Frostfang had survived, but survival bore its own cost. In the wake of the marsh's horror, the people trudged through streets littered with broken stone and scorched banners, burying their dead, comforting the maimed, cleaning the filth from their walls.
Dawn rose over a city quiet with exhaustion. Smoke still rose from the ruins, curling lazily in the breeze. The sun, once veiled by a hateful fog, now glowed over rooftops as if blessing them with fragile warmth.
Aldric moved among his people with steps heavy as iron. Wherever he passed, they bowed heads, some in gratitude, others in silent grief. His own shoulders slumped with the burden of what had been done, and what was yet to do.
In the square before the cathedral, makeshift tents housed the wounded — children bandaged head to toe, farmers missing limbs, soldiers who would never again bear sword or shield. Rowena worked tirelessly among them, her voice gentle, her hands steady, whispering hope like an endless candle flame.
"Rest," she told them again and again. "You stood for each other. You stood for all."
Yet there were no illusions: the healing would take seasons, even years.
At the city gates, Kaelin oversaw the watch. Her armor was dented, her hair matted with sweat and smoke, but her eyes burned with renewed determination.
"Double the guard," she ordered. "Nothing passes these walls without my say."
One of the younger soldiers hesitated. "Do you think it's truly dead, Captain?"
Kaelin stared past him, to where the marsh had begun to dry under the morning sun. A hush lay over that blackened land, but deep beneath the ground, who could say what might still dream?
She placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"I think," she said, "we broke its hold. But we'd be fools to think the world has no more monsters."
Meanwhile, Maerlyn retreated to the high tower of the cathedral, a solitary place of candlelight and wind-swept arches. She spread scrolls across a table of old oak, runes smoldering faintly in the dawn.
She had seen too much.
In her mind, the memory of the beast — that devourer of gods — gnawed at her like a worm in rotting wood. How many other parasites like it might have survived the fall of the old kingdoms? How many others had gone to ground, waiting, patient as wolves?
She dipped her quill in ink and began to write.
A record must be kept, she wrote. So that those who follow will never be unprepared again.
The council convened at midday in a scorched hall, the once-proud banners still torn and blackened by battle. Kaelin, Rowena, Maerlyn, and Aldric stood at its head.
Aldric's voice, when he spoke, was deep and ragged.
"Frostfang is safe for now," he began. "But look around you. Our farms are burned. Our warriors are broken. Our children know terror they will never unlearn."
He paused, glancing at each of them.
"I will not lie: this is the hardest hour. But it is also the most important. If we lose ourselves now, if we let fear turn our hearts to stone, then we have truly lost."
Rowena nodded. "We must rebuild with compassion, not just walls."
Kaelin crossed her arms. "And yet our defenses must be stronger than ever. Word will spread that we survived. Enemies will come to test us."
Maerlyn's eyes were shadowed. "Worse than mortal enemies may come. We have drawn the attention of darker things."
A hush settled on the hall at those words.
Aldric looked up, jaw set. "Then we will be ready. For all of them."
For days afterward, the city labored like an ant colony after a flood. Wagons brought stone from the hills. Carpenters patched every breach in the walls. Blacksmiths worked day and night, forging fresh arrowheads, repairing battered blades.
Rowena's followers raised shrines among the rubble, small candles in clay bowls burning through the night to remind everyone that the sun would rise again.
Children played among the workers, too thin, too quiet, but still alive, still trying.
On the sixth night after the battle, the people gathered in the square. Someone — no one knew who — began to sing an old hymn of Frostfang, a melody so ancient it was half-forgotten.
Others joined, tentatively at first, then boldly.
Their voices rose together:
When winter comes and shadows grow,
Our hearts remember the candle's glow.
Though ice may take the green from tree,
The flame will guard both you and me.
The verses lifted over shattered towers, carried on the wind like a promise to the gods themselves.
Kaelin stood with Aldric, listening, one hand resting on the pommel of her sword.
"Did you ever think we'd live to hear that song again?" she asked.
Aldric shook his head. "No. But I am grateful we do."
The next morning, as the sun cracked the horizon, Maerlyn descended from the tower, clutching a single scroll.
She found Aldric in the courtyard, helping a mason set new stones.
"King," she called, "I must speak with you."
He came to her, wiping mortar from his hands. "What news?"
Maerlyn's face was grave. "I believe I know what awoke that creature in the marsh. And I fear it is not the only one."
Aldric went still. "Say it."
She unfurled the scroll. Drawn on it was a map — a broad sweep of mountains and forests, marked with small black sigils like spider's eyes.
"These marks," she said, tapping each one with a shaking finger, "are other places where the dream realm once bled into ours. Fissures. Weaknesses."
Aldric studied the map, mouth set in a grim line. "And you think more nightmares will crawl through them?"
Maerlyn's eyes were steady. "Not just think, Your Majesty. I am certain of it."
A hush fell over them, broken only by the crack of hammers on stone.
Aldric exhaled slowly, a man who had shouldered the weight of a kingdom and now found it grown even heavier.
"Then," he said, "we will face them. All of them. One by one, if we must."
Maerlyn lowered her voice. "We will need allies, Aldric. We cannot stand alone against a tide of nightmares."
Aldric nodded, heart pounding. "Then send word. Riders to every friendly realm, every free city. Tell them what happened here. Tell them we stood against the darkness, and survived — and that we will stand with them if the darkness comes for them too."
Maerlyn smiled faintly, weariness and pride warring in her eyes. "As you command."
That night, Aldric stood on the battlements, looking down at the rebuilding city. The lamplight below was gentle, glittering like fallen stars across the stone.
He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of pine smoke, steel, and the faint sweetness of honey-cakes baked to feed the children.
I will not fail them, he swore to himself. No matter what comes.
Below, Kaelin paced along the wall, never resting, always watching.
Rowena could be seen in the candlelight, helping a mother calm her screaming child.
And Maerlyn's silhouette in her tower was as constant as the moon.
They had faced a terror that hungered for souls. And they had endured.
But beyond the marsh, beyond the scars of Frostfang, a darker night was gathering — a storm whispered of in half-forgotten prayers, a hunger older than any human heart.
And so the threads were spun for battles yet to come,
and the kingdom took its first breath toward a new dawn.