The sun was pale above the frost-veiled ridges of the North, casting long golden light upon the valley as Arasha rode through the gates of Frosthaven for the st time—for now. She wore her cloak csped high, her armor sealed, her sword resting with quiet weight at her side. Behind her, the duchess stood with her sons and council on the steps of the keep, watching in solemn silence.

  She had ensured the stability of the region with haste and precision: secured a private communication channel through mirrored sigil-engraved stones passed only to the trusted; established coded missives to travel via ravens cloaked in anti-scrying wards; and ensured that Lord Luther's word, now backed by her authority, would be w in her absence.

  A final gnce. A nod. And then she rode out.

  Her knights fnked her side—eight of the knights. The banner healers left to supervise the few native healers of the north so everyone who needs to be tended gets their due.

  She rode ahead of the others, the wind brushing her cheeks as the mountains faded into hills, and hills into open fields of melting snow and spring's reluctant touch.

  They were halfway back to the main base when she saw him.

  A young runner, cloaked in ash-gray, stumbling toward their path on foot, waving frantically with one arm while the other clutched a scroll sealed in red wax.

  Arasha halted her steed, swinging down before the dust had settled.

  The runner colpsed to his knees. "Commander—! Commander, from the capital—urgent!"

  She took the scroll and broke the seal.

  Her eyes scanned the lines.

  And narrowed.

  A rapture had torn through the heart of the capital.The sky had split open just beyond the pace district.Nobles were fleeing. Civilians trapped. Chaos consuming the city's heart.And Sir Garran… was still in the southern front, aiding their allies against an unexpected monster horde.

  There was no one else.

  No time to call for reinforcements. No time to travel back by horse or carriage.

  She reached inside her satchel. Her hand closed around the smooth vellum of a single teleportation scroll—the one granted months ago by an allied archmage, to be used for her own safety.

  I know promise Linalee to only use it for my own sake but...

  She stared at it for a heartbeat.

  She had saved this for a moment when everything else failed.

  She closed her eyes momentarily.

  I must not hesitate for every seconds means a life being lost.

  Arasha clutched the scroll tighter.

  She turned to her knights, who had caught up and were already looking to her with tense eyes.

  "I go alone," she said.

  "No—" one started, "Commander, let us come—"

  "I cannot. The scroll can only teleport one person. I'll arrive alone, inside the city—there won't be time to open the gates or rally the guards."

  This means that their commander have to face such catastrophe alone.

  "Commander! You can't!" every one of the knight present protested. Their worry clearly pstered on their face.

  "I must. If I send any of you, the chance of survival would be close to zero. And, you all know what I'm capable of. Have faith."

  Her voice was calm. But beneath it burned a resolute fme.

  Her knights couldn't refute her words so they were silent but they openly show their discontent with deep frown in their face.

  "This is the capital. Their home. The nobles who doubted us. Who mocked us. Who threatened to cut our lifeblood to preserve their comforts. But it also has civilians who strive to get a better life."

  She gnced down at the parchment, its runes faintly glowing now that it sensed its user.

  "I will not let them die. Even if the royals and nobles would have let me. They are part of the kingdom we serve even if we think otherwise."

  Some knights sighed while other cursed underneath their breath.

  She stepped into the circle her knight-mage hastily sketched in the dirt with warded chalk, ying the scroll across its heart.

  The runes surged to life.

  One knight took a step forward. "Commander… what if it's a trap?"

  She looked back, the wind catching her dark hair, her eyes fierce with purpose.

  "Then will see who's the hunter and who's the prey."

  She gave her orders swiftly—rendezvous with Garran, alert the southern fnk, reinforce the capital if she fails to return within three days.

  And then—

  With one st breath, Arasha activated the scroll.

  Light burst upward in a pilr of gold and blue.

  She vanished.

  **

  The capital y beneath smoke and shadow as the rift loomed above its spires like a malignant eye. Screams echoed through marble streets. Anomalies swarmed over silver towers. Royal guards—untrained for this kind of horror—fought and died trying to hold their lines.

  And then, from nothing, in a fsh of burning light—

  She arrived.

  Cloak fring, sword drawn, divine mark alight like a second sun.

