The flakes of ash left behind the elders body still steamed on the snow-choked stones when the first horn blew.

It rose low and distant—from the heights above the shrine, echoing along the ice-ribbed cliffs like a spirit’s cry. Then another answered, nearer this time. And then a third, brassy and defiant, from the frozen watchtower that overlooked the valley.

It was not the mourning call.

It was the _call to assemble_.

From hidden paths and snow-worn barracks, from the roots of the mountain and the old blood-holds of the Veyari, they came—hundreds strong. Cloaked in shadow-fur and ice-threaded linen, war paint already on their faces, spirit-marks gleaming faintly in the lowlight like veins of silver through flesh. Hunters. Shamans. Spirit-bound warriors and fire-haired youths not yet blooded. They arrived without fanfare, but each step on the ice was a declaration. Each stare, a vow.

They came for her.

Telaryn stood atop the shrine dais, framed by the cragged spires and the flickering torches set into the bones of ancient antlers. Ashmire was strapped across her back, wrapped in dark leather and seals of bone that hummed quietly in the air, as though the blade itself breathed. The wind curled tight around her legs, and where her shadow fell, the frost pulled back.

The blood-scented wind, ever circling her since the mountaintop, had become her veil.

Beside her, Sari stood straight and still, hair tied back with storm-kissed cords. The mark of her pact burned faintly beneath the skin of her neck, pulsing like a second heartbeat. Her gaze never left Telaryn—not now with awe, but with a reverence shaded by something deeper. Desire. Devotion. The Queen she had waited for was no myth now. She stood before her.

Halven lingered near the rear of the gathering, hands buried in his coat. He watched not with adoration, but with wary clarity. His breath misted in the air, his expression unreadable. Whatever his doubts, they were buried now beneath the weight of something undeniable. This woman—this _blade-witch_, this spirit-bound warlord—_would_ change the world. Whether for ruin or rebirth, he could not yet say.

Eris stood not far from the front, kneeling as an elder spirit-weaver smeared a red sigil across her brow. It marked her as a shield-bearer of the new Queen. She did not flinch at the heat. She bore it like memory.

Weylan—young, earnest, burning—had already taken a knee at Telaryn’s side. His cloak bore her glyph, stitched hastily from dyed thread and cord. When she turned her head, ever so slightly, he looked up at her not as a commander, but as something holy. Her squire. Her swordarm to come. His eyes never wavered.

Then came the banner.

It rose slowly from a pole of carved bone and ancient cedar, hoisted by two shrine warriors whose faces were painted with black tears. A reworked relic, torn and reforged—blood-red silk on black field, stitched with the sigil that had once struck terror across empires: the flame without fire. The blade that drank light. The mark of the Queen Reborn.

It snapped once in the wind—and the mountains went still.

No voice broke the silence.

Only knees bending—hundreds at once. The sound like snow breaking from the boughs of ancient trees.

Telaryn stepped forward into the silence, letting the wind curl around her like a coronation robe. Her hair, once dark, was streaked white now—not with age, but with _marking_. The blade had changed her. And more would follow.

When she spoke, her voice cut the air like a knife drawn from frost.

“No more hiding in hollows. No more kneeling to distant kings and foreign blades. The blood of Talpis _still lives_—and it _walks with me_.”

A gust howled around her, not cold, but warm with breath and iron.

“I am Telaryn of the Flame. Heir of the storm. Wielder of the blood-bound blade. The Queen does not return by fate. She is _forged_.”

She drew Ashmire half from its sheath.

It gleamed like a shard of darkness. It _drank_ the torchlight.

A moment of utter stillness.

And then, like the mountains themselves exhaled—

A cry rose from the crowd. Wild, primal, triumphant.

Swords struck shields. Spears thudded into snow. A war-drum pounded from the high ridges, and the flamecatchers ignited—lines of oil and powdered salt tracing the cliff faces in searing glyphs that spelled _Return_ and _Blood Oath_ in the old tongue. Fire danced up the stone like a second sunrise.

Below, warriors knelt before elders to take the war mark. Veyari warpriests whispered to spirits, drawing sigils in flame and powder, marking flesh with pact-runes and oaths. Even children helped, carrying iron-bladed arrows and jugs of mountain ink from tent to tent.

Above, the Queen watched.

The mountain no longer hid her.

It _rose_ with her.