it was supposed to be a storm.
Hobb grabbed the boy's collar and yanked him back from the crenel.
"I'll look, you little fool," he muttered, and leaned out, squinting through the sheets of water.
For a heartbeat, his one good eye went wide.
"Well I'll be damned," he whispered.
"What is it?" someone panted.
"Holy Army," Hobb said. His voice shook, just a little. "Proper host. Five thousand at least. Sun-sigs all in a row."
The Germanian shields in the gap shifted. A command cracked over the rain from outside—Felix's voice, sharp and distant.
The pressure on the gate... thinned.
Then, like a tide changing, it began to pull back.
"They're pulling back," someone in the second rank said, disbelief thick in his words.
"Hold the line," Hale snapped, more on instinct than meaning. "They feint, we don't chase. We wait."
But the roar outside was changing. The constant grind against the braces stopped. The Germans fell back in rough order, dragging their wounded, leaving their dead stacked like another wall in the mud.
Through the broken mouths of the gate, William glimpsed movement beyond the corpse-heap: a wide line of white cloaks and polished helms coming up over the rise, lances bristling like a second forest.
A river of horses moved behind them—blue and gold pennants snapping in the storm, armor catching what little light the day had left.
One of the crown soldiers beside William sucked in a breath that sounded more like a sob.
"That's Lockhart's own," he rasped. "Your father's lances, my lord."
William tried to turn for a better look. His neck didn't quite obey. The banners blurred—white sun, blue field, lines of steel beneath.
Felix Blackwell watched that from his side of the field.
He wasn't a fool.
He'd already spent men on the trap at the west gate, on the archers' duel, on this bloody choke. Five thousand Holy Knights in fresh formation and three thousand famous Britannian cavalry were not a bet worth doubling down into.
Rain streaked off his helm as he barked his order.
The Germanian lines pulled back in clean segments, shields up, leaving their dead and some of their wounded in the mud. Drums changed tempo—retreat pattern, not rout. A dark snake of men and banners uncoiled away into the gray.
For a long heartbeat, no one in Ashford moved.
Then someone on the wall—one of Hobb's archers, voice shredded—found words.
"They're running!"
The shout cracked something open.
Noise slammed into the yard—cheers, sobs, prayers, curses. People staggered out of the chapel, dropping to their knees in the mud, hands raised. The wounded tried to sit up. A boy hugged a bloody spear to his chest like a toy.
Hale sagged against his shield, laughing and coughing at the same time.
"We held," he wheezed. "Ha—haha—we bloody held."
William just stood there.
The sword felt heavier than any weight he'd ever trained with. His arm trembled under the shield. Every cut that had gone quiet while adrenaline screamed came back all at once.
Felix's banners shrank into the rain. The Holy Knights' line halted at a respectful distance, letting their vanguard scout ahead. Lockhart cavalry banners pushed through their ranks, riding hard.
William watched them come.
The edges of his vision fuzzed.
Hale's hand hit his shoulder, solid and real. "See that, boy? That's your father coming to find a corpse and instead—"
William's knees went out.
He hit the mud on his side, sword slipping from numb fingers into the red water.
The world tilted. Sky and wall and gate traded places. The cheers got thick, distant, like someone had thrown a blanket over them.
Hale's voice sharpened. "Oi! Lockhart!"
Boots splashed. Hands rolled him onto his back. Rain hit his face, cold and clean.
Hobb's face slammed into view above him a heartbeat later, rain carving tracks through the blood and grime.
"Hey," Hobb snapped, grabbing William's jaw. "Hey. Eyes on me, boy."
William tried. The one eye he managed to focus with kept sliding off Hobb's features. His chest felt hollow and full at the same time, like every breath had to claw its way through mud.
"Medic!" Hobb roared. "HEALER! RIGHT HERE!"
Hands tore at William's torn mail, the soaked tunic beneath. Fingers pressed his throat, his wrist.
"Saints," someone muttered. "Pulse is... I can't—"
William didn't catch the rest.
The sound pulled away from him, like someone was dragging it down a long corridor. Hobb's mouth kept moving, shouting at him, at the healer, at the sky, but nothing got through.
The rain on his face went warm, then cold, then—
Nothing.
White.
He lay on his back, staring up.
No clouds. No sun. Just white.
He sat up slowly.
The ground under his hands was... there. Solid enough to push against. But it had no color, no texture, no edge. The world was a blank page someone had never gotten around to painting on.
