Chapter 68: The Truthmarch Begins
The snowfall had not yet stopped.
It followed them like a shroud as Leon and his party emerged from the Vale Below. The horses trudged slow but sure, their breath pluming in the cold. Kellen rode ahead, silent, scouting the path through the cragged hills while the two silent wardens flanked the rear, eyes sharp beneath grey hoods. Eliane rode beside Leon, her gaze unreadable.
Neither had spoken since they left the Truthwell.
Only when they passed the frozen ridge into daylight did Eliane finally ask, voice low, "Are you going to tell them? About Elberyn?"
Leon didn’t look at her. "No. Not yet."
She didn’t press further.
The journey took two days. By the time they returned to the fortress, the garrison had changed. The walls bristled with new guard lines, the banners of old houses raised in strange alliances. Word of the Archive theft had spread faster than expected. From the merchant plains to the river sanctuaries, messages poured in. Most offered questions. A few offered help.
And one bore a warning.
Tobias Virell.
The name had been marked in charcoal at the bottom of a sealed missive, its ink laced with Council sorcery. A man once assumed dead. A man whose loyalty had shattered with the Fifth Oathbreaking.
Leon read it twice, then burned it.