VI. The Wolf Reborn

In the Hall of Judgments, before Friar’s gathered clergy and Wolves in silver chains, Cairn knelt.

He spoke the lines exactly as written.

“I carried a message once for a Choir singer. I asked no questions. I walked as I was paid to walk.”

Father Tai pressed his hand upon Cairn’s bowed head.

“Do you renounce such shadows?”

“I renounce any song that exalts one Cycle above another,” Cairn answered.

The Wolves fastened new bracers upon him. His old scabbard was taken. A plain sword, marked with the wolf’s head, was given in its place.

“So ends your claim to Kum’s knighthood,” Tai proclaimed. “Rise now as Wolf-gray, servant of judgment.”

Outside, an Emberlord of the Guild waited.

Cairn stepped into the sunlight, feeling neither knight nor heretic nor Wolf, but something stranger: a piece on a board whose players all believed they had already captured him.

The Emberlord nodded. “Come. The Reaper Lance stirs, and your road bends toward it.”

Cairn tightened his grip on the hilt of his new blade.

“If the world insists that I am the hinge,” he said, “then let me choose the direction of its turning.”

And thus Cairn, once knight of Kum and now Wolf of Friar, walked outward toward the Lance where storms gathered, while behind him the Oathbind held firm in ink yet trembled in truth.

The kingdoms remained at peace.
But in the quiet between their lines and their lies, the balance of Solunus had already begun to shift.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2026!