No gate. No wall. No Ashford. No sound but his own breathing.
"Right," William said at last, voice too clear in the emptiness. "This is either a concussion or... the other thing."
"You are dead," the voice rolled through the white like a distant bell.
It wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. The moment it spoke, the space accepted the statement as fact.
William turned.
The white wasn't empty anymore.
A figure stood before him, a little distance away. Man-shaped, but that was where familiarity ended. Armor, but made of light—not reflected, not metal, but light given shape. A cloak that was more radiant than fabric, edges dissolving into the air.
Where the face should have been was only depth—layers of gold and white and something sharper, like staring into the heart of dawn. Looking at it too long made William's eyes water.
Above and behind the figure, for half a heartbeat, he thought he saw some vast, faint circle turning—etched in lines and sigils like a great wheel. Then the brightness ate it.
William swallowed.
"You said... dead," he managed.
"Yes."
The being regarded him without moving. "Your heart was broken. Your blood spent. Your soul crossed the line."
William glanced down at himself.
No armor. No bandages. Just his old training clothes, somehow clean. No cuts, no mud. Bare feet on blank white.
He blew out a slow breath.
"Well," he said. "The village?"
Silence.
"Ashford," he clarified. "Are they...?"
"The village stands," the thing of light said. "The enemy withdrew when more of your kind arrived. The people you stood for live."
William's shoulders loosened.
"Then that's... all right," he said.
The figure tilted its head, just a fraction.
"You accept your own death," it said, "so long as one village lives."
"I don't like it," William said honestly. "If there's a choice, I'd rather not be—" he gestured at the nothing around them, "—here."
He scratched at his jaw on reflex. His fingers came away clean.
"But," he went on, "if it was them or me... I made that choice at the gate. No point in whining about it after the fact."
He realized who he was talking to as the words left his mouth.
"Uh. With respect," he added belatedly. "My lord. If you're... one."
Across the white, something smiled.
It wasn't kind.
It wasn't cruel.
It was terrible the way a sunrise was terrible if you thought about what it really was—fire big enough to erase worlds, choosing not to, for now.
"You stand without flinching," the light said. "You offer no bargains. You do not ask why you, why them, why now. You simply... accept."
The glow around the figure deepened, faint lines of script flickering in and out at the edges of William's vision.
"I am Solkara Aurelion," the voice said. "Crown of the Eightfold Dawn. The Unsetting Sun. Lord of the Halo. Shield at the Edge of Night."
The names hit like hammers made of music. The white around them trembled with each one.
William's knee went down on instinct.
He'd knelt to painted suns and stone altars his whole life. This was different. This was kneeling in front of the thing those paintings were scared copies of.
"My lord," he said, throat dry.
"You believed yourself lacking," Aurelion said. "You knelt in your quiet places and reached for light that did not answer. You wore the name 'Unlit' like a chain."
Heat prickled at William's face.
"I saw the tests," he muttered. "The priests don't lie."
"They are... limited," Aurelion said.
He raised one hand.
In his palm, light gathered. Slow at first, then faster, until a small sun hovered there—a coin of gold-white radiance, turning lazily. Inside it, William thought he saw shapes: a ring, a tiny crown, sigils he didn't recognize.
"For your act of courage," the High God said, "and for the manner of it—not the roar, but the simple decision to stand and spend yourself on others—I will grant you something you thought you lacked."
He stepped closer. The white tightened around them, every bit of brightness drawing inward.
"You carried my spark from your first breath," Solkara Aurelion said. "Blood and will both. All you lacked was ignition."
He paused.
When he spoke again, there was a cold edge under the light.
"Understand this, William Lockhart: I do not kindle cowards."
The little sun in his palm flared.
Then it was in William's chest.
There was no visible movement—no arm, no hand—but suddenly fire lived under his sternum. Pure. White-gold. It burst outward along paths he didn't know he had—veins, bones, thoughts. He gasped, grabbing at his shirt, but there was no fabric, no wound, just light.
For a heartbeat, he saw himself reflected in the High God's armor: a boy on his knees, eyes wide, a faint ring hovering crookedly above his head, flickering like a newborn flame.
"For your act," Aurelion said, "I grant you what was already yours. Light Muti. Crown Light. The halo you were sure would never come."
The terrible smile returned—still curious, still too much.
"You have my interest, mortal," Solkara Aurelion said. "Do not disappoint me."
