Snow fell hard that night. But it wasn't the cold that made the air sharp—it was the scent of blood and burning wards.
Atop Vireloch's northern wall, Zareena stood in full armor, her breath fogging in the moonlight. Behind her, the Grey Circle waited—mages with talismans stitched into their cloaks, swords glowing faintly with runes, eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the treeline.
The Hollow King had come.
Arrows laced with sigils whistled into the mist.
Runes flared along the walls—lines Zareena had ordered carved weeks ago. The first wave of ghulain hit the barrier and screamed, dissolving into oily ash.
But the Hollow King raised a hand.
And with a pulse of black wind, the wardlines shattered in places—letting his army pour through like broken ice.
Inside the walls, chaos.
The Grey Circle held their ground.
Rashid fought side by side with Zareena, his blades dancing, spells darting between shadow and fire. They moved in tandem—never touching, never speaking much—but completely attuned. As if some deeper bond had formed in the quiet of survival.
And yet… Zareena bled. Just once. A sharp gash from a ghulain's claw before it was burned to nothing.
The Hollow King saw it. He smiled.
"Even you bleed, Snow-Born. Shall I carve my name into your frost?"
Zareena replied only by drawing the ancient sword she had recovered weeks earlier—one of Seredin's, humming with old magic—and charged.
From the cursed fog rolled the ghulain—twisted things, once men, now bone-pale creatures with stretched limbs and eyeless faces. Their shrieks echoed through the valley, joined by the distant tolling of invisible bells that rattled the minds of the weak.
Seredin stood on the parapets, staff planted, chanting in a tongue forgotten by men. His magic struck the mist—a blast of golden light that burned away a dozen beasts, turning them to ash. But more came.
The Hollow King emerged last, towering and skeletal, a crown of antlers woven from rot and ice. His presence made the wardlines pulse and shudder.
"Do you feel it?" he rasped, his voice like dry leaves.
"This city is waking ancient things… things not meant to wake."
Zareena raised her blade. "And yet you came."
The battle began like thunder.
Ghouls clawed up the walls, shrieking as Grey Circle mages set them alight with burning sigils.
Zareena fought in the thick of it—her blade severing limbs, her voice commanding squads to flank or fall back.
Nasir, wounded in the side, took down three beasts with a broken spear before collapsing.
Children of Vireloch, barely trained, held the inner gate with farming tools and fury.
Rashid Alimov, silent and lethal, cut through the enemy like a storm, shielding Zareena's flank more than once.
Then the Hollow King raised his hand—and the snow rose with it. Dead men from forgotten wars clawed out of the ground. Frozen corpses animated by curses long buried.
Zareena's mages began to falter.
"Fall back to the circle!" she shouted.
Within the plaza, Seredin activated the Last Warding Sigil—a glyph of ancient power etched into the stone itself. It flared, casting blinding light. The Hollow King screamed, his form cracking at the edges.
"You will burn the veil between life and death!" he roared.
"Then let it burn," Zareena answered—and drove her blade through his shadow.
With a final shriek, the Hollow King collapsed into dust, his army dissolving into smoke and rot.
Aftermath Seeds:The Square of Silent Bells is now scorched and warded forever.
Rashid is injured, but refuses to leave Zareena's side.
The veil between the living and the dead is thin in Vireloch now—ghosts are seen in alleys.
Zareena loses 120 soldiers. Names are carved into the Gate Wall.
The people begin to whisper: "The Frost Queen is real."
Meanwhile in the Capital
Thunder cracked—indoors.
In the palace's high chapel, a ritual had gone terribly wrong. Priests from the Church of the Second Flame attempted a forbidden rite—meant to reveal divine will regarding the heir to the throne.
But something else answered.
A flame roared upward, not gold, but black, and the High Priestess collapsed, whispering in tongues. Her final words, before the flames consumed her:
"The north sees what we do not. She walks with a blade meant for kings."