The wind moaned through the shattered arches of the Shivering Span, a sound halfway between sorrow and warning. Cael stood where the bridge had once sung with the thunder of hooves and the banners of the five banners snapped proud in the cold light of dawn. Now it was splintered stone, ragged cloth, and blood still darkening the cracks beneath his boots.
He took a step forward, careful not to disturb the dead. They lay where they had fallen—friend and foe together, sprawled in final kinship. Smoke curled from the remains of a scorched siege cart, the embers stubborn despite the frost settling into the ruin.
Cael's breath came in puffs, each exhale a ghost. He counted them—one, two, three—because it was easier than counting the bodies.
They had won.
Hadn't they?
Somewhere beyond the broken span, the river whispered, its icy current pulling away the last traces of bloodshed. The water, at least, was clean. Innocent.
Cael crouched beside a fallen knight, the armor scorched and half-melted. The sigil on the breastplate—a crimson hawk in flight—was warped, talons turned askew. Cael remembered that hawk diving for him once, remembered the roar of its bearer, the swing of a glaive that had nearly taken his arm.
He reached out and closed the knight's eyes.
There had been no glory in the ending. Only exhaustion. Only silence.
From the corner of his eye, movement.
He rose sharply, hand to sword, and paused.
A shape huddled in the lee of a collapsed pylon—small, breathing. Not dead.
Cael approached slowly, mud sucking at his boots.
It was a soldier, barely more than a boy. His uniform marked him as Adrexian. Enemy. His arm was bound crudely with strips of his own shirt, the blood long dried, lips cracked, eyes glazed.
But alive.
Cael hesitated.
Then: "Do you want to die here?"
The boy blinked, a slow drag of lashes. "No," he rasped.
"Then you don't get to." Cael knelt, pulled water from his flask, and pressed it to the boy's mouth.
He drank greedily. When he coughed, Cael steadied him.
"Why?" the boy asked, voice raw.
Cael looked around at the dead. "Because someone has to stop the killing."
The makeshift bandage on the soldier's arm was soaked through, a dull brown halo spreading like bruised parchment. Cael tightened it with careful hands, his fingers stiff from cold and something heavier—guilt, maybe. Or the bone-deep fatigue that sets in once purpose leaves you.
"Name?" he asked.
The boy winced. "Tenn."
"Tenn. Right." Cael rocked back on his heels and scanned the bridge. "We'll need to get you off this span before your bones freeze."
"No point," Tenn murmured. "Your folk'll kill me once we're across."
Cael didn't respond immediately. He watched a raven pecking at a body three paces away, unbothered by the argument of uniforms. There was no right side anymore. Only survivors.
"They'll listen to me," he said finally.
"Why would they?"
Cael rose. "Because I won."
It was a bitter thing to say. It tasted of ash.
Tenn's eyes widened, and for a moment, Cael saw the boy as he might have been: laughing in a market, stealing apples with friends, dreaming of glory.
He didn't help Tenn up. Not yet. The boy needed to decide whether to reach for life.
When he finally did, Cael caught his wrist and pulled him to his feet.
They walked.
The bridge groaned beneath them, still unstable from the collapse. Cael's memories snagged on every stone—the ambush by the east buttress, the magefire that lit the sky in green sheets, Dalen's last scream as he fell. It played in loops. Every step was another replay.
Tenn stumbled. Cael caught him.
"There," Cael said, pointing through the fog. "See that? That's the old watchtower."
"Abandoned."
"Not anymore."
They reached it by midday. The tower was as Cael remembered—crumbling, moss-choked, but dry inside. He laid Tenn down on a bedroll scavenged from a fallen pack and lit a fire with trembling fingers.
Tenn slept, mouth parted, dreaming of quieter places.
Cael sat by the flame, legs drawn to his chest. In the ashes at the tower's edge, he saw something gleam faintly. He reached for it.
A disc of tarnished bronze. Etched with a symbol he barely remembered—two crescent moons locked in eclipse.
It pulsed once, warm as a heartbeat.
Cael closed his hand around it.
Outside, thunder rolled far away.
The fire crackled softly, sending dancing shadows across the watchtower's stone walls. Cael turned the bronze disc over in his hands, thumbs tracing the grooves. The symbol shimmered faintly with residual magic—ancient, forgotten, but not gone. Like so much else he'd thought lost.
He hadn't told Tenn about it. Not yet. Let the boy rest.
Outside, the wind carried the faint sound of bells. Not temple bells—those were gone—but the windchimes left behind by a long-dead hermit who had once lived in the lower rooms of the tower. Cael remembered him vaguely: wild-eyed, always muttering about stars beneath the earth.
"You think the world knows we're still alive?" Cael asked the fire.
Tenn stirred, half-conscious. "Doesn't matter. We are."
Cael nodded, more to himself than anyone.
He rose at dawn, careful not to wake Tenn, and stepped outside. The Shivering Span was quiet now, a silhouette in the early mist. The bones of battle had gone still.
He climbed the slope behind the tower, following a path overgrown with frost-dusted weeds. The air was crisp, the silence thick.