The ring above William's head blazed.
The white plane shattered like glass.
He woke to stone.
A ceiling he knew—arched, painted with faded suns, one corner cracked from when he'd knocked over a candle as a child and his father had terrified him with a calm lecture about fire.
His whole body felt like someone had used him to test every sword in the armory, then stitched him back together with rough twine.
"Easy," a woman's voice said. "Don't move yet."
William turned his head.
The world wobbled, then steadied.
A healer in Sun-Knight white sat on a stool beside his bed, hands hovering over his chest. Bandages wrapped him tight from ribs to stomach. Faint warmth seeped from her palms.
"Where...?" His voice came out cracked. "How long...?"
"Lockhart Keep infirmary," she said. "You've been out for two weeks."
Two weeks.
Ashford. The gate. The Germans. Hobb's hand on his jaw. White.
His heart kicked.
"The village," William croaked. "Ashford—"
"Stands," another voice said from the doorway.
Lord Lockhart stepped in.
No formal armor, no cloak for show—just a simple tunic, a sword-belt, and lines around his eyes William didn't remember being there before.
"Father," William said.
Lockhart came to the bedside and stopped, as if crossing that last step might break something fragile.
"Ashford-on-Lea still stands," he said. "Felix Blackwell withdrew when the main host arrived. The villagers are... very vocal about who held the gate."
The healer snorted softly. "They haven't shut up about you since we dragged you onto a cart, my lord. 'Gate Knight,' 'Mud Saint,' 'Bloody Fool'—they're still arguing over which sticks."
William let out a breath that hurt but felt good anyway.
"Good," he whispered. "Then it was..."
He searched for the word worth it and hit a blank spot.
His father studied his face. Something shuttered behind his eyes.
"You remember?" the healer asked quietly. "The battle. The end."
"The gate," William said slowly. "The wall. Osric. Then... nothing. Maybe... white. Like a dream." He frowned. The memory slid away when he reached for it, leaving only the sense of standing and refusing to move. "After that, I woke up here."
The healer and Lord Lockhart exchanged a look.
"You died," she said.
William blinked. "I what?"
"Your heart stopped at the gate," she said, voice even. "No pulse. No breath. We laid you out to close your eyes. Hobb refused to move. Then—" she hesitated, searching for the word, "—you lit up."
"Lit... up," William repeated, not quite believing it.
Lord Lockhart reached into his cloak and set something small on the blanket beside William's hand: a glass shard etched with a sun-sigil. A testing relic every noble child knew.
It glowed softly. Not from the room. From him.
"When they brought you into the field tent," his father said quietly, "you were shining. Faint, but clear. Crown Light. The priests argued for a day whether it was heresy or a miracle. So far, 'miracle' is winning."
Something warm pulsed under William's sternum in answer.
Not a blaze. Not yet. Just a steady ember, as if someone had tucked a coal there and told it to wait.
He stared at his hand.
"I..." He tried to reach for the white plane, for the figure in the armor, for the voice that had said I do not kindle cowards.
All he got was a headache.
"Must have been... fever dreams," he said, forcing a crooked smile. "Or I hit my head harder than I thought."
The healer hummed, unconvinced. Lord Lockhart's mouth tightened, then eased.
"Whatever it was," his father said, "Britannia has one more Light-bearer today than it did two weeks ago. And Ashford has its hero."
William flushed, uncomfortable.
"I just did what anyone should have," he said. "The villagers fought. The soldiers fought. Hobb—"
"Hobb," the healer said dryly, "has been telling anyone who will listen that if you die again, he'll climb up to the Sun himself and demand a refund."
William snorted. It hurt. He didn't mind.
The warmth under his ribs glowed a little brighter, like it was amused.
He didn't remember the High God's terrible smile or the words in the white, not clearly. But the feeling remained, lodged somewhere deep:
You have my interest. Don't disappoint me.
William closed his fingers slowly around the glowing shard.
"Then I'd better learn how to use this," he murmured.
His father's hand settled, careful and firm, on his shoulder.
"You will," Lord Lockhart said. "But first, you heal. The realm can wait a few days for its Gate Knight."
Out beyond the keep walls, the sun pushed through the thinning storm for the first time in days, spilling golden light over Albion's towers.
In the quiet of the infirmary, with pain in his bones and new warmth in his chest, William Lockhart looked up at the painted suns on the ceiling and, for reasons he couldn't name, smiled back.