Chapter 17: Through It All

The night was quiet, save for the weary shuffle of boots against dirt. Smoke still curled into the sky, a thick, black pillar marking the grave of the Forsaken Spire. Even miles away, its destruction loomed in the distance—a wound upon the horizon that would never heal.

Kieran walked among the survivors, their faces pale and hollow. The heat of battle had faded, but exhaustion remained, etched into every movement, every breath. Some clutched wounds hastily wrapped in torn cloth, others carried those who could not walk. There were no words, no cries of mourning. Grief had settled too deep for sound.

Beside him, Rhea kept her stride even, though Kieran could see the stiffness in her shoulders, the exhaustion in her gaze. Elias trailed just behind, uncharacteristically quiet. There was no room for his usual sarcasm, no space for lightness in the heavy air.

Kieran glanced over his shoulder. There were fewer than he had hoped—too few. How many had they left behind? How many had fallen to the Wraithborns? To the Council's betrayal? He clenched his jaw, shoving the thoughts aside. Dwelling on the dead would not bring them back.

Ahead, the land stretched into darkness, an endless expanse of unknown. Vareth lay somewhere beyond, but in this moment, it felt impossibly far. He wasn't sure what awaited them there. Would they be welcomed? Or would the city's walls close against them, treating them as the Spire once had—outsiders, problems to be ignored?

Rhea's voice was quiet when she finally spoke. "They're scared."

Kieran didn't need to ask who she meant. The survivors moved like ghosts, their steps hesitant and uncertain. They had fought, they had fled, and now they had nothing left because they had lost everything..

Elias sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Can't blame them. I'd rather be passed out in a half-decent bed than marching through the wilderness toward a city that might not even want us."

Kieran nodded slightly but said nothing. He could feel the question hanging in the air—What now? It was the question in every set of weary eyes that glanced his way. He had led them out of the burning wreckage of the Spire, but he had no plan beyond that.

For so long, his purpose had been clear: fight, survive and to uncover the truth. But now the war was over and the lies were exposed. The Spire was gone. The world stretched wide before them. And he had no idea what came next.

Rhea seemed to sense the shift in him. She nudged him lightly with her elbow. "We'll figure it out."

He let out a slow breath. "Yeah."

The road stretched ahead, dark and uncertain. But they walked it together.

__

The walls of Vareth loomed ahead, the towers silhouetted against the burning horizon. Kieran felt every step, his boots sinking into the damp earth. Behind him, the survivors moved in a slow, exhausted march—wounded, hollow-eyed, their bodies more shadow than flesh.

Rhea walked at his side, silent for the first time in what felt like ages. Her usual sharpness had dulled, her shoulders heavy with uknown burdens. Elias trailed just behind them, his fingers twitching at his sword hilt every time the wind shifted.

"They won't welcome us," Rhea murmured finally, voice hoarse from smoke and exhaustion.

"They should," Elias countered. "We're all that's left."

Kieran exhaled slowly. He had no illusions about the kind of reception they'd receive. Vareth had never been a place of mercy. They had spent generations fighting for scraps, warring with themselves even before the Spire cast them out. Now, with their great enemy fallen, there was no telling what kind of world they would be walking into.

As they drew closer, figures appeared along the walls, their shapes barely visible in the torchlight. No one shouted and no orders rang out. The silence was more unsettling than outright hostility.

Then, with the slow groan of rusted metal, the gates creaked open.

A lone figure emerged from the entrance—a tall woman, her armor battered, her face unreadable beneath a mask of grime and dried blood. Kieran recognized her immediately.

Sylvaine, Warden of Vareth.

He met her gaze, searching for something—recognition, warning, perhaps even relief. But her eyes were cold as they swept over the bedraggled group at his back.

"The Spire is gone," she said simply.

"Yes," Kieran answered.

Sylvaine tilted her head, considering him. "And you expect Vareth to take you in?"

A murmur rippled through the survivors. Kieran felt their eyes on him as they waited and hoped. He squared his shoulders.

"I expect nothing," he said. "But we have nowhere else to go."

Sylvaine looked at him a moment longer, then her gaze shifted to Rhea and Elias. Finally, she stepped aside, gesturing toward the open gates.

"Then you'd best step carefully," she said. "Vareth has no love for ghosts."

Without another word, she turned and walked back into the city.

Kieran hesitated only a breath longer before following, leading the last remnants of the Spire into a world that had already left them behind.

__

(6 Months Later)

The wind howled over the cliffs, carrying the scent of rain and earth that was clean. The survivors stood in silence, gazes fixed on the horizon beyond Vareth.

Before them stretched a vast, untouched expanse. Rolling plains sprawled toward the horizon, broken only by distant rivers and dark clusters of mountains. The sky was wider here, the air free of the charged weight of the Spire's storm.

