The fortress ruins offered little shelter. Wind cut through the broken stone—dry, sharp, constant. Below, the Narrowed Pass carved its way through the cliffs, narrow and steep. No space for formations. Just a straight corridor into a kill zone.

  Goldburg’s army held the choke. Shieldbearers locked three across, shoulder to shoulder behind rune-braced plating. Above them, siege weapons sat ready—ballistae, stone-hurlers, firecasters—anchored into the eastern cliff face. Every angle covered. Every gap sealed.

  Lucian stood at the edge of a shattered tower, cloak tugged by the wind. He watched the valley in silence.

  “They haven’t moved in five days, Your Majesty,” said Commander Rethas, stepping forward. “Their formation is set. The cliffs prevent any flank. The Hollowbound can’t advance in proper numbers, and nothing we throw breaks those shields.”

  Lucian’s gaze didn’t shift. “Goldburg planned for this.”

  “They studied our attack on Velgarth, Sire. They built for it.”

  Lucian said, “They’re still human.”

  Rethas hesitated, then gave a short bow of acknowledgment. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Beside him, Selena adjusted her gauntlet. “There is a southern pass, Sire. Longer route. Poorly defended. But it curves wide around the valley. If we move a force tonight, we could circle behind.”

  Lucian asked, “Travel time?”

  “Fifteen days for constructs, if rotated. Twenty for the full army.”

  “And Goldburg’s defenses?”

  “Minimal. A few cavalry scouts. A watchtower or two. Their forces are focused entirely here.”

  Lucian turned. “If we maintain pressure on this front?”

  “They’ll hold formation, Sire,” Rethas said. “But if we stretch them long enough, they’ll rotate. Even with magic and rations, they can’t hold forever.”

  Lucian was silent for a moment. Then: “Begin the diversion.”

  Rethas gave a sharp nod. “How many, Your Majesty?”

  “Two hundred constructs. Quiet models only. Move by night. Conserve heat.”

  Selena added, “And if Goldburg sends reinforcement from the capital?”

  “Then they take the bait,” Lucian replied.

  He let a hand fall to the brass casing at his belt, half-hidden by his coat. It pulsed faintly—warm, steady. He didn’t speak of it.

  Below, the Hollowbound stirred. Not a march. No commands. Just motion. Clean. Silent. Exact.

  “They don’t sleep,” Selena murmured. “That’s still our advantage.”

  Lucian answered without looking at her. “For now.”

  Rethas stepped back. “Shall I begin deployment at once, Your Majesty?”

  Lucian nodded. “Quietly. And keep the pressure here steady. Enough movement. Enough noise.”

  Selena glanced toward the cliffs. “To divide their focus?”

  Lucian’s tone was flat. “Exactly. I want them watching both directions. I want them worried about the front… and the rear.”

  He turned back to the valley, voice cold and even.

  “Make sure they’re forced to choose.”

  The sound came first—a branch snapping under slow, heavy weight. Then the shape emerged from the treeline: a pale wolf, massive and lean, its ribs faint beneath matted fur. Its eyes were milky white, clouded like something long dead but still moving. Faint green threads of planar energy wound around its legs and spine, pulsing quietly in the cold.

  It dragged the mangled body of a Hollowbound by one arm.

  The metal limbs scraped over stone and roots as the wolf hauled it forward without pause. Unbothered. Unthinking. It stopped just short of the warded circle.

  Marelis crouched at the mouth of a shallow mountain hollow—not quite a cave, but deep enough to block the wind. Her tools were laid out across a worn hide. Around her, flickering green wards marked the boundary of her workspace.

  She looked up.

  “Drop it.”

  The wolf let go. The construct hit the ground with a dull clang. She didn’t thank it.

  Marelis stood and walked over. She knelt beside the body, rolled it over, and checked the torso. The armor was dented and scorched, the plating warped inward. A spearcaster hit, most likely. The seams were intact.

  “Hm… should be around here.”

  She ran her fingers along the edge, found the catch, and focused. A soft pulse of green energy flickered across her fingertips as she pried the chestplate open with a sharp twist. The metal gave way with a crack.

  Inside, where the planar core once glowed violet, there was only faint warmth now. No light. No movement.

  She reached in and pulled it free—dense, blackened, almost heart-shaped but uneven. The surface was dry, ridged, not smooth.

  She turned it in her palm.

  “…Interesting.”

  Her thumb brushed the surface. It felt like wood—old, scorched, pressed tight. The grain was still there.

  “Isn’t this just… burnt, condensed wood?” she muttered. She sniffed it—faint charcoal.

  She extended a finger and let a narrow stream of planar energy arc into the object. The reaction was subtle—a low hum, a small vibration. But stable.

  She stared for a moment. Not surprised. Just thinking.

  “This is enough to hold planar?” she said aloud.

  She stood up, slowly. The habit of speaking while she worked had never left her. She’d explained every step for years while teaching Grimoire. Even now, alone, she kept the rhythm. Not out of sentiment. Just routine.

