Chapter 94. The Severed Oath

The snow had thickened overnight, but the air was not quiet. It crackled. Not with fire—though flame was near—but with the thin metallic rasp of expectation, a storm waiting to be born. The compound had grown restless since the Mirrorless Shift. Wardens and apprentices alike no longer trusted their own glyphs; some had already abandoned them. And yet the silence of the null field called more loudly than any glyph ever had.

Aria stood on the outer terrace of the north tower, watching smoke climb from the forges below. The fire was not ceremonial—it was warning fire, the kind that burned black instead of gold. A signal of gathering. Of approach.

“They’ve come closer,” Jules said beside her. His cloak was damp with frost, and his breath wove white ribbons in the morning air. “The Severed Flame crossed the outer ridge last night. Three camps, maybe four. If they move fast, they’ll reach the fields by dusk.”

Aria’s palm brushed the stone railing, tracing lines she did n