At the ridge's top, he found what he'd hoped for: a cairn of stones, untouched. Dalen's.
He knelt beside it.
"I made it," he whispered. "We held the line."
A breeze answered, lifting a lock of his hair, as if Dalen had heard.
He added another stone to the cairn, then placed the bronze disc on top.
"I'll come back," he promised.
And this time, he meant it.
Behind him, the sun broke through the clouds, pale gold spilling over the wreckage like absolution.
The path back down to the tower was easier in the sunlight. Cael moved slowly, not because of weariness—though he felt that too—but because there was no longer any reason to hurry. The fighting was over.
The cost, though, still clung to him like smoke.
Tenn was awake when Cael returned, propped against the tower wall, blanket wrapped tight. His eyes followed Cael with the wariness of someone who'd learned that safety often preceded betrayal.
"You left," he said.
"I came back."
Tenn grunted, as if that answered more than it did.
Cael lowered himself beside the fire, poured the last of his rations into a pot, and stirred. Roots, dried meat, a few shriveled berries. Enough for a meal.
"You still planning to turn me in?" Tenn asked.
"No," Cael said. "I'm not turning anyone in anymore."
Tenn tilted his head. "Then what are you planning?"
Cael paused, spoon hovering over the pot. He hadn't decided yet. Not really.
But the bronze disc's warmth lingered in his mind, its steady pulse like a heartbeat beneath stone.
"I'm planning to build something," he said. "From the wreckage."
Tenn blinked. "You mean… like a home?"
Cael shrugged. "Maybe. Or a story. Something better than this."
They ate in silence for a while.
When the pot was empty and the fire had dwindled to embers, Cael leaned back and looked through the tower's broken arch. The bridge stood like a scar, stark against the thawing horizon.
He imagined what it might look like repaired. Not as it was before—but better. Safer. Maybe even beautiful again.
Behind him, Tenn whispered, "Do you think it's over?"
"No," Cael said. "But I think it could be."
The boy sighed and curled deeper into the blankets.
Cael stayed awake, listening to the chimes ring gently on the wind.
They sounded, just faintly, like laughter.
The next day came with a sky full of broken clouds and hesitant sun. Cael and Tenn stood at the edge of the span again, the river far below whispering secrets they couldn't hear.
"Are we going back?" Tenn asked.
"No," Cael said. "We're going forward."
It took them the better part of the morning to scavenge supplies from the wreckage—blankets, intact packs, a half-crushed satchel of healer's herbs. Cael found a battered journal soaked through with blood, the ink gone to blots. He tucked it into his cloak anyway.
They moved slowly, not just because of Tenn's limp, but because every few steps brought another memory. Another ghost.
By noon, they reached the far end of the bridge where the old border marker still stood: a carved stone obelisk with names worn smooth by time and war. Cael rested a hand on it.
"I crossed this when I was fifteen," he said. "Thought I was walking toward glory."
Tenn snorted. "And you found what? Mud?"
Cael smiled. "And worse."
They didn't speak for a while after that. The road ahead forked—left toward the remains of Eredar, right into the hills and forests where no one ruled.
Cael pointed right.
"We'll make camp by the Silver Elm. I know a place."
Tenn didn't argue.
They reached it by evening: a glade wrapped in pale-leaved trees, a stream running slow and clear. Cael started a fire while Tenn gathered stones to ring it.
Later, as stars blinked through the canopy, Cael held the bronze disc again.
"I think it's from before the Kingdoms," he murmured.
Tenn yawned. "So it's old."
"Older than war, maybe."
They fell asleep beneath the silver leaves, the disc between them, its faint pulse echoing the rhythm of two breaths.
When Cael dreamed, it wasn't of battle, or loss, or broken bridges.
He dreamed of laughter in the trees. Of a world mending itself one quiet heartbeat at a time.
Morning found them warmed by fire and wrapped in a silence that no longer felt hollow. Cael stretched, joints creaking, and let his gaze drift to the stream. The water sparkled in places where sunlight cut through the branches.
Tenn was already up, crouched by the bank, poking a stick at something in the shallows.
"What is it?" Cael called.
"Fish," Tenn replied. "Or something pretending to be one."
Cael rose and wandered over, cloak brushing grass still damp with dew. Sure enough, in the stream's lazy current, silver scales flashed—a dozen tiny fish flickering like coins.
"They weren't here yesterday," Cael said.
"Maybe they heard we stopped killing things."
Cael chuckled. "You're funnier when you're not bleeding."
Tenn grinned, and for a moment, they were just two boys by a stream. Not soldiers. Not survivors.
Cael stepped into the water, boots off, letting the cold numb his toes.
"What now?" Tenn asked.
Cael looked at the bronze disc in his hand. It no longer pulsed, but it was warm to the touch—like a sunlit stone.
"We follow the stream," he said. "See where it takes us."
"No more battles?"
"No more bridges to burn."
Tenn considered that, then nodded.
They packed up, shoulders brushing as they walked. The stream led them east, where rumors spoke of green valleys and forgotten towns. Cael didn't know if they'd find peace there.
But they'd find something.
Behind them, the glade whispered its goodbye.
