The Lantern-Bearers

The skies over Frostfang had not yet cleared, though the fires of battle had long since faded. Smoke curled like ghostly fingers over broken towers, and the air still smelled of iron and ash. But beyond the devastation, something was stirring—subtle, luminous, and utterly unexpected.

The survivors moved like phantoms through the ruins, some carrying torches, others dragging carts of debris. Children were tucked under cloaks. Elders leaned on spears once meant for war. But their eyes, exhausted and rimmed with soot, were fixed on the same thing.

A soft glow rising from the east.

Aldric stood on the edge of the collapsed gatehouse, cloak torn, sword at his side, eyes squinting against the unnatural light. It was not fire. It was not sun. It was something else.

Rowena appeared beside him, boots quiet as snowmelt. Her quiver was empty, her bowstrings frayed, but she had never looked more dangerous—or more beautiful. Her cheeks were streaked with dried blood, and yet her gaze was calm.

"They're coming," she whispered. "Not enemies. Not this time."

Kaelin climbed up from the lower courtyard, limping, face freshly scarred but eyes still fierce. She carried a broken banner in one hand and a hammer in the other. "What the hells is that light?"

Maerlyn answered from the shadows.

"Hope," she said.

---

The Lantern-Bearers

They came in silence—hundreds of them, robed in twilight colors, each carrying a floating lantern above their palm. The lanterns glowed with no flame, but shimmered like the northern lights caught in glass. Their procession wound down the eastern hills in a slow, elegant spiral, like a constellation descending from the stars.

At their head walked a figure none of them had seen in years—an elder woman cloaked in green and gold, her eyes veiled and her hair woven with strands of moon-silk.

Aldric descended the wall and approached slowly, wary yet drawn.

The woman bowed her head slightly. "Aldric Wolf-King," she said. "We heard your fires. We saw the darkness. We come not to conquer—but to restore."

"Who are you?" Kaelin growled from behind, hand still on her hammer.

The elder removed her veil. Her eyes were white—not blind, but glowing with inner vision.

"I am the Flame-Sibyl of the Lantern Order," she said. "And these are the last bearers of the Inner Flame. We were hidden—until now."

Maerlyn stepped forward, visibly intrigued. "Hidden where?"

The Sibyl turned. "Beneath the Silver Hollow. Within a fold of the world sealed by your own ancestors."

Rowena blinked. "The Silver Hollow was a myth."

"Until it needed not to be."

---

The Weaving of Light and Shadow

Inside Frostfang's ruined citadel, the Lantern-Bearers began their quiet work. They did not rebuild with stone or mortar. They sang.

Their voices, layered in haunting harmonies, stirred the air. The lanterns floated through the streets, drifting over scorched buildings and shattered courtyards. Wherever their light touched, stone mended, vines regrew, and fountains whispered once more.

Children laughed again. The wounded slept without groaning.

Rowena knelt beside a boy with a crushed leg, watching as a bearer placed a lantern at his feet. Light poured through the bone like golden water, knitting the break clean.

Tears streamed down her face. "This... this is impossible."

"No," said Maerlyn, watching from behind her black veil. "It is forgotten magic. Older than curses. Older even than me."

---

A New Threat in the West

But peace never lingers long in a land still bleeding.

That night, as the lanterns floated over the quiet city, a shadow passed over the moon. Kaelin was the first to notice—the wind shifted. Cold, unnatural.

From the watchtower, she spotted it: a storm, blacker than night, moving across the western plains. But it wasn't clouds.

It was wings.

Thousands of them.

Carrion birds.

But they flew with order. With precision.

Rowena joined her at the parapet. "That's no natural flock."

"No," Kaelin said. "That's a message."

And then it came—burned into the sky like a scar by some impossible magic.

"The Bone Prophet Rises."

Aldric's jaw clenched as he read the words. "So... the Vulture King was just the beginning."

---

To the Hollow

The Flame-Sibyl gathered the council at the Heartstone.

"The Bone Prophet is an ancient evil," she said. "One who commands the marrow beneath the earth and speaks to the bones of the long-dead. The Vulture King was but a vessel. A whisper."

"We barely survived the whisper," Kaelin muttered.

The Sibyl's glowing eyes fixed on Maerlyn. "We need the Hollow. Its secrets, its guardians, and the thing we swore never to awaken."

Maerlyn raised a brow. "You mean to break the seals?"

"No," the Sibyl said. "I mean to unwrite them."

---

The Journey Begins

And so it was that, within days, a new company was formed.

Aldric, now bearing the crown of frost and shadow, would lead.

Rowena, the sharpest eye and quietest voice.

Kaelin, fury made flesh.

Maerlyn, shadow wrapped in silk.

And the Flame-Sibyl, who claimed to know the way through the Folded Paths of Silver Hollow.

They left beneath a sky of strange stars, their path lit not by sun or fire—but by the floating lanterns of those who followed them in silence.

Frostfang stood behind them, healing.

The world ahead of them, breaking.

And somewhere in the west, the Bone Prophet smiled.