They marched into the fog, and the world vanished behind them.
No trees. No sun. No sound but the crunch of boots in brittle snow and the distant scream of crows that no longer flew. The army became a trail of shadowed silhouettes, stretched thin between the veil and the void. Even voices seemed muffled, as though the air itself swallowed all meaning.
At first, they whispered songs. Simple tunes. Marching chants meant to chase the cold. But by the second day, no one sang. The wind had learned to sing back — and it sang in the voices of the dead.
"Alphonse…" it moaned through the trees.
Ned froze in the saddle. The voice was clear, soft, loving — and impossible.
"Father?"
He turned, scanning the lines of men behind him. Nothing. Only mist and blurred silhouettes.
Then again: "Nedrick… my son…"
He drew Ashbringer in an instant. The blade hissed as it left the sheath, the runes along its surface glowing faintly in the pale gloom.
"Hold!" Eldric's voice cracked like a whip from the vanguard. "We are being tested. Eyes open. No man rides alone."
The fog thickened in defiance, curling around spears, licking at the boots of scouts like living breath.
Two men vanished that day — no sound, no scream, only the clatter of their gear in the snow. They found blood and teeth. Nothing else.
By the second night, even the veterans began whispering prayers in tongues older than the kingdom.
They made camp atop a high ridge beside a frozen river. Fires refused to burn unless stoked with salt and oil. The priests—those who hadn't gone mad or silent—drew circles in ash and muttered rites to gods that had not answered in centuries.
Ned sat apart.
He stared at the fog beyond the firelight, his knuckles white around the hilt of Ashbringer.
"She called my name," he muttered.
Maera knelt beside him, her red veil wet from melted snow. "Who?"
"My father. Or something wearing his voice."
"The dead remember what moves us. They take the shape of our longing. This fog—it's not air. It's memory. Fractured. Twisted. Turned against us."
Ned looked up sharply. "Then what are we marching into?"
Maera's eyes gleamed gold in the firelight. "Yourself."
At midnight, the attack came.
Not in screams. Not in thunder. But in silence.
The guards at the perimeter simply vanished. No sound. No fight. Just gone.
Then something slithered through the fog—too fast to be seen, too cold to breathe.
A horse reared and collapsed, its eyes frozen solid.
Then came the dead.
They didn't march. They flowed.
Men and women in furs and armor—some clearly soldiers, others peasants—moved like shadows of smoke. Their eyes were hollow. Their mouths open, silent. Some had no faces at all.
Ser Kael was the first to charge. "For flame and throne!" he roared, his axe cutting through the mist.
But when his blade struck the first of them, it passed through like mist—and then his chest exploded in black frost.
"Stand firm!" Ned shouted, raising Ashbringer high. The blade flared golden, searing the air. The fog recoiled, and where the light touched the dead, they burned.
A wall of flame erupted around the prince. The soldiers surged forward behind him.
"Use fire!" Eldric bellowed. "Fire or ash!"
They fought for hours. Some died before they could scream. Others died twice—rising only to fall again under the blessed steel of runed blades.
At dawn, the survivors stood panting in the charred remains of their camp. Fifty men had fallen. Another dozen had gone mad, scratching at their own skin and whispering riddles in an unknown tongue.
Ned collapsed to one knee, blood trickling from his lip.
He heard the voice again.
"You are close… too close…"
That day, the fog lifted slightly, revealing the ruined remnants of a village on the northern ridge. Ned led the vanguard down, sword in hand, unsure if they would find shelter—or another massacre.
The village had once been called Emberdeep, nestled near the foot of the Eternal Scar—a great black canyon that split the northlands in two. It was said the gods struck the earth there after the first betrayal, and that no light had touched its depths since.
Now, the village was hollow.
Every house burned from the inside.
Cattle hung upside down from trees, split open like offerings. Salt lines were carved into the ground with frantic precision.
And in the square stood a woman—alive.
Her skin was alabaster, eyes like silver mirrors, and her gown shimmered with shadow. She did not flinch as Ned approached. She only smiled.
"You came," she said, her voice like a funeral hymn. "The boy of ash. The broken crown."
"Who are you?" Ned demanded.
"I am the voice you've heard. I am the breath behind the fog. I was there when your father burned. I sang to him."
Ned raised Ashbringer. "Then you will burn next."
But she did not move. She only pointed toward the canyon.
"The gate has opened, child. And from it, the Hollow King rises. You cannot stop him. But you can kneel."
Lightning split the sky behind her. In its flash, Ned saw the truth—her shadow was not her own.
It writhed. Twisted. Changed shape.
A god. Or something worse.
He slashed. The blade passed through her, and the woman dissolved into ash.
Only laughter remained.
That night, they camped at the edge of the Eternal Scar.
It stretched out before them, an abyss that seemed to eat the light. Maera stood beside Ned, her fingers trembling.
"This place… this is where the gods died."
Ned nodded. "Then this is where we will fight."
From within the canyon, something stirred.
A horn sounded. Not theirs.
And from the black, they rose.
Not mist. Not illusion.
But an army of the dead.
Ten thousand strong.
Marching without heartbeat