Chapter 88 – The March of Three
Dawn came grey and solemn over the Capital, but Caedren did not wait for fanfare.
He left with only three riders: Lysa, cloaked in silence; Tarn, armored in quiet worry; and Ser Hennel, a young knight whose family had sworn loyalty since Ivan's fall.
A contingent begged to follow, but Caedren refused.
"I am not marching with an army," he had said. "I go to see the South, not conquer it."
Behind him, the citadel loomed. Within it, Councilor Veylan began his own campaign—quiet alliances with border houses, promises of order should Caedren not return. The court did not sleep. It circled like wolves around a dying fire.
The road south was lined with signs.
Villages shuttered. Watchtowers abandoned. Banners scorched and replaced with the Thorn Circle—the Remnant's mark.
They reached a hamlet called Brackenmere by the third day. A child greeted them with wide eyes and a knife behind her back.
"We don't serve roots here," she hissed.
Caedren dismounted and knelt.
"I'm not here for service. Only to speak."
The child looked uncertain. Lysa's hand twitched toward her blade.
Then an old man emerged, walking with a cane carved from ashwood.
He stared at Caedren a long while.
"Your eyes… they've seen the tree, haven't they?"
Caedren nodded once.
The old man beckoned him inside.
Within the low-lit cottage, the elder offered them rootwine and a tale.
"We were once protectors of the Pathless Shrine," he said. "Before Cireth's men came. Tore it down. Called it heresy."
"Why?" Tarn asked.
"Because it didn't speak of kings. It spoke of memory. Of burdens, not birthrights."
Caedren leaned forward.
"And what did it say of the Kingless World?"
The man closed his eyes.
"That it would rise
not when the throne was filled,
but when it was broken."
Caedren said nothing.
But Lysa stiffened.
In the hearthlight, her shadow curved unnaturally across the wall. And for a moment, it had horns.
That night, they camped under twisted birches. Lysa could not sleep. She sat on a root and whispered to the air.
"I know you still watch me," she said. "You who made me kill. You who made me forget. You who burned my name into the minds of the Forsworn."
Silence.
Then, wind. A breath across her cheek.
And a voice—not from without, but within.
"You will have to kill him, in the end."
She did not respond. She simply sheathed Verrowind again.
Not in anger.
But in certainty.
In the Dominion's heart, Lady Cireth watched her people prepare.
She'd expected resistance. But what grew instead was faith.
The Remnant spoke sparingly—but each word cut like scripture.
"The ash tree bears no fruit.
Only the thorn will remind the world to bleed again."
Children repeated it as chant. Old soldiers tattooed it across their arms.
Cireth looked into the flame and saw her reflection twist.
And in that moment, she feared not Caedren's march.
But that she might be wrong.
And that the boy she defied would not fall like the kings of old—but rise like fire.
To the east, the girl who chased starlight reached the Vale of Sighing Stones.
There, she met an old woman tending a grave.
"Whose?" the girl asked.
"My brother's," the crone said. "He served Ivan. Died defying Kael."
The girl knelt and touched the tombstone. It flared with faint gold.
"You carry something old," the crone said.
"I carry a question."
"Then you'll find your answer in the South," she replied. "But not from Caedren. From what hunts him."
As the trio crossed the Bloodmeadow Hills, Tarn finally spoke.
"You think she's right," he said to Caedren. "Cireth. That you're chasing myths."
Caedren didn't answer immediately.
"I think… I was born into the end of someone else's dream. And if I don't learn where it cracked, I'll repeat it."
"And if the crack is you?" Tarn asked.
Caedren looked to the horizon, where the Southern sun burned like judgment.
"Then may the world be strong enough to shatter me."