Chapter 77

Third Person Limited

Salvatore

The wind howled outside the fortress walls like a living thing—restless, angry, relentless. The sound reverberated through the stone corridors of the stronghold, rattling windowpanes and stirring the flames in wall sconces. Inside the war room, Salvatore sat behind his large oak desk, unmoving, a shadow among maps and ledgers. His elbows rested heavily on the desk’s surface, his fingers rhythmically tapping against the edge, creating a sound that was steady but unthinking. His eyes, sharp as a predator’s and dark as midnight, stared blankly at the battlefield map spread out before him.

Colored pins pierced through various points across the map—markers of skirmishes lost and won, key resource routes, ambush sites, suspected enemy hideouts. The map looked more like a bleeding carcass than a strategy guide. But none of that held his focus now.

What haunted him—what clung to the edges of his mind like a thorn embedded under skin—were the scout’s words.

“They