Night fell over Hearthglen wrapped in a tense silence, as if the very air were holding its breath before the impending rupture. Then the ground trembled.

  In the distance, the hoofbeats of horses thundered over the damp earth, and the echo of metal shattered the calm of the hills. Shadows moved swiftly through smoke and dusk, advancing like a dark tide.

  The first screams rose as soldiers stormed into the vilge. Doors splintered beneath heavy boots, torches fred like ravenous tongues devouring the houses without mercy. The acrid stench of blood and smoke thickened the air. Men barked orders, women ran searching for their children, and chaos swallowed the streets of Hearthglen whole.

  Atop a hill, a lone rider watched the destruction. The firelight glinted against his bck leather armor, carving sharp lines across his stern features. Riven held the reins calmly, as if all of this—death, screams, destruction—were something distasteful but inevitable.

  “Stupid Garr…” he muttered under his breath, jaw tightening.

  The lieutenant’s name left him like a sigh ced with disdain. Then he turned his horse and disappeared into the fog and the rising glow that spread toward the sky.

  ***

  Alden ran downhill, but the world had lost its shape. The cold earth cut the soles of his feet, though he didn’t feel it. All he could perceive was the smoke: dense, greasy, cwing down his throat as if trying to choke him from the inside.

  Hearthglen was burning.

  The first houses were bzing towers that groaned as they colpsed. Rooftops caved in with bursts of sparks scattering like swarms of red fireflies. People ran in every direction—some carrying empty buckets, others clutching children, many with no destination at all. A man staggered past, his face smeared with soot, his eyes vacant. He fell to his knees and did not rise again.

  Kaelor and Kael arrived moments ter.

  Kaelor held his sword unsheathed, gleaming in the firelight as if it had already chosen whom it would cut. Kael gripped the bde his uncle had thrown him back in the cabin; he held it so tightly his knuckles looked like bare bone.

  “Elena!” Alden shouted, his voice breaking.

  No answer. Only screams, sobbing, and the constant crackling of wood giving way.

  He crossed the vilge square. The heat pressed against him like a suffocating wall. A toppled cart burned at the center; the throats of the horses had been slit, their smoking bodies filling the air with a nauseating, acidic smell. Soldiers in bck cloaks advanced in formation, unhurried, cutting down anyone who approached—death flowing naturally in their wake.

  Alden didn’t see them.

  He only ran toward the forge—what remained of its entrance.

  Fmes had devoured the roof, and before the fire stood the lieutenant and the three men Alden had seen days earlier. Beside them, Elena wept, held by the neck by Garr, while the lifeless bodies of the bcksmith and his wife y sprawled on the charred ground.

  “Elena!” Alden cried.

  The four men turned at once. The scarred one muttered in a raspy tone:

  “It’s him.”

  Garr shoved the girl aside and, pointing at Alden, barked:

  “Get him.”

  Alden stood frozen for a few seconds. He had no weapon, barely any breath. The three soldiers began circling him, advancing with measured caution. One lunged to grab him, but years of training moved faster than thought: Alden twisted aside, avoided the strike, and knocked the man ft with a kick to the chest.

  Another came from behind. Alden felt him and spun sharply, seizing the man’s wrist, wrestling for the sword. They struggled, bodies locked in a frantic dance for the weapon, until Alden tore it free with desperate strength. In a clumsy motion—almost without realizing it—he drove the bde through the man.

  The sound was dull, unreal.

  The soldier stared at him in shock before colpsing. Alden remained standing, breath ragged, staring at the bloodied sword in his hands as if the world had reshaped itself around him.

  The third soldier roared with fury.

  “You damned bastard!” he bellowed, charging.

  Alden turned too te. The bde swept in a deadly arc…

  …but before it reached him, someone stepped between them.

  The steel sliced through Elena’s chest with almost no resistance.

  Time broke apart. She looked at him one st time, lips parted, unable to speak. She fell into Alden’s arms, and he staggered back, holding her desperately.

  “No… Elena…” he whispered, voice cracking.

  The world shrank to a single point: her weight in his hands.

  Behind them, the lieutenant watched with a mix of annoyance and disdain.

  “Stupid girl,” he muttered, then gnced at the soldier still clutching his sword. “She just saved you from losing your head.”

  He turned to the scarred man.

  “Take him. The boy comes with us.”

  The scarred man nodded and stepped forward, but never reached him.

  A shadow emerged through the smoke.

  A bde hissed through the air.

  The scarred soldier barely had time to raise his weapon before Kaelor struck, swift and merciless. Steel cshed, fshed in the firelight—and three precise movements ter, the man fell.

  Kael appeared beside him, facing the st soldier. His strength was pure, taut fury—blow after blow, until the soldier’s sword slipped from his grip and, a moment ter, so did his life.

  The lieutenant stepped back, enraged, drawing his own weapon.

  “Bastards!” he roared.

  Kaelor didn’t answer. He faced him with an icy calm. The csh was brutal. Sparks leapt from their bdes, shadows danced over the bodies, fmes roared around them as if eager to consume both fighters. Finally, Kaelor pivoted, dodged a ssh, and drove his sword into the lieutenant’s chest.

  Garr fell to his knees as the light faded from his eyes.

  Silence spread, broken only by the crackling ruins of the vilge.

  Alden remained kneeling, Elena in his arms, his gaze empty. He didn’t cry; he only breathed in ragged bursts, as if his body had forgotten how.

  Kaelor approached slowly.

  “You can’t save her now,” he said in a grave tone, kneeling beside him. “We have to go.”

  The boy didn’t respond. Kaelor took him by the arm and pulled firmly. Alden rose without resistance, his steps dragging, his eyes hollow.

  Kael picked up one of the fallen swords, cast one st look over the burning vilge, and lifted his face to the bckened sky. Then he broke into a run to catch up with the others.

  Hearthglen was burning.

  And with it, the st remnants of everything Alden had ever loved.