CHAPTER 48: FLAME OVER THE BORDER

Dawn broke crisp and pale. Thalen stood atop Reuven’s border fort, gaze fixed on the distant ridge that marked the Ashen Canyons. Beyond it, the Crown’s regiments drew rank, their silhouettes clean against the golden haze. Between them and Reuven’s fighters lay only the open plain soon to become the stage for the first joint drills between former enemies. A sun-bleached banner snapped in the rising wind, bearing Reuven’s emblem: the silver blade entwined with violet flame.

At his side, Captain Terres adjusted his helmet. "Regiment is ready."

Thalen nodded, his fingers tightening the straps on his gauntlet. "We begin."

Descending the spiral staircase, he emerged into the courtyard, where soldiers stood in clean lines, armor freshly polished. Reuven’s scouts with their horned helms, pikemen in layered leathers, musketeers with gleaming barrels. On the far end of the field, the Crown engineers had assembled black-cloaked and sharp-eyed, unarmed but no less imposing with their tools and measurement rods. Between the two forces stood Captain Renal, calm and centered in his polished duskplate.

Renal inclined his head. "Ascendant. Today we drill twice: formation and volley. Our engineers will observe."

"Then let’s begin," Thalen replied.

The first exercise began with the precision march. Soldiers moved in practiced harmony, Reuven’s units flanking while Crown regiments held center. The ground trembled beneath the rhythm of their unified step. With Thalen’s raised hand, they halted in perfect synchronization.

A single misstep shattered the moment.

One of Thalen’s pikemen slipped, stumbling on an uneven patch of earth and crashing shoulder-first into a Crown soldier. The clang of armor echoed across the field. Instantly, all motion ceased.

Thalen moved before the tension could ripple. He knelt beside the two, helping the pikeman upright, brushing dust from the soldier’s brow. "On your feet," he said firmly but without reprimand. The man’s eyes widened as he nodded and returned to the line without shame.

He turned to the troops. "We fall. We rise. And we do it together."

The second attempt ran clean. Pivoting as one, the dual force completed their drill. Crown engineers nodded, murmuring notes to one another. The drill ended with soldiers standing taller than when they began.

The sun climbed higher as the troops reassembled for the next test: a combined volley. Muskets clicked into place, flintlocks prepped by Reuven’s scouts while Crown archers set their bows behind them. Thalen called the shot. The first wave of muskets roared in chorus. Smoke coiled through the air. A half-breath later, the archers loosed their arrows, silent but deadly. The targets painted effigies shook and shattered. The second volley was tighter, more precise. Cheers broke out. Even the Crown archers raised fingers in salute to Reuven’s gunners.

"Tomorrow," Thalen told Renal, "we take on motion drills."

Renal responded with a faint smile. "Let’s make sure the earth doesn’t open up on us first."

That was when the smoke appeared.

A low, thick plume curling from the northeast ridge. Not the controlled kind of fire from a drill. This was darker, heavier, unnatural. Too sudden.

Thalen turned sharply toward the haze. "That isn’t us."

"No drills scheduled for that sector," Renal confirmed. "Scouts?"

Two Drake-horns immediately galloped toward the rise. Minutes passed. The smoke thickened. The wind shifted.

A scout returned, panting, ducking under a still-glowing arrow. "It’s not friendly. Something’s burning through stone."

Thalen mounted. "Send a forward party. Fifty from each side. We’re investigating."

They moved fast, a combined column of soldiers and engineers. As they neared the ridge, the smoke pressed against their lungs. A sharp scent burned metal, scorched mana grew stronger.

They reached the shallow basin near the ridge and halted. The ground here was torn open, like something had forced itself from beneath. Stones still steamed. Aura shimmered faintly at the base of a jagged fissure. The ground hissed like it was alive.

"Thermal vent?" a Crown engineer guessed. "Or..."

"Not natural," Varos murmured, crouching near the crack. "Feel this?"

He dipped two fingers into a patch of residue clinging to the rock.

It shimmered violet-black, then hissed away like smoke when disturbed. Everyone took a step back.

"This is aura bleed," Varos said. "But corrupted. Tyrant Spirit traces."

Thalen’s heart pounded harder. "Here? This close to the drills?"

They advanced farther, covering their mouths. Beneath a blackened slab of collapsed stone, a broken clay vessel lay split in two sigils painted in red and scorched silver across its shattered surface.

Thalen bent and studied it. "A container."

"Sigil bomb," one mage confirmed. "Primitive but precise. Aura-triggered. The detonation opened a breach in the crust."

Renal crouched beside Thalen, his brows tight. "Tyrant loyalists?"

"Or worse," Thalen replied, eyes still locked on the violet smear staining the rocks. "Someone trying to make us turn on each other."

The engineers sealed the fissure with field materials alchemic paste, aura-fused glass, and shaped stone. As they worked, the scouts swept farther and uncovered more fragments, another vessel, this one still intact, humming softly. It was immediately quarantined.

When they returned to the fort, the smoke had thinned, but not vanished. The afternoon drills were canceled. Soldiers from both sides sat in silence near the fires, drinking water and staring at the horizon.

Thalen stood on the central platform and addressed them.

"Today we faced something neither of us expected. Not a clash of politics or banners but of something that feeds on fear."

He looked at both sides. "And yet, no one ran. No one blamed. You stood. Together."

The troops struck their spears and swords against the ground once solemn affirmation.

Later, within the war council chamber, Thalen and Renal reviewed the engineers’ reports. Residual aura readings confirmed it: the explosion bore Tyrant Spirit characteristics, albeit masked under common fire glyphs.

"We need to form a joint patrol," Renal said. "Guard these fissures. Investigate sabotage. The Council will approve it if you endorse it too."

"I’ll send confirmation to the Citadel," Thalen agreed. "But it must come with transparency. Let the public know we found this together."

Renal hesitated. "You’ll want to hold back some detail."

"I’ll hold nothing," Thalen said. "If fear wins by secrecy, then we already lost."

They signed the initial writ for the Border Watch that night.

As he stepped out onto the rampart, Thalen gazed across the darkening plains. Torches from both camps flickered in the distance two fires that once would have faced each other across a battlefield.

Now they flickered side by side.

But farther east, beyond the drills, another wisp of smoke had begun to rise.

Thalen narrowed his eyes.

"I see it," Varos said quietly, stepping up beside him.

"It won’t be the last," Thalen muttered.

He clenched the hilt of the Blade That Breaks.

But even in the rising dark, he did not turn away.