The dawn after the Wraiths' attack was cold and gray. Smoke from their small, hidden fires curled into the morning air as Aron stood upon a rocky rise, staring out across the vast sea of trees.
His band gathered below — fewer now, their faces tired, their bodies marked by battle. Yet their eyes burned with the same fierce light that had carried them through each fight.
Garron joined him, his arm bound from a deep gash. "The men wonder, my prince — what now? We've bled. We've run. Do we keep running?"
Aron's jaw tightened. "No. We take the fight to them. The Wraiths failed to break us. Now we strike where they feel safest."
---
That night, around the campfire's glow, they planned.
"The garrison at Black Hollow," Lina said, tracing a map drawn in the dirt. "Small, but well-stocked. They won't expect us to be bold."
Aron nodded. "We hit it. We arm ourselves. We show the people that the Puppet Master can bleed."
---
Before dawn, they set out. The forest felt like an old friend now — hiding them, sheltering their steps as they moved like shadows toward their goal.
Black Hollow rose before them as the sun broke the horizon — a stone fort at the edge of the woods, smoke curling from its chimneys, soldiers at ease behind its walls.
Aron gave the signal.
---
The attack came swift and fierce. Garron led the charge at the gate, his axe smashing through the weak point where wood met stone. Lina and her small band scaled the walls, cutting down the sentries before they could cry alarm.
Aron fought at the heart of the storm, his blade finding the gaps in armor, his voice rising above the clash:
"For the fallen! For the free!"
---
The garrison fell before the fury of the rebels.
When it was done, they stood within the walls, breathless, victorious.
Aron climbed to the highest tower. There, with his own hands, he tore down Jaren's black banner and raised a cloth stitched hastily from cloaks and rags — the rebel's mark: a white star on a field of red.
Below, his people cheered, their voices ringing through the forest.
---
But far across the land, in the broken hall of Sun City, Jaren felt the tremor of this boldness.
"They took Black Hollow," the messenger reported. "The people begin to whisper the prince's name in hope, not fear."
Jaren's voice was like ice.
"Then burn that hope. Gather the Scourge. We ride at dusk. Let the prince see what it means to defy me."
The storm had begun.