Dawn’s Reckoning

(Paige’s POV)

Hours stretch when night refuses to break. Darkness feels endless just before morning light shows up.

Lying here, Lysander rests - small, still, breathing soft against me - while everything outside cracks and groans. My eyes stay open, pulled wide by each echo down the hall, each shiver through the floor. Sound bends strangely now, less melody, more warning buried deep in my ribs. Quiet builds, thick, like before a storm breaks.

A hum hangs behind her eyelids. Still no sign of Mara. Tension lives in the quiet between walls.

A shift happens. Suddenly quiet follows - the constant thud… thud… of heavy machines falls still. Voices along the ramparts take on a different edge - no longer battle noise, instead crisp orders that bounce off stone. Footsteps multiply, stepping together, drawing back toward the center.

Back he goes, Noah. Trust lit up in his eyes. Space for the mountain now opens wide.

My arms squeeze Lysander close. Into the blackness, I breathe a plea - soft, raw - not aimed at stars, just need. The mountain doesn’t answer. Maybe nothing does. Still, I hope anyway. That this act holds weight. That it changes something

A pale glow creeps in through the thin slit of glass. Morning arrives.

Out of silence it comes first. Not seen, but felt - a low moan rising up through stone and soil, heavier than storm noise. The fortress trembles now in another way, not like before when strikes hit. Something older moves beneath. A shake from within earth's core.

Out of silence, noise swells. Not a machine hum nor human shout, but something deeper - rising like wind before a storm. This roar climbs, feeds on itself, cracks open the air. Earth splitting wide becomes sound.

Up from the bed I stagger, every muscle shrieking, then stumble toward the glass with the child clutched close. In rushes Mara again, eyes blazing with something wild, almost cruel in its brightness.

“Come! You must see!”

Down there beyond the walls, past the drop of the slope, Greymont's soldiers have set up their tents. She guides my steps toward the narrow opening in the stone. From here we can see it all - no need to speak.

A gasp catches hard inside me when I see it.

The mountain is moving.

Something broke loose. Not spellwork - just rock and frost letting go at the worst moment possible. Up high, heavy sheets of frozen mass cracked apart. Snowslides now roaring down. These aren’t accidents. They race along paths that lead straight to choke points. Right where Greymont’s soldiers pack tight. Out of nowhere - it hits me. Those hill people, right? Ancient know-how tucked under their skin. Their blasts, set deep by hands that remembered, probably started it all. Just a push, really. The last one.

A wave of blinding snow crashes forward, taller than towers, tearing through the mountain's edge. This force takes everything - shelters, soldiers, animals, war machines - without pause. Noise fills the air, a grinding thunder that never fades. Far off cries, sharp with fear, vanish fast, gone like sparks in a storm wind.

Cold fear grips you. Awe follows close behind. Snow and rock carve what feels like fairness into the land.

A whisper rose from the peak. Silence followed after it spoke.

(Noah’s POV)

Out beyond the tallest spire, smoke climbs into a bruised sky. The world burns while silence presses against my ears. Flames eat through streets like hunger. Dust rolls where voices used to walk. A wind carries ash across cracked stone. Nothing moves down below but shadow and ember.

Snow crashes down like something ancient waking up. Ice becomes flame that washes clean instead of burning. Not chaos - someone shaped this force into paths on the slopes. That was Borog’s doing, him and those who walked beside him. They listened when stone roared, then pointed its rage where it needed to go.

A wave of snow crashes down, swallowing half of Greymont's soldiers without warning. His troops, once pressing forward like a tightening fist, now stumble blindly through chaos. Screams rise as men vanish beneath tons of frozen weight. Those left stagger against towering banks of ice on one side, our high gates sealing shut on the other. Order dissolves fast - no signals, no ranks, just panic in the cold. Trapped they stand, caught mid-breath between mountain and stone.

Here it happens. More than holding ground - shattering their line for good.

Below in the courtyard, I face the group of men. Some stagger, others lean on broken spears - faces smeared with dirt and old wounds. Yet every one looks up, unblinking, fire flickering in their gaze like embers caught in stone. The infant's first scream reached them moments ago. Before that came the deep shake beneath their feet - the earth snarling through roots and rock. Now they stand as more than fighters. From them, the spirit of the north takes shape.

Silence sits heavy. My blade lifts, dark with last night’s blood, aimed at the big gates ahead.

“OPEN THE GATES!”

A deep growl echoes back, rattling the ground beneath. That noise - sharp, wild - comes from wolves breaking free.

Clanking metal lifts. Those heavy wooden gates open wide. Out we rush - fur, iron, fury tangled together. Heavy boots hit stone.

This isn’t some fight. A massacre - that’s what it really is.

Frozen still, the southerners huddle, stripped of hope, without a voice to guide them. From above, their old life shattered like ice under fire. We arrive not as men, but as shadows born of this bitter wasteland they foolishly crossed into.

