The morning fog clung to the camp like a second skin, thin and cold, whispering through the trees in voices only silence could hear.
Ajax stirred from meditation, the lingering echo of his heartbeat soft in his ears. His breath was steady now, his body used to flowing with the Pulse Gate for hours at a time, even through restless sleep. Months of brutal training had turned him into something leaner, sharper—his awareness honed like a blade drawn against stone.
Across from him, Karian sat still, his form silhouetted against the dull orange flicker of the dying campfire. Reva moved nearby with the grace of someone born to motion, slicing slow patterns into the air with her dagger, training reflex into memory.
Then came the sound—footsteps, brisk and familiar.
Thalen stepped between the trees, cloak dusted with frost, his face paler than usual.
"Morning," Ajax greeted, standing.
Thalen gave a distracted nod. "Where's Karian?"
"Over there," Reva said, tilting her chin.
Karian rose, eyes narrowing at the tone in Thalen's voice.
"It's not like you to rush."
Thalen exhaled. "Because it's not like them to ask."
Karian's gaze hardened. "Who?"
Thalen hesitated.
"The High Tribunal."
Karian's shoulders stiffened. Reva stopped moving. Ajax felt the shift in the air—like the ground had tilted under them all at once.
"You're certain?" Karian asked, voice low.
Thalen reached into his cloak and pulled out a small folded parchment, sealed with silver wax stamped with an angular crest: a downward bolt cradled in flame.
"They used the old sign," Thalen confirmed. "Your name is called, formally."
Reva blinked. "What is the High Tribunal?"
Karian's silence stretched a beat too long. Then: "They're the ruling circle of Valern's elite combat sects. Not politicians. Not mages. Warriors. Strategists. Guardians. The kind of people who decide where blood needs to be spilled."
Ajax frowned. "You were one of them?"
Karian didn't answer. It was Thalen who spoke.
"He was more than a member. He was one of the Twin Blades—named for balance, fury and restraint. When Karian left, the Tribunal fractured."
Reva looked to Karian. "And now they want you back?"
"Not just back." Karian unfolded the letter. His eyes scanned it. "They want my blade. They claim Cairn forces are moving aggressively near the border. Skirmishes. Raids. Likely provoked by Crimson Veil activity. The Tribunal wants me to lead a defensive campaign. They're calling it a reclamation effort."
Reva scoffed. "So… they want you to fix their war?"
Thalen added quietly, "And perhaps help them understand what this Crimson Veil really is."
Karian folded the letter again and stared into the fire.
"It's been a long time since I answered their call."
Ajax's thoughts buzzed. The idea of Karian—his teacher, his anchor—once being a figure of authority in a world Ajax barely understood left a strange unease in his chest. Like finding out the foundation beneath your feet had been something else all along.
"What happens now?" Ajax asked.
Karian looked to him, gaze sharpening. "We go. You'll come too. The journey will test your body. Three weeks on foot to Rexor. You'll stay in the Pulse Gate nearly the entire way."
Ajax nodded, feeling the flicker of anticipation. This wasn't just a journey. It was training. A crucible.
"Oh, and Ajax," Karian started, "You can use your spiral magic for any combat from now on. Where we're going, we can't afford to hold back."
⸻
They departed before the sun cleared the horizon.
The path twisted through forest, hill, and field, but the group moved swiftly, almost gliding across the terrain. Each morning began with sparring. Each night ended with exhaustion. But the days were a blur of running, breathwork, and constant rhythm.
By the end of the first week, Ajax no longer noticed the strain. The Pulse flowed through him more freely now, threading his steps together like beats in a song. He could feel his limits being pushed, stretched, reshaped. His stamina grew deeper, his awareness sharper. Reva matched him stride for stride, occasionally smirking when he faltered—but more often, she looked proud.
Karian said little as they traveled, but his eyes never rested. Something was weighing on him. Not just the summons, Ajax realized—but the land itself.
They were entering old territory.
