The dawn broke slow and colorless, as if the sun itself had faltered at the sight of what Hollow Pass had become. A gray light seeped into the valley, laying bare the ruin that the night's shadows had tried to conceal. What had once been a battlefield was now a charnel plain, every ridge and slope carved into testimony of men's fury and men's fragility. Broken spears jutted like rotten teeth from the ground. Armor glinted dully beneath heaps of ash. The bodies of horses lay twisted beside their riders, their eyes wide and blind, mouths frozen in final screams.
Ryon stood in the heart of it.
The cheering had died with the night, replaced now by a silence as heavy as the stones that lined the gorge. Men busied themselves with the work of the living: gathering the wounded, stacking the dead, tending the fires. Yet even amid that labor, their gazes returned again and again to him, the warlock, the vessel who had not broken.
He felt their eyes like weights pressing into his skin. Their faith was a chain, forged of need and desperation, binding him to a destiny he had never sought. He could not turn from it. He could not set it down.
He had raised his sword last night. He had spoken words he barely remembered, words that had ignited their hope. And now they would follow him anywhere. Into fire, into shadow, into death.
The system whispered, oily and unrelenting:
"Faith is a crown heavier than iron. It cuts deeper than any blade. Can you bear it, Ryon? Or will it crush the vessel?"
He ignored it—or tried to. His hands trembled as he cleaned his sword on a strip of cloth torn from his cloak. The blade was scarred, notched from the duel, the steel dulled by the relentless clash. He should have set it aside, sought another. But he could not. It was more than metal now. It was proof. It was burden.
Kael approached, limping slightly, his sling tighter today, his young face etched with exhaustion. He stopped a few paces away, his eyes flickering with both worry and awe.
"The men wait for your command," he said.
Ryon looked at him, saw the shadow of the boy who had once been and the outline of the commander he was becoming. Kael's eyes were fever-bright, too bright, lit with a fire that was not entirely his own. It was reflected light, borrowed from Ryon's victory.
"They'll march when I tell them," Ryon said. His voice was raw, low. "But not today."
Kael hesitated. "The North will rally, my lord. Their commander is dead, but their host is not destroyed. If we linger too long—"
Ryon's gaze cut through him. "And if we march now, with half our men bleeding and the rest too tired to lift their blades, we'll be swept into the grave beside the scarred one. No. Today we tend the living. Today we bury the dead. Tomorrow we march."
Kael bowed his head, though unease lingered in his jaw. He wanted to argue. But he would not. Not with Ryon.
When he left, Ryon found himself alone again, staring at the rising smoke of the funeral pyres.
He remembered the scarred commander's final words: Wrong vessel.
The memory gnawed at him. The man had not yielded even at the end. He had not broken. He had been slain, yes—but in that moment, in that terrible instant when his life bled out, he had claimed a victory of his own. He had branded Ryon with doubt, driven a splinter deep into his marrow.
"Wrong vessel," Ryon whispered, testing the words on his tongue.
The system stirred, its voice a rustle of leaves across a grave.
Ryon stood before the largest pyre, where the scarred commander's body burned apart from the rest. Some had argued against giving the northern dog such honor, but Ryon had commanded it. The man had earned fire. He had earned memory. To deny him would be to deny the truth of what had been fought here.
Kael joined him again, silent at first. Then: "You honor him."
Ryon did not look away from the flames. "I fought him. He deserves it."
"Some would say he deserves nothing but rot," Kael muttered.
Ryon's jaw tightened. "Then let them rot in their smallness. He was a man of iron. I will not lie to myself, or to them, by pretending otherwise."
Kael fell quiet. But in his silence, Ryon felt the young man's unease deepen. Not all the South would understand this. Not all would forgive it. But he did not care. The truth mattered.
The system's voice licked at him, sly, amused.
"Already you crown him with fire. Already you weave him into yourself. The scarred one lives in you now, as shadow, as weight. You carry his fury, his defiance. You are two vessels bound. Which will break first?"
Ryon turned from the pyre. He could not listen any longer.
Sleep came late, fitful, twisted. He dreamed of iron circles, of blades screaming, of eyes burning with molten fire. He dreamed of being split open, his marrow laid bare, his soul poured out like water.
And always, in the center of the dream, he heard the whisper:
Wrong vessel.
When morning came, he rose hollow-eyed but unyielding. The host was ready, as ready as it could be. The banners rose again, tattered but proud, bearing the marks of fire and ash. The men looked to him. Always to him.
He mounted his horse, the weight of their stares pressing like a crown of bone upon his skull. His voice carried across them, steady despite the storm within.
"We march," he said.
And the host moved, like a tide of ash rolling toward a future written in shadow.
Yet in his chest, the words burned still, carved deeper with every breath.
Wrong vessel.
He rode on, and the weight of that crown pressed heavier with each step.