The Vale did not look like peace.

It rose before them in fractured light — a ruin half-swallowed by fog, the remnants of marble archways and charred spires standing like broken teeth against the horizon. The air hummed with the cold breath of something ancient, something that remembered the wars that had once been fought beneath its stones.

Elaria’s boots crunched over shattered glass as she dismounted. The wind carried the tang of iron and wet ash. Even the birds refused to sing ...