A place Karian had sworn never to return to.
⸻
By the second week, the air had changed.
It was drier now, harsher. The trees grew twisted and blackened, some scorched by old fires. The wind carried a sharp tang—burnt wood and ash. The closer they got to Rexor, the more signs of conflict they found.
But it wasn't until the fifteenth day that they saw what war had become.
They crested a low ridge and looked down into the valley below.
A village—small, likely human-built—lay in ruin.
Ajax's breath caught.
Roofs were collapsed inward, skeletal beams glowing faintly with heat. Entire homes had been reduced to ash. Fields were scorched into oblivion. A livestock pen lay open, its animals gone or dead. There were no bodies.
Only emptiness.
"What…?" Reva murmured.
Thalen knelt by the path, touching blackened soil. "This is fresh. Two, maybe three days ago."
"Cairn forces?" Ajax asked.
"No," Karian said grimly. "This was surgical. Precise. There are no signs of siege, no mass struggle. One person did this."
Reva's eyes widened. "You're saying—?"
"A Crimson Veil agent," Thalen confirmed. "They're efficient. They don't wage battles. They deliver messages."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Ajax looked out over the destruction. For all the power he had gained, it still stunned him that one individual could do this much. Not with an army. Not with siege engines.
Just themselves.
He stepped carefully through the ruins, passing the shell of what might've once been a home. A child's toy sat near a shattered window—half-melted, warped by heat.
Then he felt it.
A shift in air.
Weight.
A ripple—not in mana, but in instinct. The kind of primal warning that didn't need logic. His skin tightened. His heart rate quickened. Something was near.
He turned.
And there, perched atop the collapsed steeple of what had once been the village's chapel, was a figure. Half-shadowed in the orange flicker of firelight. Still. Silent. Watching.
The agent didn't move. Not an inch. Their form was cloaked in layered crimson and soot-streaked black, but it was the mask that paralyzed Ajax. Bone-white. Seamless. With a single, blood-red spiral carved into its surface, off-center and jagged like it had been scorched in rather than painted. There were no eyes.
But they were watching.
The group tensed as one.
Reva's hand slid to her dagger. Karian put a hand on hers to stop her.
"That is not an enemy we fight. That is an enemy we survive."
Thalen's jaw twitched. Karian seemed to brace himself, his shoulders stiffening, body angled like prey caught in open terrain.
And still the agent did nothing.
They simply stood there.
Unmoving.
Like a storm just before the wind arrives.
Ajax couldn't explain why, but his body screamed. Not to fight. Not to run. Just not to be here.
Then, in the span of a blink, the figure was gone.
Not teleported. Not exploded away with flash or sound.
Gone.
One moment present, the next absent. As if the world had exhaled and erased them from memory.
No one spoke for several heartbeats.
Finally, Reva's voice broke the silence—low, breathless. "That was one person?"
Thalen nodded slowly, crouching by what was left of a burned-out home. "One elite soldier. The Crimson Veil is a force of power unlike anything this world has seen before."
Ajax walked in a daze past a shattered well. The stones around it had cracked from heat. A child's toy lay nearby—half-melted, untouched by blood, somehow the most haunting detail of all.
"I couldn't even sense their mana," he muttered.
"You weren't supposed to," Karian said.
Reva turned to him, brow furrowed. "You said the Crimson Veil were Valern-born. Like us. So why is the Tribunal so scared of them?"
Karian stared into the fire for a long time. Then he spoke—measured and quiet.
"Because power we understand is power we can negotiate with. Limit. Control. But the Crimson Veil?" He shook his head. "No one knows what they want. Not even the Tribunal."
He looked to the spot where the agent had stood.
"They could be vengeance. They could be prophecy. They could be chaos, given form. And until we know… until someone understands their purpose…"
His voice trailed off, heavy.
Thalen finished the thought. "We fear them. Because we don't know if we'll ever see them coming again."
The wind picked up. Embers scattered like lost stars, and the world felt just a little darker.