  She turned toward the constructs standing nearby.

  Two of them. One lay on its side, inert, its chest cracked open. The other stood upright and silent. Granite and iron, shaped roughly like a person. A chamber in its chest revealed a preserved heart, suspended in a casing of bone and crystal.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  It still beat. Weakly.

  Marelis stepped closer, eyes on the flickering pulse.

  “Well, I thought we needed flesh to hold planar,” she said. “The structure’s similar. It holds the shape better than anything else.”

  She looked down at the core in her hand.

  “When I saw through this body’s memory, I knew it was possible to build fully inorganic vessels. But I assumed the core still had to be organic.”

  Her tone stayed even. Focused.

  “But the stone can’t feed a heart. It withers eventually.”

  She looked again at the new core.

  “But if this thing can hold planar on its own…”

  She raised it slightly, testing the weight.

  “The only question is if it can hold the identity-retained planar.”

  She let the thought hang for a moment.

  “Maybe it’s time we try something new.”

  Her gaze drifted back to the upright construct.

  “If this works, we won’t need flesh anymore. We won’t even need to match the original form.”

  She paused, then gave a faint, thoughtful smirk.

  “We might not even need to die.”

  She shifted the core slightly in her grip.

  “How does that sound, Gri—”

  She stopped. Reflex. Her eyes scanned the space around her. Then she gave a quiet breath through her nose and shook her head.

  “…Right. Not here.”

  Not sadness. Just a note. Just fact.

  She turned back to the construct.

  “What a letdown. She might’ve learned something.”

  Then she stepped forward and got to work.

  They came down at the edge of the outer district, where the snow had turned black and the air carried no sound. Karin stepped past the broken fence line and stopped.

  Velgarth wasn’t burning anymore.

  It was just cold.

  The outer buildings had collapsed inward. Houses pancaked. Tram rails twisted like snapped vines. Streetlamps leaned or lay shattered, glass scattered like brittle leaves. Some of the steam towers still stood, but most had fallen—some toppled from the base, others cut clean through. Pipes ended abruptly in the open air. Bolts were missing. Metal stripped.

  She moved forward slowly, boots crunching over frost and broken ceramic. An overturned workbench lay beside a plaza, tools scattered mid-task. The shop windows nearby had blown inward, the displays inside buried in glass and soot. Electrical wires dangled from split junctions, cut clean, stripped bare.

  No power. No light. No hum.

  Bodies lined the streets.

  Not scattered in chaos—placed. Rows of them, mostly along the walls or pushed into corners. Some were covered with blankets, others with whatever cloth was at hand. Many lay uncovered. Soldiers in uniform. Factory workers in soot-stained aprons. A child with ash in her braids and one shoe missing. A few survivors moved quietly among them—folding sheets, dragging makeshift stretchers, not speaking.

  No one cried. No one prayed.

  Seethar kept ahead, light on his feet, gaze roving. He looked like he was walking across something too thin to trust. Elkinu trailed behind, hands in his coat, taking it all in without a word.

  Karin stopped beside one of the rows. Some of the bodies were burned. Others torn open, crushed beneath debris. A few looked almost untouched, but most bore the marks of real fighting—broken blades, cracked ribs, flame-scorched coats. Death had come hard.

  She knelt beside one of them—a man in his forties, blood dried at his temple, chestplate split from a heavy blow. His hands were curled close to his ribs, frozen stiff.

  She reached out, hesitated, then hovered her fingers above his skin.

  Something was off. Not in the wound. Not in the flesh.

  Just… missing.

  Elkinu’s voice came from behind, casual. “No planar left.”

  She looked back. “How can you tell?”

  He didn’t answer. Just walked on.

  Karin stood, following Elkinu’s gaze toward the heart of the city.

  The castle was gone.

  In its place was a crater—deep, scorched, ringed with warped beams and shattered tile. The blast had pushed outward in all directions, debris scattered in a perfect radius. A silent burst. A city cored out from within.

  Now, the dead were being brought back in.

  Bodies had been arranged along the crater’s rim—stacked in clean rows, arms folded, eyes closed. Someone had tried to give them order. Peace. But dozens still lay forgotten—too far, too broken, or buried under too much. The streets were quiet, but not still. The silence moved.

  Karin took a breath—and felt it catch halfway down.

  It wasn’t grief. Not yet. It was something colder.

  This wasn’t what death was supposed to look like.

  “He didn’t take the city,” she said, quietly.

  “No,” Seethar replied.

  Elkinu nudged a body near a gutter with the side of his boot. “Didn’t he? Took plenty from it, if you ask me.”

  Seethar’s tone snapped. “Don’t do that. You’re dishonoring the dead.”

  Elkinu glanced down. “You call this husk ‘the dead’? There’s nothing left in it.”

  Seethar crouched beside the same body, fingers brushing at the neck. He hovered there, then let his hand drop.

  “Yeah… weird, isn’t it?” he muttered. “There should be a trace. Something. But it’s empty. Hollow.”

