By midday, the first whispers reached Greyhaven.
Merchants. Travelers. Spies. Guards.
The Shadow Army has struck Blackpine Pass.
Supplies for the Draven army captured.
No one knows who leads them.
Rowan paced the council chamber.
Every map. Every message. Every report burned with urgency.
"Impossible," he muttered. "They cannot exist. Not here. Not now."
Edric entered quietly.
"They do exist," he said. "And they strike like ghosts."
Rowan's hands clenched the table.
"Prepare the city defenses," he ordered. "Doubles. Triples. Every soldier."
"But," Edric added, "the people whisper… 'Valewood has returned.'"
Rowan froze.
Valewood. The boy who survived exile.
The shadow who now haunted the north.
Across Greyhaven, fear spread.
Nobles locked doors.
Merchants canceled trades.
Soldiers drilled endlessly, anxious, tense.
Even the priests prayed louder, hoping the gods would intervene.
Inside the palace, spies returned with fragmented stories.
Men claiming to be loyal to Draven fled the northern roads.
Some never returned.
Letters arrived. Threats. Names. Locations. False trails.
All traced back, somehow, to the exiled hero.
Rowan called a private meeting.
Edric, Varyn's former lieutenant, and the few councilors he still trusted gathered.
"We cannot fight what we cannot see," Rowan said. "And we cannot trust anyone."
Edric bowed. "Then perhaps it is time to make him visible. Force him into a trap."
Rowan's eyes narrowed. "Or we risk the city."
Meanwhile, Aren watched from his hidden valley.
Smoke from Blackpine Pass still drifted in memory.
Allies arrived daily.
Supplies, men, intelligence.
The network grew.
He met Lysa at the cliff's edge.
"The city will panic," she said.
"And they should," Aren replied. "Fear is the first blade of power."
Tom, now confident in silence, followed closely.
"They speak my name," he said. "Do they know what it means?"
"They will," Aren said. "And by the time they do, it will be too late."
The Shadow Army waited.
Greyhaven trembled.
And the war that began in exile was about to reach the very heart of the kingdom.