The rider arrived just before sunrise.
No horn. No banner. Just a tired horse, flanks lathered, and a man slumped low in the saddle with dried blood down one sleeve. The guards called out, but he didn't answer.
Leon was already at the gate by the time they pulled the man down.
"Name," he asked sharply.
The rider blinked through haze. "Seron. Veiren watchpost. North of Hollow Vale."
Leon took the scroll from his belt and broke the seal with one thumb.
The writing was sharp, messy. Not Isabel's.
Rift opened and closed in six seconds.Temperature spike: 122.Flame observed, no combustion.Survivors: 3.Losses: 6."It saw me." – Taren.
Leon read it again. Then again.
The guard behind him leaned in. "Saw him?"
Leon turned. "No. It recognized him."
The others were already waiting by the time Leon stepped into the barracks chamber. The long table was cleared. Rissa stood near the window, sharpening one blade with slow strokes. Yundar leaned against the wall. Isabel sat casually at the corner, cloak thrown across the bench like she owned the room.
Leon didn't sit. He dropped the scroll onto the center of the table.
"Another flare," he said. "Different than the last."
Yundar reached for it without a word.
Isabel glanced at him. "Another rift?"
"Bigger. Faster. Opened and shut before the watch could react."
"Casualties?"
Leon nodded. "Six. Three survived."
"And the flame?"
He looked at her. "Real to the eye. Not to the world."
Rissa stopped sharpening.
Isabel leaned forward. "Explain."
"The trees caught," Leon said, "but nothing burned. The fire moved, but didn't consume. The temperature spiked. But nothing blackened."
Yundar's brow furrowed. "That's impossible."
Leon walked to the side wall and drew a quick circle in the ash tray beside the hearth.
"They're not trying to burn the world," he said. "They're testing how much of it still responds."
Rissa crossed her arms. "To what?"
Leon met her eyes. "To them."
The room was quiet for several seconds.
Then Isabel stood.
"You're saying they're reaching through—not to destroy, but to feel?"
Leon nodded. "Like someone tapping on glass."
Yundar stepped away from the wall. "What do they want?"
Leon exhaled. "The same thing I do. Proof the world is still breakable."
Rissa looked toward the door. "We need to scout the site."
Leon shook his head. "It's gone already. They close them fast. We'll only find residue."
"Still worth seeing," Yundar said.
"I'll go," Rissa offered.
Leon looked to Isabel. "Send a mage with her. A real one."
Isabel didn't flinch. "I'll send two."
Later, in the corridor outside the chamber, Leon stood alone by the window.
He didn't like what the scroll hadn't said.
No mention of smell.
No mention of noise.
No mention of screams.
Just heat.
That kind of silence wasn't natural. It was controlled.
And whatever came through those cracks—it had learned how to open the door without making a sound.
He spent the afternoon in the east yard.
Not in the ring. Not at the forge.
By the older post wall—where no one trained anymore. Where the stone was cracked and weeds grew between the tiles.
He set the training sword down.
And took the shard from his tunic.
It was colder now. Not lifeless, but different. It no longer pulsed when he held it.
Now it waited.
He crouched low and pressed it into the dirt.
Then sat back on the cold stone.
Waiting.
Footsteps approached around dusk.
Elena.
He didn't look up until she was beside him.
"You're always outside when something goes wrong," she said.
"I don't like the way stone walls think."
She sat on the edge of the broken platform, arms folded.
"They sent a report ahead of yours," she said. "Isabel's scouts. They found a melted helmet. No burn marks. No body. Just metal, still hot."
Leon didn't answer.
She watched him a moment longer. "You don't think this is just demon activity."
"No."
"You think it's something else?"
He looked at her. "I think it's memory. Twisted into form."
"Memory of what?"
Leon's hand closed around the shard. "Of what we were. And what we shouldn't have been allowed to become."
She didn't understand.
Not fully.
But she didn't push.
Instead, she said, "The High Council is sending an envoy."
Leon looked at her.
"Who?"
"Lord Halrid's second heir. A diplomat. And a knight."
"When?"
"Two days."
Leon stood.
And the shard, still buried in the dirt, hummed once in response.
That night, he walked the full length of the manor wall twice.
He passed the broken parapets. The old southern tower. The east turret that had been damaged in a training accident and never fully repaired.
He marked each weak point with chalk.
No one had asked him to.
But if the enemy was going to come from the inside...it would start with a crack no one remembered.
He made sure now—he would remember them all.
The chalk dust clung to his fingertips, ghost-white against dried blood and scabbed knuckles.
Leon wiped it on his cloak and kept moving along the south wall. The stones here were uneven—some pushed outward, others sagging where the mortar had long since decayed. He crouched near one joint and pressed his hand against the seam.
The pressure beneath the wall felt… hollow.
Like the stone wasn't resting on earth, but on something thinner.
Lighter.
He didn't like that.
He scraped a fresh mark—two lines intersecting diagonally, a private signal between him and Yundar—and moved on.
Behind him, the estate lights flickered on. The guards' torches flared in the inner yard. Bells chimed once from the watchtower as the shift changed. From the outside, everything still looked like a stronghold.
But Leon knew better now.
It wasn't a fortress.
It was a shell.
He passed a servant on his way back toward the barracks—young, barely older than the stable boys, carrying water in a wooden bucket. The boy flinched when he saw him.
Didn't speak.
Didn't even bow.
Just turned quickly down the hallway and disappeared behind the kitchen doors.
Leon stopped.
Not because it hurt.
But because it confirmed what he'd already begun to suspect.
He wasn't the young noble they whispered about anymore.
He was the one they feared.
Not for what he might do.
But for what might follow him in the dark.