The northern wind had changed.
Zareena noticed it first in the fields—how the frost settled differently, how animals refused to graze near the old creek. Birds no longer nested in the ruins beyond the eastern gate. The silence wasn't natural. It felt... observed.
Then came the first body.
A forager named Ilsen was found curled near the old salt path, eyes wide open, skin greyed like wet ash. No wound. No blood. Just a scream frozen in his throat.
Doren, head of her scholars, examined the body. "Drained," he whispered. "Not of blood. Of life."
By dusk, two more were dead. All outside the wards. All untouched by blade or beast.
Zareena stood at the city wall, Seredin beside her.
"I've seen this before," the ancient warrior murmured. "Long ago. In a war buried by kings and time."
"Tell me what it is."
"They had no name. We called them ghulain. They were once people. But something inside them... turned. Woke. And hungered."
Zareena frowned. "Necromancy?"
"No." His silver eyes narrowed. "Older. Wilder. When the Vein opens, everything stirs. Not just magic. Memory. Regret. Things that should've stayed buried."
That night, patrols tripled.
Nasir's scouts reported a patch of forest—thick with unnatural fog. No birds. No insects. The trees themselves seemed to lean inward, branches twisted like grasping hands.
A group was sent to investigate. Only one returned. A young knight, shaking and blind in one eye.
"They spoke," he wept. "In voices that weren't voices. They remembered my name."
Zareena stood over him, steel in her eyes. "No more patrols alone."
She summoned her mages, ordered the Grey Circle to form tighter rings around the town's Vein entrance. Glyphs were etched into the walls. Fires burned through the night.
Elsewhere, in the hollow dark beyond Vireloch...
A creature with sunken cheeks and milk-white eyes dragged its limbs toward the town. Its mouth opened, and a voice—not its own—whispered:
"The heart has woken. The ward-bearer stirs. The Rosebound walks again."
Behind it, more shadows slithered in silence.
Back in her war room, Zareena studied the map.
"Someone is testing our edges," she muttered.
"Or luring you out," Rashid said from across the room, arms crossed.
Their eyes met, cold and sharp. He added, "If I were an old god trapped in a corpse, I'd want the frost queen out in the open."
Zareena didn't flinch. "Then I'll bring the frost to them."