Out here on the edge, blade cutting air. Each strike belongs to Paige - left there, hurt, waiting inside those walls. Dead foes drop one by one, each one meant for the child I’ve never touched. What used to freeze my chest now burns slow, sharp, clear. Fury wakes up where terror lived.

Footsteps heavy, I spot Greymont's flag lifting in the wind. Toward it I move, drawn by the sight. A cluster of knights huddles nearby, shaken but standing. My path leads there - no choice, really.

Through the dust he walks, Alex close, twin blades cutting what stands ahead. Not two but one rhythm drives us forward. Destruction hums in our steps.

Down goes the big one, armor clanking like broken bells. His mace whistles past my ear when I drop low, blade sliding where metal meets leather near his leg. The banner wobbles as he drops, but I’m already moving. Knee cracks wood - a sharp snap - and cloth flutters before vanishing into red footprints and trampled ice.

“THE MOUNTAIN HAS JUDGED YOU!” I thunder, my voice carrying over the din. “LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS AND LIVE! OR JOIN YOUR MASTER IN THE ICE!”

Strength drains from their limbs. Into the snow sink blades, heavy and spent. Knees strike frozen ground as voices tremble - pleading with distant gods who do not listen in this cold.

A hush drops without warning, deep and total, pierced just by the wind's groan along with creaks from far-off avalanche slopes shifting. Pine hangs in the air now, mixed with iron-rich blood plus snow split open fresh.

It is over.

(Paige’s POV)

Outside the wall, the fighting has stopped. Now quiet sits heavy where shouts used to be. Stillness feels sharper than any clash before.

A hush broke loose. Voices rose up - thick with joy, full in the throat, spilling over like water after a dam gives way. This was no strained cry from tired fighters clinging to stone. It rolled forward, heavy and sure, shaking the air with what comes when it is finally over.

A breath of light spills into the hall. There he is - Noah, framed in the doorway of the solar. The air shifts.

A figure shaped by battle stands there, breath steady. Though dented and streaked with dried blood, the armor holds tight around him. From a new wound along his cheekbone, light catches red. Clumps of wet hair cling to his scalp - melted snow mixed with sweat. Iron lingers in the scent he carries, sharp smoke, cold wind.

That sight took my breath away like nothing before it.

Something shifts when he sees me, gaze slipping fast to what I hold. That fire in his stare - sharp a moment ago - frays at the edges, turns unguarded.

Into the room he comes, steps drawn out like a breath held too long. Not a glance toward Mara or the woman beside her. All of it - every part of now - focusing only on me.

There he stands, planted at the edge of the bed. Breathing hard, eyes locked on mine, ribs pushing against skin. His fingers won’t stay still - shaking like they’re holding something too heavy. Dark marks beneath his gaze tell what words never could.

That’s when the peak spoke up, he tells me, throat raw.

“I heard,” I say quietly.

Now his eyes drift from my face down to the boy. Wonder floods his expression, wiping away everything - rank, command, bloodshed. Just a father now, staring at something he never thought possible.

He speaks gently - “May I?” - a hush in his voice, nothing like the man he usually is.

My head moves up and down, fresh tears blurring everything. Softly - so soft it hurts inside - he undoes the straps on his arm guards, metal hitting stone with a sharp sound. The gloves come next, thick with dried blood, slipping away piece by piece. Now open, his hands look worn, marked by old wounds, barely steady.

Out comes his hand. Slowly, I pass over the child - Lysander still lost in sleep - to where his father waits.

Stillness settles as Noah holds the small shape close. Downward gazes meet, eyes tracing every fragile curve. A hush wraps around them both. Fingers drift - lightly - the pad brushing soft skin. Threads of silver-white hair catch the light when he moves. Wonder sits deep in his stare, quiet, unshaken.

A lone tear cuts across the dirt streaking his face. It stays put, left untouched by his hand.

Now he turns his gaze between the child and me, full of feeling - warmth showing, then release, then strength like stone set deep. His look stays fixed, not moving, carrying more than words could hold.

A son - that’s what you’ve given me, he says, like it’s the one thing worth saying aloud.

“We made it,” I say, throat tight.

Shaking his head, he holds my stare without blinking. Not mere survival, that is what he means, Paige. His eyes shift to Lysander briefly before drifting again to the glass, fixed on the fallen foe outside. Down there, among those weathered faces standing firm, loyalty carved deep into their posture. Conquest. That word hangs silent but clear.

A weight settles next to me, the mattress dipping under his presence. Our boy rests in his arms like something fragile found in a dream. Heat from his breathing brushes my cheekbone. My head tilts toward his without deciding. Stillness wraps around the space between heartbeats. The air holds its shape when words stay unspoken.

Fans up north shout loud, celebrating their duke's win. Victory has them roaring under open skies.

Here, titles mean nothing. Not royalty, not protectors. No visions. No armor.

Folks like us stick together, through cold winters and long nights. Rooted up where the sky turns pale early. This patch of land? That is where our boots stay.