  “Sucked out?” Elkinu muttered, wrinkling his nose. “That’s a pukable thought.”

  Karin stared at them. “What are you saying?”

  Seethar rose, brushing his hands off. “Something happened. Something deliberate. The planar’s gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Drained. Or moved. Or something else entirely. We don’t know. Gods only know.”

  Her stomach turned. Not violently—but slowly. Like the cold had gotten in under her skin. She looked around again, and suddenly nothing felt stable.

  The bodies. The silence. The crater.

  “You’re a god,” she said to Seethar. “Aren’t you?”

  He winced in mock pain. “Ouch. Right in the pride.”

  Elkinu gave a short breath of amusement. “Far weaker than they expected.”

  “Spare me,” Seethar muttered. “I’m grieving.”

  Karin didn’t answer.

  She just looked at the crater again, and this time, she didn’t feel the cold in her boots or her breath.

  She felt it in her spine.

  The Hollowbound came in waves.

  Always the same rhythm. Always the same shape.

  No voices. No commands. Just the scrape of metal against dry stone. Six wide. Measured pace. Then the surge.

  The shield wall braced. Tower shields interlocked, unmoving. The Narrowed Pass allowed no room to maneuver—just a corridor of rock and death.

  A woman—clearly a commander—stood one pace behind the front.

  Not large. Not loud. Her armor looked almost oversized on her frame, patched with mismatched badges and streaked with careless paint. A tower shield rested upright beside her, nearly as tall as she was. In her hands, a hammer—massive, rough, and worn. Bigger than it should be. Just like her role.

  Ponytail pulled back. Skin sun-browned. Hair light brown. She looked too young for all this—but she stood like someone who’d been here forever.

  “Commander,” came a voice behind her, cautious, young. A line-runner by his kit. “They’re dragging them. Far side, near the broken ridge. I saw at least four pulled out past the edge.”

  She didn’t turn. “Could be for salvage.”

  “Repairs?” he asked.

  “Must be.”

  He frowned toward the cliffs. “We should start dragging ours too. The ones that fall close. Break the cores. Keep them down.”

  She gave a short nod. “Good idea.”

  “You want me to pass it?”

  “Yup.”

  That was all.

  He blinked, then jogged off along the wall, relaying the message—no shouting, just quiet movement, passed through hands and nods. A few minutes later, he was back.

  “Commander Caldrienne,” he said. “We’re rotating shifts to drag what we can. But we can only reach the ones that fall near the line. The rest are too exposed. And only during their retreat—”

  “Here they come,” she interrupted.

  Another wave surged forward.

  They made no sound—just the steady stomp of metal feet, cold and mechanical. That was what made them terrifying. No cries, no fury. Just intent.

  From the cliffs, siege teams unleashed their volley—stone, fire, ballistae. Some Hollowbound fell. Some kept coming.

  “Brace for impact!” someone shouted from the wall.

  The front line tightened. Six wide, backed by hundreds of shielded bodies. The wall didn’t flinch.

  The Hollowbound crashed into them. Steel against steel.

  The wall held.

  Spears from the second line shot out through tight gaps, striking between plates, pinning down joints. One Hollowbound grabbed a shield’s edge and vaulted the line—landing on top of the wall.

  It didn’t get far.

  The hammer came up.

  A single swing.

  The construct caved inward, crushed like a tin can before it even landed. It hit the stone in pieces. One of the soldiers dragged it back without a word.

  “Yeah, yeah. Like that,” Caldrienne said, casually.

  After a moment, the Hollowbound stopped their push and fell back—just as fast as they’d come. Some dragged broken comrades behind them without slowing.

  The cliffside siege teams had nothing left to fire.

  “They’re pulling a lot of their own,” Caldrienne murmured, watching the retreat.

  The runner from earlier stood beside her again. “We could stagger the second volley. Have the cliff crews hold—let the bodies fall closer to us so we can reach more.”

  She glanced at him. “You want me to tell the siege teams to not shoot the moment they’re loaded?”

  “Just the second volley,” he said. “Wait a few seconds. Aim wide. Hit the draggers, not the front.”

  She tilted her head. “That’s risk.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re asking us to loosen rhythm.”

  “I know.”

  He hesitated. “Commander Caldrienne?”

  She gave him a sideways glance and shrugged—easy, offhanded, like she was haggling at a fruit stall.

  “Sure. Let’s try it.”

  “Really?”

  “If it goes badly, we’ll be dead before anyone can say I was wrong.”

  He let out a shaky breath—half a laugh. “You’re way too casual about this.”

  “That’s the job,” she said, eyes forward again. “You want the wall to crack? Start sounding scared.”

  He didn’t reply.

  She nodded toward the cliffs. “Tell them—no closer than forty yards. Hold second volley. Wait for the haulers.”

  He ran.

  Ahead, the next wave crested the rise.

  Same number. Same pace.

  Another leapt.

  She stepped forward.

  One clean swing.

  And the Hollowbound folded before it ever hit the ground.