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“I identified your body myself.” His voice breaks. “They paraded it through Ashenvale. I watched them burn it. There was no question. The ring on your finger. Your face.”

He believed he failed to save me. But now, faced with me whole and unchanged, something worse is filling his thoughts. The possibility that I was never dead at all … and he never came to find me.

“You didn’t know, Nul’shar.” My friend. My brother. “You thought I was dead.”

“They said you fell. They said you were overrun at Thornreave Pass. We tried to recover what we could …”

“They gave you a body.”

“They gave us grief !” The word is sharp. He sucks in a breath through his nose, balancing himself. “And a funeral pyre. One we didn’t question.”

Silence falls between us.

All this time, I thought no one came because they couldn’t break the magic. Because I was beyond reach. But they didn’t come … because they didn’t know .

“They locked me in a tower.” My voice is soft. “Bound me by spellwork.”

At the edge of my attention, the woman rises, her dagger drawn halfway from its sheath. Her eyes are locked onto my face, her expression cycling through suspicion and disbelief. The man beside her mirrors her emotions.

My gaze locks onto her, as memory rises. That stance. The way she holds the blade. Even after decades, I know those controlled movements. “Mira?”

For a moment, she’s as still as Varam was, recognition warring with impossibility on her features.

“By the shadows,” she breathes. “Is it really you?”

I feel rather than see Ellie move beside me.

A subtle tensing of her posture, the change in her breathing as she registers the emotional undercurrent of the room.

She can't understand the words, but she's reading the body language—the shock, the disbelief, the way these hardened warriors stand frozen before me.

“They believed me executed. They’re seeing a ghost.”

“They didn’t know you were in the tower?”

At the sound of her voice, Varam straightens slowly, shock still visible in the tight set of his jaw. I can almost see his mind working as his gaze moves over her, before returning to me.

“You said they took you prisoner?”

“Yes. They sealed me inside a tower in the Sunfire Dunes.”

“And she was with you?” He nods toward Ellie.

“Not until recently. She broke the spell holding me there. Her presence disrupted the magic enough to allow escape.” I don’t elaborate further. The full truth of where Ellie came from would only confuse and complicate an already fragile moment.

“How is this possible?” The other man asks, finding his voice at last. I don’t recognize him, but he’s old enough to have been there during my years with the Veinwardens. “You stand before us unchanged.”

“A consequence of the binding. Time passed differently within the tower’s confines.”

Varam rounds the table, and approaches me slowly. When he stops in front of me, the emotion warring with discipline is visible in his eyes.

“Thornreave Pass.” His voice is rough. “Authority forces overwhelmed your position. We couldn’t reach you in time. ”

“You followed my orders.” I hold his gaze. “It was the right decision. I would tell you to do the same, if you asked me now.”

He reaches out and grabs my forearm. When he pulls me into an embrace, it’s not formality.

It’s confirmation of something lost made real again.

It shocks my body into stillness. I track each element as it registers.

The weight of his arm across my shoulders, the grip of his fingers on my arm. But I don’t move.

My body remembers how to tense before it remembers how to yield. It takes another heartbeat before I raise my arm, and return his embrace.

“The Shadowvein Lord, our Vareth’el, has returned.” His voice is grave, formal, and choked, when he steps away.

“We need to testify,” Mira says. Her caution speaks of long service, not distrust. I would expect nothing less from her.

Sharp-minded, steady under pressure, she served as Varam’s lead scout during our final campaigns, one of the few entrusted with code dispersal and field strategy.

She’s older now, leaner, her eyes more guarded.

“The Authority has attempted infiltration before.”

“Mira.” There’s a hint of rebuke in Varam’s tone.

“No, Mira is right. Caution is warranted. You haven’t survived this long without it. Ask what you need to confirm my identity.”

Varam steps back, and thinks for a moment. “The night before Thornreave Pass,” he says finally. “What did you tell me when we were alone, after the final strategy session?”

It’s the perfect test. That conversation is known only to the two of us. I can remember it clearly, our final private discussion before my entire world upended.

“I told you that if I fell, you needed to destroy the eastern archives rather than risk their capture. You argued against it. I made you swear on your family’s honor that you would carry out my order. You swore, although we both knew you’d try to find another way to save it first.”

