Voice in the Storm
Mira stood before the Ridgefall High Council, her robes still dusted in soot from Emberholt's forgotten tunnels, her eyes hard with the weight of what she'd seen. The chamber, once rich with banners and the hum of diplomacy, now sat frayed and brittle, like the people it governed—rulers of a land steadily slipping into dread.
"They've broken the seals," she said plainly. "Emberholt was the first breach. Something came through. Something not meant to live. Not even meant to exist."
The councilors shifted uneasily in their tiered seats, eyes flickering toward one another. Chancellor Grevan, the youngest, tried to sound firm. "The Council of Hollowspire wouldn't risk that. If what you say is true—"
"They already have," Mira cut in, voice rising like a blade drawn too fast. "The Vaults were real. I touched them. And now they're unraveling chains buried before your ancestors were born."
An older woman, Councilor Dethra, frowned from behind iron spectacles. "Your kind has walked dreams, Mira, but fear distorts memory. How do we know what you saw wasn't illusion?"
Mira didn't flinch. Instead, she pulled free the half-melted sigil stone from Emberholt—a piece of the burned ward-circle, still pulsing with residual magic. She hurled it across the marble floor. When it struck, the glow flared—and a whisper of the chained scream that once echoed through that rift shuddered through the hall.
Silence followed. Cold and complete.
Then, from the shadows at the far end, Alaric stepped forward. He said nothing at first—he didn't need to. His presence spoke of a thousand buried truths. The wolf reborn. The prince returned. The weapon they thought lost to time.
"If you hesitate now," Alaric said, "you won't have time to regret it. Hollowspire has declared war in a way no army can answer. They're releasing the old ones—the First Failed. And they've started with Emberholt because they thought it would fall quietly."
He looked around the chamber, locking eyes with each noble and commander.
"But we heard it scream."
A murmur rippled. Councilor Borien stood slowly. "Even if we believe you—and gods help us, I think I do—what are you suggesting? That Ridgefall stand alone against whatever these creatures are?"
"No," Mira said quickly. "We don't stand alone. We rally every banner. Every outpost. Every bloodline that the Council tried to purge. If they're unleashing monsters forgotten by time, then we gather the truths they tried to bury with them."
Alaric nodded. "We build a second Accord. A pact of the hunted. Wolves. Dreamwalkers. The Broken-Born. Even the Wyrmkin exiles. We stop them before this becomes an extinction."
Another silence followed—this time charged, not with disbelief, but awakening. The council felt it.
They were standing at the edge of history.
"Ridgefall is yours," said Dethra, slowly. "But if you ask us to follow, to burn our neutrality, you must carry the flame."
Alaric stepped beside Mira, and in that moment, her hand found his.
Together they answered.
"We already are."