The Summons

The day after Maerlyn revealed the map, Frostfang buzzed like a hive. Messengers on swift horses galloped through the gates at dawn, each bearing a scroll marked with Aldric's seal. Their hooves rang against the cobbles like distant war drums.

In the courtyard, Kaelin trained a fresh band of recruits. Many were scarcely older than boys, their hands raw from sword practice, eyes wide with fear but lit with something fiercer. Hope.

She barked orders until their arms shook, refusing to let them rest.

"You think you have time to feel sorry for yourselves?" she snarled, pacing before them. "You don't. The next monster won't wait for you to be ready."

One boy, pale and thin as a reed, dared to speak. "Captain — do you think they'll come soon?"

Kaelin paused, studying him, then nodded.

"Yes," she said grimly. "Sooner than any of us would wish."

Meanwhile, in the great hall, Aldric held counsel with the survivors of the noble houses. The banners of each family were scorched and ragged, yet they stood — battered, but unbowed.

"We must look outward now," Aldric told them, voice steady as iron. "Frostfang cannot stand alone. You will each send envoys to your allies, to call for aid."

Lord Herend, whose lands bordered the eastern pines, scowled. "Your Majesty, my people have lost everything. How can I send men elsewhere, when my own villages still burn?"

Aldric met his eyes without blinking. "Because if we do nothing, the next horror will burn us all. We rebuild together, or we die alone."

A heavy silence fell. Then, one by one, they nodded.

Maerlyn, meanwhile, had retreated to the cathedral's tower once more. Candles ringed her like a halo, their flames dancing in a silent chorus. She pored over scroll after scroll, hunting hints of ancient gateways where the dream realm bled into the waking.

On a battered parchment, she traced a symbol: a ring of seven eyes, like stars in a circle. Her breath caught.

The Circle of Sable, she realized.

Whispered in old lore as the guardians of reality's thin places, the Circle had once walked among kings and beggars alike, sealing tears in the veil.

If they still exist, she thought, they might know how to close these rifts before they open.

But they were legend — lost, or hiding.

Maerlyn set her jaw. She would find them.

Outside the walls, as the land healed, another threat stirred.

In the black marsh, still steaming from the cleansing fires, something moved beneath the cracked mud. A presence, ancient and patient, pressed against the waking world. The devourer had been slain, but its dying scream had traveled far — an unholy beacon.

And somewhere beyond the mountains, in a cavern painted with strange blue light, a creature of twisted skin and bone lifted its head, as if smelling blood across leagues of land.

It shivered, delighted.

On the tenth night after the battle, Frostfang's people gathered again in the square. They lit a great bonfire, piled high with the broken remnants of the marsh creature's bones, its armorlike shell turned to brittle ruin.

Rowena led a prayer, her voice calm and strong.

"May these ashes stand as warning," she intoned, "and as hope. For we are still here."

The flames roared high, spitting embers into the dark sky. Children clung to their parents. Elders held one another's hands. The terror had changed them, but it had not destroyed them.

Kaelin watched from the shadows, uneasy. Her gut told her this peace would be short, that something worse crouched on the horizon.

She turned when Maerlyn approached, robes whipping in the hot breeze.

"Captain," the mage murmured, "I will leave at dawn."

Kaelin stiffened. "Alone?"

"I must," Maerlyn said. "The Circle of Sable — I believe they are the only ones who can help us. And they will not come here. I must go to them."

Kaelin frowned. "If you die out there, who will protect the king from these rifts?"

Maerlyn rested a hand on her armored shoulder. "You will."

Kaelin swallowed hard, then nodded. "Then go. I will hold the line."

At dawn, Maerlyn departed, a lone figure on horseback, her staff gleaming faintly with protective runes. She rode into the waking mist, never once looking back.

The days that followed were a blur of rebuilding. Masons repaired the keep. Farmers began coaxing green shoots from the scorched earth. Carpenters raised new walls, stronger and higher than before.

But the scars could not be hidden. Every household had lost someone.

Rowena moved among them, blessing the dying and comforting the living, her voice never faltering. Yet each night, alone in her small cell, she wept for the weight she carried.

Far to the south, Maerlyn's journey grew perilous. She crossed tangled forests where the air smelled of rot and the trees leaned in close, whispering half-formed curses. She passed through villages where people fled at the sight of her staff, so fearful had they become of magic.

On the thirteenth night, she slept beside a stream, and the wind itself seemed to speak to her.

We see you, it hissed.

We remember the circle.

Maerlyn sat bolt upright, scanning the darkness.

"Who speaks?"

No answer — only the water burbling over black stones, cold and merciless.

Back in Frostfang, word began to arrive from the outlands. Aldric read letter after letter, each one a plea or a warning.

Bandits had grown bold, knowing the city was wounded. Small, clawed things — half-nightmare, half-mortal — were seen prowling the edges of lonely farms.

Kaelin tightened security until no mouse could cross the walls unseen. Still, she felt the enemy closing in.

"Let them come," she growled, checking the keen edge of her sword. "They'll find no easy prey here."

On Maerlyn's fourteenth day of travel, she reached a ruined watchtower, half-buried in moss. There, in the shattered stones, she found a mark burned into the earth: the ring of seven eyes.

Her heart leapt.

"They were here," she whispered.

But the mark felt…wrong. Corrupted, as though twisted by something hateful.

Kneeling, she placed her hand upon it and opened her senses.

A flood of images struck her:

A tower of crystal, shattered

A throne of bones

A ring of seven mages, their faces hidden, fighting a beast of smoke

Then a voice, cold as the grave, whispered straight into her mind:

You cannot hold the darkness alone.

She gasped, tearing her hand away.

The Circle was still out there. But they were weakened, scattered, and perhaps already hunted by whatever fed on the dream realm's wounds.

Maerlyn rose, resolved. She would gather them, piece by piece if she must, and bring them to Frostfang.

As she mounted her horse once more, a far-off bell tolled in the distance — low, mournful, echoing across the hills.

Maerlyn shivered.

The world was calling.

In Frostfang, Aldric stood upon the half-rebuilt battlements with Kaelin. Together, they looked out over the fields, where peasants planted again in hope and fear.

"Will it ever be enough?" Aldric wondered aloud.

Kaelin answered with a soldier's honesty. "Maybe not. But we'll never stop trying."

Aldric clasped her shoulder. "Then that is enough for me."

Yet the horizon was not calm.

Storm clouds gathered in unnatural swirls beyond the mountains, flashing with unearthly green light.

Whatever had woken in the marsh was only the first echo.

Aldric turned away, breathing deeply, steadying himself for the coming storm.

He would stand. They all would.

But in the hidden places of the world, the nightmares stirred once more, clawing for a door into the waking lands.