“It’s him.” Varam turns to look at the others. “No one else could know that.” His voice is thick with emotion.

The atmosphere shifts. I feel it in the change of breath, in the alignment of bodies. All but Ellie drop to their knees, heads bowed in a show of deference I never required.

“The Vareth’el.” The second man’s voice is hushed with something approaching reverence. “Alive after all these years.”

“Stand, all of you.”

Movement to the side catches my attention, and I turn my head as Ellie takes a step back, brow pleated as she looks at the group on their knees in front of me.

Her tongue sweeps out, licking over her lips, as she lifts her gaze to meet mine.

Her eyes are full of questions. But they’re going to have to wait, because Varam is rising to his feet, and issuing instructions to the people around him.

“Secure the door,” he tells Kelren, who moves to close and lock it. “We must ensure no one enters without authorization.” He pulls out a chair, and looks at me. “Sit.”

Only when I am seated do the others settle into their places. I look around the table. These people are no longer simply my followers, they’re commanders in their own right. It appears the Veinwardens survived without me, after all.

Mira walks over to the shelves and brings two more pewter goblets to the table. She picks up the stone pitcher and pours a clear liquid into them. The scent of mountain herbs reaches me, and the memory comes before I can stop it.

A round table. Lamplight on steel. Varam laughing low at something Mira said. I remember the pressure of my fingers around a similar goblet, warmth bleeding into my palms as I raised it with them. Our final night before Thornreave.

This was the drink my closest companions and I would share before every battle.

I take a sip, then look around, searching for Ellie. She’s standing near the door.

“Come. Sit.” I pull out the seat next to me. “We’re safe here.”

She stares at me for a second, eyes moving from me to the chair and back again, then she moves forward a step … then another. Until she’s beside me.

“Why did they?—”

“I’ll explain later. Sit. Drink.” I push the goblet toward her, then turn back to the table. “Report. What remains of the Veinwardens?”

There is no hesitation. No request for clarification. The briefing begins as if decades have not passed. As if I never left.

“Fragmented, but persistent.” It’s Varam who answers.

His expression hardens into the familiar lines of a commander delivering a status report.

“The Authority expanded aggressively after your de—after your capture. They consolidated control of every major settlement. Ashenvale is now their administrative stronghold.”

He nods toward the maps on the wall. “Most of our original network is gone. Thornreave Pass was obliterated with your fall. The western sanctuaries held out the longest. Stonehaven still stands, but Veinbloods were rooted out, and siege tactics broke the rest.”

Places I built. People I trained. Strongholds designed to protect those hunted by the Authority. All dismantled. My familiar moves, sliding over my ribs, phantom wings fluttering.

“But you survived.” My gaze goes to the weapons. The maps. The layers of planning are visible.

Varam nods, a hint of pride creeping into his voice. “We adapted. Went deeper. Preserved what we could and studied their weak points.” He meets my eyes directly—one of the few who ever. “We didn’t stop. Even when it meant burning what we once fought to hold.”

“The Authority believes the Veinwardens are destroyed.” Mira takes over. “They’ve grown complacent. Their patrols are predictable, especially in the border settlements.”

“Then we make that complacency cost them.”

“You intend to return to the fight, Lord?” The second man asks.

“Nevik,” Varam warns.

I raise a hand, stopping him from speaking further. “They imprisoned me and took away my magic. My intention is not to simply fight them. I intend to destroy them.”

“Our numbers are smaller, but those who remain are fully committed,” Nevik says. “We’ve placed knots in every city, Lord Torran. They are all ready to act when called.”

“How do you communicate with them?”

“Coded messages by bird for long distance. Established phrases for local use.” Varam picks up the lead again. “Once you were gone, the remaining Veinbloods went to ground.” He glances around the table. “Not that it saved them.”

While he talks, he rises and moves to the far wall, dragging out a chest half-buried beneath stacked supplies.

“After you were taken,” he says, unlocking it and lifting the lid, “we did what we could. Most of Thornreave Pass was in ashes by the time the scouts got there. But not everything.”