  Arasha stood alone in the city of those who called her unwanted.

  The capital was burning.

  Not with fme, but with voidlight—sickly violet and bck tendrils that seeped from the wound in the sky, wrapping around proud marble towers and choking the life from them. The once-beautiful heart of the realm now groaned under the weight of screaming winds and the thunderous roar of a tear in reality itself.

  Arasha anticipated the chaos but still frowned on how grave the situation is.

  The light of the teleportation scroll had barely faded when the first creature lunged at her—a spindly beast of twisted limbs and jagged bone, its many eyes weeping ichor. Her sword was already moving before she even registered it, a clean arc of silver fire carving the thing in half mid-lunge.

  No time to breathe. No time to think.

  Another came, and another—monsters far more powerful than any seen in the north or even the outer front lines. These things were smarter. Faster. Crueler. They ambush, then slink back to the shadows when it was not advantageous to them.

  Still it's clear what they were after, destruction.

  And if it's destruction they want, they had to got to though her first.

  Arasha fought like a storm given form, her bde wreathed in divine fire, her voice ringing through the city like a war bell as she shouted orders.

  "This way! Move the injured! Defend the east quarter—fall back by the aqueducts!"

  Wherever she went, the soldiers rallied. Not the nobles, no—they had already fled, cowards, clutching teleportation scrolls and jewels that could have saved others. Gone in fshes of golden light, leaving their people to die.

  But the soldiers stayed.

  Soldiers, young and old, giving their all, and even sometimes their lives to stand by their duty.

  The civilians trusted her. She was their beacon of hope. Her relentlessness save them and kept them safe—even if it's only momentarily.

  And the brave few who had nothing left and wish the safety of others stood beside her to the bitter end.

  With precision born of desperation and will, she carved a path through colpsing streets, using debris and alleyways to form makeshift choke points. Her command turned chaos into structure, creating corridors for retreat, safe zones behind shield walls, and temporary sanctuaries inside broken churches and colpsed inns.

  Every time a group reached the gate, she bought them time.

  She held bridges alone. Cleared courtyards swarming with beasts. Her armor was cracked, her vision blurring, her arm trembling from overuse, but she kept fighting. The divine blessing on her hand pulsed like a failing star—brilliant but fading.

  Blood trickled from her brow.

  Cracks formed in her gauntlets where monster cws had bitten too deep.

  And yet she stood, towering above the hopeless with her bde raised, shouting the names of the dead and the living alike so none would be forgotten.

  And then—

  The st civilian crossed the eastern bridge, escorted by a group of young knights who saluted her, wide-eyed with awe and grief. She nodded in return, too tired to speak.

  Now, only the rift remained.

  She turned toward it—an open, howling maw above the central pace square, where the gods themselves seemed to have turned away. Lightning tore the sky. The rift pulsed. Something rge shifted within it, cwing at the edge of reality, seeking to breach through.

  She raised her hand, calling on the blessing.

  Nothing happened.

  She bit her lip, hard enough to taste iron, and tried again.

  A flicker of light. Weak. Barely more than a candle's glow. Her body trembled, drained far beyond its limits.

  She staggered toward the rift, her boots dragging through rubble and blood. The divine mark on her hand bzed once, then cracked with a jagged spark of pain. She fell to her knees.

  "No," she hissed, cwing her way forward. "Not now… not yet…"

  She reached deep—into the memory of her mother's final lulby, her father's st kiss, the knights who gave their lives in the north, the children she had saved today. Into every sorrow, every oath, every fme that ever lived inside her.

  She screamed the ancient words and lifted her arm—

  The light surged.

  The rift shuddered.

  But it didn't close.

  The power slipped through her fingers like smoke. Her vision dimmed. The mark on her hand fred one final time…

  Then went dark.

  The ground shook. A beast howled from within the rift. And Arasha, slumped against the cracked stones of the ruined pza, stared upward, her lips parted in exhausted, breathless defiance.

  "I'm… sorry…"

  She failed.

  And yet—even as her body gave out, and the darkness pressed in from all sides—

  She did not fall.She knelt.Still between the rift and the people.Still a shield.

  Even if it broke her.