The wind had changed again.
It came not from the east, where the Second Gate opened its maw, but from below—as if the earth itself exhaled. Lysa hadn't spoken in hours, her fingers curled tight around the reins of her horse, eyes scanning everything and nothing. The trail they followed was dry, dust-thick and laced with old bones, and the silence around them held the shape of something unsaid. Above, the sky was a pale bruise of ash and failing light. The sun hung low, struggling to pierce the veil.
She could hear the Song again.
Not clearly. Like trying to remember a half-forgotten melody from childhood, one you're sure you never learned. It wasn't in words, and it wasn't for her alone. It was ancient, meant for something deeper than the mind—something that remembered being born in fire and bone. She pressed a hand to her temple. The notes weren't painful. They were... searching.
At the edge of the ravine, she halted.
The world dipped into shadow below, an ancient scar in the land where even weeds refused to grow. Shapes moved at the periphery of vision, half-formed and shifting. Some were just tricks of the wind. Others, she wasn't sure.
Caedren rode up beside her. His horse was restless, snorting, ears twitching at nothing.
"Another vision?" he asked, voice low.
She nodded, jaw tight. "It's not mine."
"What do you mean?"
Lysa turned to him. "I'm not the one being shown things anymore. I'm... seeing someone else's dream. A girl. Younger. She's trapped in a room of mirrors. And every mirror shows a different future. But in all of them... she's dead."
Caedren stared at her. His knuckles tightened on the reins.
"She sees the Third Gate," he murmured.
Lysa looked at him, confused. "You've heard that name before."
Caedren didn't answer. He only pressed a hand to the hilt of his sword. Because yes, he had heard of it. Once. Long ago, in the secret journals of Ivan's disciple—his own forebear. A name passed down like a curse.
The Third Gate is not a door. It is a wound in time.
The memory struck him with full force: ink-stained pages, a candle burning low, Ivan's voice like stone against silence. The Third Gate is not guarded. It is endured.
Lysa looked west. "Something's coming for me."
"No," Caedren said, his voice low and firm. "It's coming for us."
Far across the fractured realm, beyond the broken teeth of the Iron Hills, beneath the iron banner of the old eastern provinces, three riders stood before the withering throne of Duke Rhend. Once friend to Galeon, now master of a broken people, Rhend ruled from a stronghold ringed in smoke and fire. His throne room was built from stone quarried in ancient times, its banners faded to rust, its guards silent as statues.
The eldest rider stepped forward. His voice was like cracked parchment, brittle with disuse. "You've seen the Gate's light. You've heard its pulse."
Rhend narrowed his eyes. "I've heard rumors. I believe in swords, not ghosts."
"But the sword cannot stop what bleeds from the world's marrow," the rider hissed. "The boy-king of no kingdom marches to wake something older than kings."
"The exile walks with him," another rider added. "Noris will unite the splintered loyalties."
Rhend leaned forward on his throne, one gauntlet tapping the hilt of his ceremonial blade. "So what would you have me do?"
The third rider stepped forth. Younger. Sharper. His face was half-covered with a silver mask that shimmered faintly under the flickering torchlight.
"Burn Westvale," he said, voice precise. "Poison its water. Salt its fields. Starve the king of ash before he becomes a symbol."
Rhend studied them, then turned his gaze to the great map that hung behind the throne—a relic from when the provinces were united. His fingers traced the old trade routes, now choked with sand and silence.
"And the girl?" he asked.
"She dreams of the Third Gate," said the masked one. "Which means she will either be the world's last hope..."
"Or its end," said the eldest.
Rhend nodded slowly. "Then we kill her first."
The night deepened.
While Caedren sharpened his blade beneath a brittle moon, and Lysa stared at stars that whispered back in riddles of light, an assassin crossed the river. He moved like breath through reeds, unseen even by the wolves. His name had been struck from all records, erased by oath and ritual. What he carried was not poison, nor steel alone—but a curse, bound in blood.
He knew the face of his target. He had seen it not in portrait, but in vision—granted by a Seer who drowned herself after speaking her final prophecy. A girl with eyes like storms, and a heart that did not beat alone.
He made camp in silence, miles yet from his prey.
Above him, the stars shifted. One fell.
And far, far below, deeper than any tomb or root, the Gate pulsed once. Louder than before.
Not calling.
Counting.