Chapter 168: Ash and Oaths
That night, the Fortress didn’t sleep.
Preparations buzzed like fireflies in shadow, armour reforged, oaths retaken, pacts renewed. Alaine lit an ancient flame in the east tower, one only the blood of the Umbrazin could awaken. Brienne prayed in the moonlight, blade across her lap. Vincent stood just beyond the torches, staring at the stars as if they accused him of things he hadn’t yet done and Isla walked alone through the chapel.
The old sanctuary, where generations of wolves and witches had once knelt, was steeped in silence. The walls still held echoes, not voices, but memories pressed into stone like fingerprints of forgotten power. Time had softened the edges of the runes carved into the pillars, and ivy threaded through cracked arches where starlight now poured like liquid silver.
She lit no candles, spoke no prayers. Dust clung to her boots. Shadows pooled in corners, as if waiting for a name. She only stood before the great window, the one carved in the shape of the Veil and whispered to the wind. She felt the air change as if someone was listening.
“Mother. Father. I need you.”
No voice answered.
But in the reflection on the glass, two faint shapes appeared, a woman with white hair and star-bloom eyes, and a man cloaked in dusk.
Lucira and Corven.
They did not speak, but their eyes held hers and between them, glowing like fire, was a cradle of light.
Elysia, their grandchild. Her hands pressed to her mouth.
“I’ll protect them,” Isla said to the vision, her voice steady. “Even from him. Even from the dark.”
The figures faded. But the warmth remained and outside, above the towers of the Fortress, the first embers of Emberfall flared to life on the horizon. They were a beacon and a warning. The end was no longer coming. It had arrived.
The journey to Emberfall began before sunrise.
No blaring trumpets and no banners. Just the quiet hum of power gathering beneath the earth and the scent of smoke curling on the wind. Isla sat inside the sleek, obsidian-armored car, its engine purring with low promise, enchanted shields layered through the frame. It wasn’t just protection; it was a declaration. This was no longer a fleeing band of rebels. This was a convergence of bloodlines, and they were no longer hiding.
Damian drove with the utmost precision. His hands were firm on the wheel, but tension crept up his neck like a second skin. She could see it in the way he glanced at her when he thought she wasn’t looking, the way his fingers tightened every time the shadows thickened on the road.
Brienne sat beside him in the front, blade across her lap. Vincent, silent and dangerous, leaned against the back window beside Isla. Lucia and Rohen followed in the second vehicle, with Alaine and Leo leading a separate group flanking through the forest paths. The convoy moved like wolves, swift, purposeful, bound by something more than command.
But still… Isla felt it again. Not from the outside but from within.
The stirrings of her Elysia had become more prominent. Whenever she was separated from her Isla felt penetrating heat, a pulse of something older, something awake. The whispers of Emberfall had reached even her baby. She had to leave her behind with her in-laws because they didn’t know what they could find on the way. However, she was beginning to doubt whether that was wise or not. She would have prefered for Damian or her to stay but that wasn’t a choice she could make.
“Something’s shifting,” she murmured, hand on her heart.
Vincent looked at her sideways. “The land knows. Emberfall is a wound and wounds fester before they heal.”
“That’s poetic,” Brienne said dryly from the front.
“It’s true,” he replied, eyes flicking to her but never lingering long. “The old lands… they remember what was done. They remember who bled on them and they remember betrayal.”
At that, the car grew quiet because betrayal wasn’t past tense, it was present, still unfolding and even though Vincent was proving himself to be an ally it was still a dark splinter in Damian’s heart.
Damian’s voice finally broke the silence. “There are scouts ahead and they aren’t ours.”
Isla’s breath caught. “Enemies?”
“Unknown,” Brienne said. “But they’re not moving. They’re watching.”
Isla closed her eyes and reached, not with her hands, but with the part of her now fully awake. The part that carried blood of Veyra and Sombrosi, the part that Lucira had once sealed for her protection. That seal had long since broken. Her mind brushed the forest edges. There was a flicker of a presence. It didn’t seem to be an enemy. She opened her eyes. “They’re waiting.”
“For what?” Brienne asked.
“To see if we’re worthy.”