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“Nothing confirmed. But their communications are more frequent. Messengers are riding harder. They’re reacting to something, but no one appears to know what.”

It suggests the Authority has not yet confirmed my escape, but something has disturbed them. The shift is palpable—messengers pushed harder, orders issued without explanation. Either the collapse of the tower has been noted without context, or whispers have begun to rise through their command. Their reaction is defensive. Cautious. Not yet coordinated.

Until certainty rises to their highest circles, they will wait. Which gives us time, if not safety.

Another knock at the door interrupts our discussion. Varam crosses to open it, admitting an older man, whose face blanches with shock upon seeing me.

“Vareth’el et’Varin …” he breathes. He stumbles to a halt inside the doorway, and his hand lifts to his chest as though someone has struck him. “By the stars … it’s true.”

“Galern. I’m glad to see you survived.”

He takes a step forward, then another. Each one seems to cost him, as though his body can’t quite reconcile what his eyes see.

“Lord Torran.” The title breaks in his throat. “Everyone believed … we were told?—”

“All lies. Here I stand.”

His spine straightens as if a cord inside him has been pulled taut. Emotion fractures his face—grief, disbelief, the painful restoration of something long buried.

“All these years … we thought our greatest weapon was lost. That they’d broken you.”

“Imprisoned, but not lost. And now we have work to do.”

He nods, then presses one fist over his heart.

“Vareth’el.I’ll serve however I’m needed.”

More arrivals follow in quick succession. Veinwardens entering singularly or in pairs. Each one hesitates in the doorway. Some falter mid-step. One woman covers her mouth with both hands. Another sinks into a crouch, trembling.

Their reactions are not uniform. Some blink hard, as though staring at a ghost. Others freeze mid-bow, caught between reverence and doubt. A few drop their gaze the moment I look back, but I see the same thing in all their eyes. Hope and fear braided so tightly together they can no longer be separated.

Their responses mirror the world that shaped them. Some knew the man I was. Others have only ever known the myth.

Varam steps forward, and begins introductions.

Isara, who commands the eastern knots, her eyes assessing me like a weapon she’s not sure will fire properly. She sees the legend. She wants the truth.

Damen, young and fiery eyed, born after my capture, looks at me with the unquestioning devotion of someone who has only heard stories. I see the man he believes I am reflected in his gaze. A myth wearing my face.

Rera, a healer whose knowledge preserved techniques the Authority sought to eliminate, her hands bearing the scars of those who have healed too many wounds with too few salves. She touches her heart and lowers her eyes, unwilling or unable, to meet mine.

The room fills with noise as maps are unfurled, reports pass hands, voices rise. But beneath the movement lies tension. These people have operated under constant threat of exposure and death for years. They speak in half-sentences, using coded phrases, habits carved by fear and necessity. Their resistance has teeth, but it also has bruises. And I must learn the shape of both.

By the time everyone Varam invited has arrived, the chamber holds a dozen Veinwardens. The veterans recover quickest, weighing the man in front of them against the one they remember. But memories cannot account for time.

The younger ones regard me with something closer to reverence, like I’ve stepped out of prophecy, not out of aprison. Their eyes shine with the kind of hope I no longer allow myself to feel.

A silver-haired woman enters last. She sees me and sinks immediately to one knee, a motion heavy with grief. Her fist thuds softly against her chest.

I move to stand in front of her.

“We are equals here.” I extend one hand to draw her to her feet. “We need fighters, not worshippers.”

Varam calls the group to order by unrolling a detailed map of Ashenvale across the table.

“For those just arriving, as you can see,Vareth’el et’VarinSacha Torran has returned to us. The reports of his execution were lies spread by the Authority. He was imprisoned in a tower in the Sunfire Dunes for all that time, and escaped nearly a week ago.”

The room stills.