Lore's house arrest ended without ceremony.
No announcement.
No apology.
Only a quiet notice delivered at dawn and the absence of a guard outside his door.
He left his quarters before the sun fully rose.
Windas felt different when he walked it freely again—its glass-lined streets catching pale light, murals scattering fractured color across stone. For the first time in weeks, the city did not feel like a cage.
It felt like obligation.
By midmorning, Lore stood in the outer training yard with a half circle of Squires facing him. Their mentors had already taken them for early drills; these hours were his.
"Again," Lore ordered.
Steel rang. Fire flickered under controlled hands. Movements were sharper than they had been a month ago—more disciplined, more deliberate.
They were watching him now.
Not as a peer.
As their Head Squire.
Lore corrected footing, redirected blades, and barked commands without raising his voice. When one faltered, he stepped in without hesitation, guiding the motion through muscle and balance rather than lecture.
"Strength is useless if it makes you predictable," he said. "Again."
They obeyed.
When their mentors returned to collect them, a few of the younger Squires lingered longer than necessary. Lore pretended not to notice.
He cleaned his blade, changed armor, and made his way toward the central halls.
Captain Riven was waiting.
He stood beside a map table layered with charcoal markings and wax seals. His armor bore the sigils of Windas command rather than battlefield ornament—functional, worn, and unmistakably authoritative.
"You're walking freely again," Riven said.
Lore inclined his head. "It seems I've been deemed fit."
Riven exhaled through his nose. "You've been deemed useful."
He gestured to the table. Lore stepped closer.
Eastern routes were circled. Southeastern passes darkened with ink.
"Reports are coming in," Riven said. "Scattered. Incomplete."
"About MalWar?" Lore asked.
Riven did not answer directly.
"About things that shouldn't be happening yet," he said instead. "Patrols finding ritual residue. Border towns reporting missing livestock and no tracks. Outposts going silent and then… returning to normal."
"Returning?" Lore asked.
"Too normal," Riven said. "No fires. No broken gates. No signs of battle. Just absence. Then quiet."
Lore felt something tighten in his chest.
"What do you want from me?" he asked.
"You've seen corruption firsthand," Riven said. "You know what it leaves behind. I want your eyes on the field."
"A mission."
"A series of them," Riven corrected. "Assessment patrols. Escort work. Investigation."
Riven turned toward the doors.
"You'll have a unit."
Three figures waited outside.
The first stood straight-backed with a longsword resting against her shoulder, pale wind magic faintly curling around the blade. Her eyes were steady and measured.
"Seris," she said. "Tactical fighter."
Next to her loomed a broad-shouldered man with armor already scratched from use. His skin bore faint traces of earth magic hardened into it.
"Bram. Front line."
The last leaned against the wall, hood half-drawn back, eyes sharp and restless. Light shimmered faintly around her fingers.
"Nessa," she said. "Scout. I see things before they get close."
Lore studied them.
None bore noble markings.
None carried ceremonial gear.
Field knights.
"You move when I move," Lore said. "You fall back when I say. We don't chase shadows."
Seris inclined her head.
Bram grinned once.
Nessa's gaze narrowed.
"Yes, Head Squire," she said.
Their first assignment took them east.
Not to MalWar's border, but far enough that the land lost its color. Grass grew in brittle patches, and trees leaned away from the road as though something had passed through and taught them caution.
"Seris, left flank. Bram, close. Nessa—range ahead."
They moved as trained, though not yet as one.
The village appeared intact when they crested the final rise.
Roofs whole.
Doors standing.
Smoke drifting from one chimney.
Lore raised his hand.
They stopped.
"That smoke's recent," Nessa said.
"Then where is everyone?" Bram muttered.
They entered together.
A cart lay overturned near the well. A bucket had fallen where someone dropped it, water soaking into the dirt. A door creaked as it swayed in the breeze.
They found the first body near the square.
An old man slumped against a wall, eyes burned black from the inside out.
Seris stiffened. "Magic."
They found more.
A woman across a threshold.
Two children beneath a table.
Farmers fallen in the road.
No wounds.
No blood.
Only the same thin sigil burned into their foreheads.
Nessa knelt beside one, light magic tracing the mark. "They weren't killed by force."
"They were used," Seris said.
Lore felt his fire stir uneasily.
"They were part of something."
They followed warped ground beyond the last row of homes into a clearing where the earth had been scorched pale.
At its center knelt the creature.
Once human.
Its spine bent too far forward. Veins glowed faint blue beneath split flesh. Frost clung to one side of its body while the other bore burn scars that never healed.
Around it lay the villagers.
Arranged in a wide circle.
Each corpse bore the sigil.
Each faced inward.
Nessa swallowed. "They made them watch."
Bram raised his shield. "It's still breathing."
The creature's head twitched.
Its mouth opened.
"W…itness…"
Lore stepped forward.
His blade came free.
Fire slid along the steel instead of becoming it.
The heat resisted him—unstable, skittering across the edge rather than binding within it.
Lore adjusted.
He struck without relying on flame.
Steel cut through corrupted flesh.
The creature collapsed forward, breaking into ash and crystalline fragments.
No Daemons emerged.
No ambush followed.
Only silence.
Seris lowered her sword. "This wasn't meant to stop us."
Nessa stared at the bodies. "It was meant to tell us something."
Bram frowned. "What?"
Lore looked at the circle of dead villagers.
"That they can take a place without ever fighting us."
They burned the bodies before leaving.
By the time they returned to Windas, the report read:
> Hostile corrupted entity neutralized. Civilian population deceased. No Daemon presence detected.
Lore signed his name beneath it.
The words felt thin.
Lore returned to his quarters after dusk.
The mission had been marked contained.
The village secured.
The creature destroyed.
He should have felt accomplished.
Instead, he felt… unfinished.
The knock came softly.
Not official.
He opened the door to find a courier holding a folded letter sealed with black wax.
"From the forge," the runner said. "Master Garron's mark."
Lore closed the door and broke the seal.
> Boy,
I hear you're back in the field already. Figures.
I don't care how brave you feel with that blade at your side — it isn't yours.
Your real sword is still in pieces on my table.
Cracked through the core and refusing to settle.
The blade you carried used to live in your fire.
You kept it summoned because it was part of you.
This one isn't.
It won't answer when you call it.
It won't reform when you let go of it.
And it won't forgive you if you swing like it will.
Treat it like steel.
Not like magic.
I'll finish your real blade when it's ready — not when you decide the war can't wait.
Until then, stay alive long enough for me to give it back.
— Garron
Lore folded the letter slowly.
His gaze drifted to the sword resting against the wall.
Plain.
Silent.
No heat gathered when he touched it.
No fire coiled into shape.
Just weight.
He remembered how his real blade had answered him—fire first, then form, steel condensing as if it had always been there. He had not truly drawn a sword in years.
It had simply been.
If the thing in the clearing had struck first…
If it had lunged instead of kneeling…
Lore sat on the edge of his bed.
For the first time since Captain Riven had given him command, the victory of the day felt thin.
Not because they had failed.
Because he had almost forgotten what he no longer had.
Outside, Windas still glowed with glass and torchlight.
And far to the east, something patient was pressing against the world.
The wound had opened.
on: mistake, injury, survivors, or escalation.