The Edge of the Storm

Frostfang awoke to the hammer-beat of war. The clang of hooves on stone, the cries of soldiers arming, the rasp of sword on whetstone — all wove together into a song of grim determination.

Kaelin rode among her troops before dawn, the winter's chill biting through her cloak. Every eye she passed seemed to burn with the same mixture of fear and ferocity. These were no longer raw recruits, but warriors who had faced darkness and survived.

"Steady your hearts," she called to them, voice carrying like a clarion through the mist. "The enemy is flesh and blood, even if twisted. They can bleed. And they will."

A ragged cheer rose around her, echoed by the clang of weapons on shields.

Kaelin turned her gaze to the horizon. There, in the murky distance beyond the ridgeline, she saw shapes gathering — a moving stain, thick and black, spreading across the snow.

So it begins.

In the keep's highest tower, Maerlyn gathered the tools she would need to mend the rifts. Her hands were slow, weighed by exhaustion and a creeping hollowness. The Circle's price still clawed at her spirit, devouring memories she held dear.

Already, names she had cherished seemed to blur at the edges. She clung to Aldric's face like a drowning woman to a lifeline.

"Stay with me," she murmured, as though speaking to her own mind. "Do not let me forget him."

The runes she had learned from the Circle shimmered on parchment, strange and coiling, as if half-alive. They pulsed with an alien rhythm that she alone could hear, promising power if she dared to wield it.

Aldric moved through the castle in silence, the weight of his crown a burden on his shoulders. Every step brought news of fresh horrors: scouts lost, families fleeing villages swallowed by curses, stories of children vanishing into thin air.

He paused at the chapel, where Rowena lit pale candles. Their flames guttered in a strange, unfelt wind.

"Is it an omen?" he asked her quietly.

Rowena did not look up. "The world is fraying, Your Grace. Even flame feels it."

He drew a shaking breath. "Then we must hold it together. Whatever it costs."

Kaelin's troops marched beyond the walls at first light. A bitter wind swept over them, carrying the stench of rot from the enemy lines.

The creatures waiting beyond the treeline were no longer simply men twisted by dark magic — they were something more, something wrong. Their flesh bulged and rippled with black veins, their eyes glazed with an unearthly crimson light.

Kaelin lifted her sword, its edge gleaming like a shard of dawn.

"For Frostfang!" she shouted, and led the charge.

Her riders thundered forward, smashing into the first ranks of the enemy. Metal rang on bone, horses screamed, men roared and fell. The ground turned to mud and blood in moments.

Kaelin swung her blade with perfect fury, cutting down a foe whose mouth gaped with rows of broken, needle-like teeth.

They are only flesh. They can die, she reminded herself.

Around her, the soldiers pressed onward, refusing to yield an inch.

In the keep, Maerlyn began the spell.

She stood in a circle of candles, the runes arranged around her like a thousand watching eyes. Her staff trembled in her grip.

One breath. Another.

She felt the crack between worlds opening, felt its hungering pull.

Images tore through her mind — a house with a red door, a child's laughter, a face she could no longer name.

No, she pleaded inside, don't take that from me.

But the Circle's price showed no mercy.

In return, raw power surged into her. She could feel the fabric of reality, threads coming undone and rewoven beneath her fingertips.

Maerlyn spoke the ancient words, each syllable a blade through her own soul.

Kaelin's army pressed the enemy back across the ridgeline. The twisted horde roared, their voices a chorus of despair. Arrows fell like black rain, but Kaelin's shield wall held, unbreaking.

A monstrous brute — taller than a horse, with four arms ending in scythe-blades — came charging straight for her.

Kaelin planted her feet, ready to meet it.

The beast roared, swinging its claws. Kaelin dodged, slashing its exposed flank. Black ichor splattered her cheek, burning like acid. She ignored the pain, driving her sword straight into the monster's belly.

It fell, shrieking.

Inside the keep, Maerlyn reached the deepest phase of the spell. The rift answered her — a howling black wound in the air, wild with hateful energy.

She fought to stitch its edges together, forcing harmony where there was none.

It felt like trying to mend a star while drowning in its light.

Blood welled from her nose, and tears blurred her sight, but she refused to break.

"Hold," she commanded, her voice shaking the tower walls.

At that same instant, far to the west, Rowena stood watch over the sleeping children. She could sense the Crow Queen growing closer, drawn by the children's fragile souls.

Rowena clutched a ring of iron charms and began her own chant, weaving protective circles around the dreaming innocents.

"Mother of feathers, queen of night,

You shall not claim what is not yours."

Outside the window, crows gathered in their hundreds, perching like a living cloak of shadow. They peered in, silent, waiting.

Back on the field, Kaelin's troops shattered the last line of the enemy. The survivors turned and fled, leaving their wounded to the mercies of Kaelin's blades.

She did not let them escape far. Her riders pursued them to the forest's edge, cutting down those who still twitched with corrupted life.

When at last the slaughter ended, the forest fell silent again, save for the weeping of wounded men and the hiss of torches guttering in the wind.

Kaelin rode back to the gates, blood-soaked and exhausted.

"Open the way!" she shouted.

In the tower, Maerlyn's voice fell to a ragged whisper. The last rune burned itself into place, sealing the rift.

The black wound in reality shuddered, then folded in on itself like a dying star.

Silence.

Maerlyn collapsed to her knees.

Her mind felt…wrong. Parts of it were missing, cleanly excised like flesh from a bone. She tried to remember Aldric's name and felt only a faint ache.

Aldric ran to her side.

"Maerlyn!" he cried.

She looked at him, tears cutting pale lines down her face. "I did it," she managed to say. "I closed one."

He gathered her into his arms, shaking.

"At what cost?" he whispered.

Maerlyn said nothing. She could not even recall what was missing — only that something precious had been torn away.

That night, a grim quiet settled over Frostfang. Kaelin counted her dead and laid their names in a book of remembrance. Aldric held Maerlyn's hand as healers tried to mend her failing strength.

And beyond the walls, a new darkness began to gather — the Crow Queen, patient and merciless, circling closer with every heartbeat.

As the candles burned low, Maerlyn opened her eyes, haunted.

"It's not over," she said in a cracked voice.

Aldric swallowed. "What do you mean?"

She shivered, staring at something he could not see.

"There are more rifts," she whispered. "So many more."