He returns with a cloth-wrapped bundle and places it on the table before me. Each layer is folded back slowly. And when the final cloth falls away, the shadows under my skin rise then slip down my fingers and across the tabletop.

I reach out and stroke a finger along the blade, careful not to touch the edge. It responds instantly, tendrils of black curling up my wrist, and crawling over the lines of my palm. Ellie gasps beside me.

I forged this weapon at the height of the war. I used it to channel and magnify everything the Authority feared.

“How?” I always assumed the blade was captured with me, or destroyed in the battle.

“Kelren recovered it. He led a team back onto the battlefield while the Authority was still securing the area. It cost the lives of two good fighters, but he got it out.”

I turn to look at him. He doesn’t speak, just inclines his head in acknowledgement of the dangerous mission he carried out.

My grip closes around the hilt. Power to power. The blade pulses blue-black, and shadows flow along its length. My familiar responds with equal intensity. The void whispers words of welcome .

I’m three-quarters whole. But one final piece still remains out of reach.

“The prophecy.” Nevik’s whispered words fill the silence. “It’s happening. Exactly as foretold.”

Varam gives him a warning look, the expression of a leader who’s learned to mistrust hope. He doesn’t speak, but the rebuke is clear.

But my interest is piqued. “What prophecy?”

Varam sighs, the sound so familiar it sends me back into the past. Long nights at planning tables, firelight on stone, his face exasperated while I laid out strategies no one else would dare attempt.

“Not long after Thornreave, strange stories began circulating. Dreams, whispers, premonitions. At first, we thought it was grief. People trying to make sense of what we lost. But the accounts kept coming—too many, too consistent to dismiss outright.”

He pauses, his tone still laced with doubt. “Most of the inner circle called it desperation dressed as faith. I agreed. But the patterns didn’t fade. They spread. And over time, they changed.”

“The return of the Shadowvein Lord.” Nevik bursts out, leaning forward, voice filled with conviction. “And with him, a stranger from beyond our lands.”

I glance at Ellie, who seems to have picked up on the change in atmosphere. Her eyes dart around the room.

“There is a prophecy.” Nevik clears his throat. “When shadows lengthen and dawn falters, the Vein will flow once more.” His voice drops, full of belief and reverence. “Where shadow leads, storm will follow, awakening that which lies dormant in the void. ”

A strange sense of familiarity moves through me, though I’ve never heard those words before.

I’ve never placed value in prophecy, not in riddles or mysticism. Strategy has always served me better than faith. But I’ve seen enough of magic’s strange behaviors to avoid dismissing such things outright.

“An interesting coincidence. But our immediate concern must be to reestablish ourselves, not interpret vague words that could mean anything.”

Varam nods, visibly relieved by my response. “Your old quarters are still below. You’ll be safe there while we gather what you’ll need to understand everything that’s changed in your absence.”

I rise, unwrapping the leather belt looped around my shadowblade, and secure it at my hip where it belongs.

“My companion needs to rest. The past week has been difficult on her, and has taken its toll. Tomorrow, we will start planning.”

“If the Authority still believes you are imprisoned, that gives us an edge,” Mira says quietly.

“The tower collapsed after our escape. It won’t take them long to discover that. They may not understand what it means, but they’ll know something has changed, and will report it.”

“Even so, no one will expect your return,” Varam says. “That confusion will work in our favor.” He stands. “Come, I’ll take you to your quarters, and see to food for you and … the girl.”

I turn to Ellie. “We will stay here tonight. It’s safer than the inn.”

Varam leads us toward a concealed door I remember. As we walk I feel the others watching me, their expressions caught between awe and fear, and something more dangerous still. Hope .

These people have carried on a fight they believed claimed my life. They’ve suffered losses, adapted strategies, and transformed what I once led.

While the Authority believes they have eliminated the threat I posed, they have no idea that I walk free again, my power almost fully restored, and my purpose honed to a new lethal edge.

I catch Ellie watching me from the corner of her eye.

Does she understand anything of what she’s just witnessed?

Not that it matters. The war has begun. The pieces have returned to the board, with new players and altered stakes.

I’m here to take back what was mine, and burn what they built in its place.