Chapter 4: Echoes of a Dead God

The Iron Pass was a graveyard before they arrived. Skeletons in imperial armor lined the narrow gorge, picked clean by carrion birds, their crimson banners shredded by wind and time. Somewhere ahead, the empire’s supply convoy rumbled toward the capital—a hundred wagons of grain, steel, and black powder. Kael’s hand rested on the hilt of his sword as he crouched behind a boulder. Seraphine knelt beside him, her eyes closed, lips moving in a language no living tongue had spoken in two decades. When she opened her eyes, they were not her own. ‘The god of this pass still lingers,’ she whispered, her voice layered with something ancient and terrible. ‘He wants to help.’ Kael looked at the dead soldiers, then at the convoy, and made the choice that would either save them all or damn them forever.