The war drums echoed beneath the castle like the heartbeat of a dying world.
Cambria stood at the edge of the balcony overlooking the southern barracks of Blackwood Fortress. Her armor was laced in gold and midnight, a fusion of regal elegance and unrelenting steel. The crest of the Vale line blazed upon her chest: the phoenix rising from a throne of ash.
Below her, the battalions shifted into formations. Every soldier wore her sigil now, every sword was sharpened in her name.
But the silence between heartbeats belonged to her fear.
"What are you thinking?" Maddox's voice drifted to her like a whisper of flame in a frozen world. He stood at her side, still bearing the wounds from the siege on Mount Drayven. His eyes were tired but alert, studying her with something between loyalty and longing.
Cambria didn't turn to him. "I'm thinking about what comes next."
