Return to Northreach.
The road back to the keep was lined with frost and silence. Renard rode at the front, his coat tattered but clean, the edges darkened from old blood and colder victories. Around him, Alpha and Omega rode in formation—still scarred from the siege, but straighter-backed than they'd ever been. They were no longer merely survivors. They were soldiers molded by trial.
As they reached the outer gate, the wind caught a new banner rising above the walls. A silver fang over a cracked crown—his sigil, stitched onto battle-worn gray. It snapped like a herald of something sharp returning.
Renard dismounted.
He watched the banner rise. Not in triumph. In warning.
The ranks behind him straightened, and whispers quieted.
Then came the knights.
Twenty-five of them now, clad in obsidian-dyed armor with visors down, their movements inhumanly quiet. No hoofbeats. No orders. No herald. They were already stationed across the battlements and the inner courtyard, perfectly spaced, perfectly still.
They had not arrived. They had been waiting.
One stepped forward, helm tucked beneath an arm.
"Orders, Warden?" he asked.
Renard studied them, gaze cold. Then he spoke—only three words:
"Meet me in the council room at once."
And the banner above cracked again like thunder—sharp, echoing, like a war drum striking in the belly of the sky. It wasn't celebration. It was a declaration. A ghost had come home, and war would follow.
The First Council
The great hall of Northreach Keep had been cleared and redressed. The air smelled faintly of old oil, firewood, and sharpened steel. Long tables once buried in dust were now aligned with military precision. A map of the region had been unfurled across the main table—scarred with ink, pinpoints, and lines of red thread.
Renard stood at the head.
On either side sat the leaders of every force under his banner.
Kael, leaned back lazily, two fingers tapping a blade pommel. Sorell, upright and formal as always. Maera and Elric of Phantom Squad—quiet, attentive, dangerous.
The new captain of C-Team, Orin Velas—slight of build but sharp-eyed, his temples inked with layered spell-sigils.
The recently promoted head of the Northreach Bastion, Captain Darnic Thorne—barely twenty, flint-eyed, with callused knuckles from trench brawls no one won clean.
And standing just behind them, the captain of the Black Sigil knights—Veyran Duskhelm, his face stone-carved, eyes like steel left out in winter, helm under one arm, unmoving.
Renard didn't raise his voice.
"There's a war coming," he said.
Murmurs stilled.
"We have two weeks."
That stirred movement—Sorell leaned forward, Kael sat up, even Elric blinked once.
Only the Black Sigil captain seemed unaffected. But his gaze sharpened slightly. Calculating.
"Veyran stepped forward slightly, voice quiet but edged.
"Curious," he said. "That number. Two weeks. Same window we received in sealed war orders. Yet I saw no courier deliver it here."
The air stilled. Even Sorell frowned slightly. Orin's quill paused mid-note.
Renard didn't flinch.
"The war doesn't wait for couriers," he said. "And some ghosts don't need letters to see what's coming."
And then Renard gestured to the map.
"I intend to conscript and restructure the entire Bastion—one hundred and forty-six men—into our standing forces."
He moved along the table as he spoke, tapping points on the map.
"Alpha will take those with discipline. Shields. Formation. Groundholders."
He nodded to Sorell.
"Omega: chaos specialists. High-risk strikers. Anyone who fights like a firestorm with no leash."
Kael smirked.
"C-Team gets support types—illusionists, medics, rune-crafters, arcane taggers."
Orin Velas gave a thoughtful nod.
"Phantom Squad remains mine. They get the ones I can't explain with words."
At that, both Maera and Nyra smiled.
"And the Black Sigil?" Sorell asked.
Renard turned.
"They remain as they are. They answer to me, and only to me. No integration. No pairing."
No one questioned that.
He rolled up the map.
"We begin assessment drills tomorrow. My skills will evaluate them faster than any field test. I will know what they're worth. And they will prove if they deserve to stay."
A beat passed.
"And what if they don't?" the Bastion captain asked quietly.
"Then we make them," Renard said.
Later that night
Outside, snow began to fall—soft, but steady.
Renard stood alone on the battlements, watching as torches flickered to life one by one.
The keep had life again.
It had order.
But not yet purpose.
Behind him, the low hum of steel brushing against whetstone echoed faintly from the courtyard below. Soldiers, once fractured, now drilled in pairs. The Black Sigil knights stood like statues among them, silent and assessing.
Then came the hawk.
It circled once before diving down, wings slicing the cold air like a scythe. It landed on the stone rail, talons tight, a message secured to its leg.
Renard took it without hesitation.
[Ruins near Black Hollow Watch report movement. Unknown forces. Two weeks to contact. Intel confirmed.]
He read it twice, each word etching itself into a deeper groove in his mind.
He folded the parchment, tucked it inside his coat.
The timing wasn't coincidence.
He turned and descended the stairs, footsteps quiet but certain.
At the base, two shadows fell into step beside him—Kael and Elric, wordless as always.
Renard didn't stop walking.
"Wake them," he said.
"All of them. We start drilling for hell."