10/19/2026
Tad Y’aim falls
*BOOM.*
The heavy oaken doors bowed inward beneath another tremendous impact. Kaiden dug his shoulder into the wood and held.
Dust sifted from the rafters, settling over blood, steel, and stone.
For one terrible second, the doors seemed to hold, then Kaiden felt them shudder against his armor once more.
Behind him, Ferron pressed an alcohol-soaked rag against a fresh gash in his thigh. Katessa did the same with a cut beneath her ribs. Both of them hissed through clenched teeth as fire raced through the wounds.
Neither gave the pain more than a moment.
*BOOM.*
“By the Radiance…”
Kaiden stumbled as the doors lurched inward another inch.
He planted his feet again.
“Kaiden!” Dakota called out.
“I’ve got it! Go!”
Dakota reluctantly nodded and turned, already moving.
He darted upstairs to his chambers and began throwing open drawers, sweeping supplies, letters, and whatever else his hands could find into his pack. His movements were frantic, but deliberate.
Then he stopped. On the desk, by the window where his raven, Rye, used to perch, lay his journal, and for a moment everything else dulled.
The screaming hinges, the distant roar of battle, the pounding in his chest. He picked it up and ran his thumb across the battered leather cover… then shoved it into his pack.
No time.
He next rushed toward the library. To the Book of Deeds.
*BOOM*
“Brena. Louisa.”
Ferron’s voice carried through the fortress, steady despite the trembling stone beneath their feet.
“Go downstairs to the alchemy lab. There are a few stacks of paper beside the large copper still. They contain everything we know about the Rite of the Seven.”
*BOOM.*
“Quickly,” Katessa urged, her voice softer than Ferron’s. Almost motherly.
“Go. Now.”
The Ravensmore sisters didn’t argue. They scattered, boots pounding against the stairs as they disappeared down the spiral passage.
Kaiden grunted as the doors buckled against his shoulder. Glass shattered somewhere in the kitchen.
“Any chance,” he called through clenched teeth, “that somebody has a better plan?”
Ferron looked toward Katessa and she looked back. They both knew. This was the end of their Path.
Not the Jaegers’.
Not the Ravensmores’.
Only theirs.
If they could steal enough moments… If they could buy enough time… Then perhaps that would be enough.
*BOOM.*
A splinter of oak tore loose, and Kaiden slammed himself against the door again.
Katessa crossed the hall and seized a Jaeger banner from the wall, its dark cloth unfurling behind her. Then, she paused, running a thumb across the stitches. Gently, she wrapped Ancora and Grovewarden within its folds.
She carried the bundle to the hearth, clutching it to her chest with a tenderness Ferron had not seen in a very long time. Kneeling, she pried up a loose floorboard to lay the wrapped weapons beneath the stones and carefully replaced the board.
Ferron limped toward the great table. Among the scattered tools and bloodstained instruments rested a single finished blade wrapped neatly in waxed paper and bound with twine.
He stared at it for a moment, then tucked it beneath his arm.
*BOOM.*
The Ravensmore sisters burst back into the hall. They were breathless, pale.
Brena clutched a bundle of half-torn, smoke-stained papers against her chest while Louisa carried another stack beneath one arm, several pages already threatening to spill across the floor.
Their eyes swept across the room: The hidden weapons, the packed bundles, the blood, the preparations.
They had seen this before. Another home lost. Another fortress abandoned. Another last stand.
Brena looked toward Ferron.
“No.”
Ferron said nothing.
Her voice cracked.
“No, Ferron.”
*BOOM.*
The doors bent inward.
Kaiden grunted with effort as his boots scraped against the stone, fighting to keep his footing.
Ferron finally turned toward them.
“Tad Y’aim is lost.”The words fell quietly, and that somehow made them worse.
“The Rivlans outside…are likely dead.”
Silence; Ferron’s jaw tightened.
“Or they soon will be. You all must leave. Now.”
He pointed toward the lower passage.
“Behind the cabinet holding the empty potion bottles in the alchemy lab is a concealed door. Follow the tunnel.”
Katessa joined him.
(stay tuned for more..)
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