darrian's POV
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The horn was not like the others. It didn’t speak of battle. It groaned with ancient warning, vibrating the marrow of every bone in my body.
I stood on the ridge, Heather beside me, both of us motionless. We had been united through pain, through fire, through the s*******r of our people. But even as the smoke of the last battle still curled from the pyres, something worse had awakened.
The cloaked figure stood unmoving. The trees behind it didn’t sway. The ground didn’t breathe. Even the air seemed to wait.
"What is it?" I asked Marek, who'd appeared behind me breathless, scrolls clutched in his arms.
He dropped them to the ground, unraveling one. "It matches no creature in our codices. Not demon. Not fae. Not even the ancients. It’s... it's something else."
"Tha
