The wind howled against the ramparts, an unrelenting force that battered the walls of Cealrath’s capital like an invisible siege engine. Midnight cloaked the city in an ocean of darkness, its tendrils winding through every alley, every crevice, leaving only phantom glimmers of lantern light to defy the void. The sky was a canopy of heavy clouds, a shroud blotting out the stars, as though the heavens themselves had turned away from the world below. There was no moon to bear witness to what prowled beyond the walls; only the cruel, hollow whispers of the night.

Brannon Corvayne’s blackened armor drank in the faint light, rendering him a silhouette of sharpened shadow against the backdrop of the fortress walls. His cloak billowed and snapped like a wounded raven, and his gloved hand rested lightly on the cold steel of his sheathed dagger. He walked the length of the battlements with the quiet, measured gait of a man who never surrendered his vigilance, his eyes perpetually narrowed against the unseen dangers lying in wait.

Below him, the sleeping city sprawled, its buildings hunched together in uneasy rest. Narrow streets twisted like veins beneath the fortress, their silence fragile, as if a single sound might fracture the illusion of peace. A thin mist crept over the rooftops, a ghostly specter that curled around chimneys and slithered through shuttered windows. It was a city that rested under the false security of stone and steel, blind to the fragility of its existence.

But Brannon knew better.

The wind carried with it the scent of damp stone, smoldering embers, and the faint, bitter tang of old blood. It was a scent that settled into the pores of the fortress, impossible to cleanse, a testament to Cealrath’s legacy of conflict. His breath misted in front of him in faint clouds of vapor, ephemeral and fleeting — a stark contrast to the solid weight of his presence, carved from resolve and restraint. Every step he took echoed faintly, the metallic clink of his boots striking stone sang darkly.