It began with smoke.
Not the gentle curl from a hearth, but thick, black plumes rising from the eastern horizon—three days after the last refugee caravan had entered Lyothara.
Scouts from Orion's Gate rode hard through the night. They reached the capital at dawn, breathless, eyes wide with horror.
"Virelle…" one gasped. "It's gone."
Virelle—a small town nestled in the Silver Vale, home to barely two hundred elves. It lay just beyond the evacuation line, deemed "low risk" by the Council. Many refused to leave, saying their orchards were in bloom and the Tree's light still touched their rooftops.
They were wrong.
Darien led a company of fifty to investigate. What they found was not battle. Not even ruin.
It was erasure.
The town stood intact—houses unburned, wells full, looms still strung with half-woven cloth. But no voices. No footsteps. No life.
Only ash.
Fine, gray powder coating every surface, as if the people had turned to dust where they stood.
Prince Kaelin knelt in the town square, fingers brushing the rim of a child's wooden cup. "No struggle," he whispered. "They didn't even run."
Elyar Morindel examined the ash under a crystal lens. "No magical residue. No poison. It's as if their very essence was… drawn out."
Thorin kicked over a barrel. "Then why leave the town standing? Why not burn it?"
Darien said nothing. He walked to the edge of town, where the road met the wilds. There, carved into the trunk of an ancient oak, was a single symbol:
A spiral. Violet. Glowing faintly.
"The same mark from the Black Peaks," Malrik said, appearing beside him like mist.
"They're marking their path," Darien realized. "Not destroying. Claiming."
Back in Lyothara, the news spread like wildfire.
For the first time in living memory, elves wept openly in the streets. Mothers clutched their children tighter. And in the barracks, young warriors sharpened their blades with trembling hands.
King Aerion called an emergency council.
"This changes everything," Elyar said. "They don't just kill. They consume. And they leave signs."
"We must assume every unevacuated settlement is lost," Thorin growled. "And that the enemy is already inside our borders."
Darien stood. "Then we meet them before they reach the Five Cities. We fortify the Ridge of Mourning—the last defensible pass before Frosthaven."
The King nodded. "Do it. But Darien… no heroics. If they wield a power that drains our light, we cannot afford to lose you."
"I won't fight them with light," Darien said quietly. "I'll fight them with steel."
But even as he spoke, doubt coiled in his gut.
Steel had never failed the elves before.
But these were not the orcs of old.
Three days later, the drums grew louder.
And then—silence.
The scouts reported: the orc host had crossed the Ashen Wastes.
Their numbers: ten thousand strong.
Their pace: relentless.
Their eyes: all black. All watching the same direction.
Lyothara.
That night, Darien gathered his captains on the Ridge of Mourning. Below, the land sloped into shadow.
"We hold here," he said. "If they break this line, Frosthaven falls. And if Frosthaven falls, the north is open."
Thorin checked his ice-forged axe. "Let them come. The snow remembers every drop of blood."
Elyar planted seed-thorns along the ridge. "The earth will scream when they step."
Malrik vanished into the dark. "I'll be in their camp before dawn."
As the moon rose, Darien looked east—and for the first time, he did not see wilderness.
He saw an army that knew no fear.
An army that had already won the war in silence.
And behind them… something older than war itself.