Above, the sky stretched wide and waiting.
The path along the stream wound through unfamiliar lands, a tapestry of rustling leaves and dew-drenched grass that shimmered like woven starlight. Birds called overhead—some Cael recognized, others new to his ears.
They didn't speak much.
There was comfort in the quiet.
Around midday, they stumbled upon a crooked signpost, half-swallowed by ivy. One arm pointed north: "To Halowmere, if the wind is kind." The other read simply, "Home?"
Tenn stared at it, then looked to Cael.
"Which way's the wind kindest?"
Cael laughed, a real laugh that surprised even him. "We'll make our own wind."
They turned east, past the sign, and found a place where the stream bent wide into a crescent pool, its banks littered with wildflowers. Here, they paused.
Cael set down his pack and removed the disc once more. It no longer glowed, no longer pulsed. But when he placed it in the water, it sank slowly and settled into the streambed, sending out a ripple.
The plants along the edge bent slightly toward it.
Magic, he thought. Not the kind that burns cities—but the kind that mends them.
When he turned to Tenn, the boy was smiling.
They built a cairn there—stones stacked not for mourning, but as a marker. A beginning.
Tenn carved their names into bark with the point of a broken spear. Not rank. Not titles. Just names.
The wind carried petals from the trees, and the water shimmered with promise.
Cael sat, hands in the grass, heart light.
The thunder was gone.
In its place: a quiet that did not ache.
Evening fell in slow amber, painting the trees in hues of burnished copper. A fox passed through the glade, pausing just long enough to blink at them before vanishing into the underbrush.
Cael lay back on the moss with arms behind his head, listening to the soft gurgle of the stream and the distant hush of wind through leaves. His muscles ached less today. Or maybe his heart did.
Tenn sat nearby, whittling a piece of wood into something vaguely bird-shaped.
"I think I'll stay here a while," Tenn said quietly.
Cael opened one eye. "Not coming further?"
"Not yet. This place feels… like a pause."
"A safe one."
Tenn nodded.
They were quiet again for a while, but it was the silence of shared understanding, not avoidance.
Cael watched the stars arrive one by one. He hadn't looked at stars in a long time without expecting omens or orders.
He whispered their names to himself—the ones Dalen used to teach around the campfires. The Weaver, the Twin Blades, the Hidden Cup.
Across the stream, fireflies danced.
Tomorrow, Cael would walk on. He didn't know where the path would lead, but that no longer frightened him.
Tonight, he rested beside the boy he didn't kill, in a world that had not ended.
The final image he saw before sleep was a single silver leaf drifting down from the trees, landing on the cairn they had built.
Stillness settled.
And held.
Dawn was soft.
No trumpets. No alarms. Just the hush of mist over the stream and the faint chirp of birds testing morning's patience. Cael sat by the water's edge, feet bare, letting the cold creep into his bones. He didn't mind. It was clean pain.
Behind him, Tenn still slept, wrapped in a blanket that smelled of smoke and river grass.
Cael turned a stone over in his hands—a smooth one, shaped like a teardrop. It felt like the world now: heavy, quiet, and waiting.
He placed it beside the disc in the water, where moss had already begun to gather.
The stream moved around it without protest.
He watched for a while, then stood and gathered his things.
He left Tenn a note scratched onto the back of a page from the blood-stained journal.
When you're ready, follow the river. I'll be waiting in the valley. Don't worry—no more bridges to cross. Just water to follow.
—C.
He paused at the edge of the glade.
One last look. One breath.
Then he stepped into the trees, where the path curved out of sight and birds called names he didn't yet know.
The quiet walked with him.
Not behind. Beside.
The trail sloped downward through pines and bramble, the kind of path no one marked on maps. Cael's boots scuffed leaves, his breath slow and even. Every few steps he paused, listening—not for danger, but for affirmation.
The world answered with birdsong and the skitter of chipmunks.
By midday he reached a ridge overlooking a wide, broken plain. Once, armies might've moved through here. Now, only the wind traveled freely. Flowers poked through the ruins of a burned cart. A rusted helm had become home to a vine.
He sat on a fallen log and unwrapped the last of his bread.
There was peace in this. The small, slow kind that didn't announce itself. It just… settled.
As he ate, he thought of the disc in the stream. Of Tenn's lopsided smile. Of the cairn they'd built not out of mourning, but defiance.
He wasn't sure when he'd stopped feeling afraid.
Maybe it had happened between breaths.
When he finished, he wiped his hands on his cloak and picked up his pack. The path ahead was unclear. But it was his.
Cael walked forward, not because he had to—but because he could.
And the quiet came with him, warm now.
Almost like a friend.
At the base of the ridge, Cael found a tree—old, its bark gnarled into the shapes of faces. Someone had once carved words into it, long faded by rain and time.
He ran a hand across the etchings. The grooves still whispered.
This is not the end.
He smiled.
Pulling a piece of charcoal from his satchel, he scrawled a reply beside it.
Then let it be a beginning.
The wind tugged at his cloak as he stepped back.
And then, with the sun on his face and the ache in his chest slowly lifting, Cael turned and kept walking.
Toward whatever came next.