Kieran stepped forward, boots sinking slightly into the soil. They were leaving Vareth as the people there didn't trust them fully and they were afraid they would bring back their politics from the spire. But they appreciated the hospitality that they got immediately after the Spire vanished.

A quiet laugh escaped Rhea. Not out of joy, but something more brittle—disbelief, perhaps. "All this time," she murmured. "All this time, and we never even thought to look beyond."

Elias stood with his arms crossed. "Because we lacked the capacity to think with all the control those incels had over us."

Kieran turned. The realization sat heavy in Kieran's chest.

He glanced at the others. Survivors of The Spire now healed stood behind them. They were not soldiers, not rulers. Just remnants of a broken past standing on the threshold of something new.

A new future.

Rhea shifted beside him. "So what now?"

The question hung between them.

Kieran looked at the distant world stretching before them. For the first time in his life, there was no map, no orders, no path laid out by someone else. Only the choice he made next.

He turned back to the others, voice steady.

"We move forward."

And with that, he took the first step.

The first step forward should have felt like liberation.

Instead, it felt like stepping into the unknown with shackles still dragging behind.

Kieran walked ahead, exhaustion pressing down on his limbs, yet something heavier gnawed at his chest. The others followed in silence—Rhea close by, Elias a steady presence at his side, and the surviving remnants of both the Spire trailing behind.

The wind had changed. No longer thick with the scent of ash and burning stone, but carrying the crisp freshness of untamed land. It should have been reassuring. It wasn't.

They were alive. But at what cost?

Kieran slowed as he reached a small outcropping of stone, looking back over the people who had followed him here.

This wasn't victory.

It was survival.

A part of him wanted to believe that was enough. That living past the fall of the Spire meant they had won. But as he looked at the hollow expressions around him, he knew better. He thought that even after 6 months in Vareth the people would forget but they didn't.

Elias exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. "They're waiting," he muttered, barely audible over the wind.

Kieran nodded. He had spent so long fighting to reach this moment—fighting to break the chains of the past, to end the Council's lies, and that dream had come true, even though it required a lot of sacrifice.

The survivors needed more than just escape. They needed direction. A reason to keep moving.

Rhea shifted beside him, watching him carefully. "You don't have to carry this alone," she murmured.

He let out a quiet breath, his fingers relaxing slightly. "I know."

But knowing it didn't make it easier.

The ghosts of the Spire still clung to them—their failures, their losses. Vaelen Strake, Reven, the countless others who hadn't made it this far.

The weight of the dead was heavier than the living.

Kieran turned back toward the survivors, taking a slow breath.

He wasn't a Stormguard anymore. The Spire was gone, and with it, the cycle of lies and war.

But something else had begun.

He wasn't sure what it was yet.

But he would find out.

One step at a time.

He met Rhea's gaze, then Elias's.

And then, without another word, Kieran turned and led them forward—into the unknown.

The wind carried no tales of the past. No echoes of the Spire's final collapse, no cries of those left behind. Only silence.

Kieran now stood at a never seen edge of the known world, staring out at the vast land before them. It stretched beyond the horizon—rolling hills untouched by war, rivers winding like silver veins through the valley, and forests dense with a life neither the Spire nor Vareth had ever known.

A world unshaped by the old lies. A world they had never even dared to imagine.

He let out a slow breath

Behind him, the survivors lingered in hesitation. They were people without a home now. Just remnants of a broken past, standing at the threshold of something new.

Kieran turned.

Rhea's gaze met his, searching his face for him to say anything. She still carried herself like a warrior—shoulders squared, blade always within reach—but there was something else in her now. A quiet understanding, a steadiness that told him she would walk this road with him, no matter where it led.

Elias stood beside her, his eyes scanning the land ahead. He had always been the one to see things for what they were. Practical, and unflinching. But now, for the first time since Kieran had met him, he looked… hopeful.

Not in the way of someone who knew the future. But in the way of someone who was willing to meet it.

The survivors murmured amongst themselves, as they waited to embrace a new beginning.

Waiting for someone to speak and To lead.

Kieran had never wanted to be a leader. He had never asked for any of this. But here, now, there was no one else to take the first step.

So he did.

"It doesn't matter what we were before," he said, his voice carrying over the gathered crowd. "The Spire is gone. Vareth is behind us. We don't have banners anymore. We don't have kings or councils telling us who we are."

He glanced at Rhea, at Elias, then back at the people watching him.

"But we are still here."

A breath of wind moved through the group, and Kieran let his words settle.

He thought of Vaelen Strake, of the ones lost in the fires of war. He thought of the lies they had fought that cost them their lives and all the manipulations.

The past was behind them now.

Ahead, there was only possibility.

He turned and looked out over the endless landscape once more.

And then he stepped forward.

One step.

Then another.

Behind him, the others followed.

And as they walked toward the unknown, toward the future they would forge with their own hands, the first light of dawn crested the horizon.

The cycle was broken.

The story was theirs to write now.

And they would not turn back.