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By Root 1096 0

national rivalries. A soldier of the Blademark went where the gold was—fighting for Cyre one day and Breland the next, but Daine had a fatal flaw: he cared about Cyre. He was born in that land, and the soldiers dying on the battlefield were his childhood friends. It had taken some time; as a young man, he’d been full of house pride, just as Helais was. While serving the house, he’d done things he wasn’t proud of—things that still haunted his memories—and in the end he’d come to see that he needed to believe that he was serving a cause greater than gold. But the heirs of Deneith had a well-earned reputation for skill in battle, and Daine wasn’t above using that to his advantage.

“Well, it’s been a long day, and I’m sure you don’t need me in your way,” Daine said. “Where do I bunk?”

“We’re a cargo ship, mainly,” Helais said. “We’ve only got one stateroom, so you’ll be sharing. Otherwise, we’ve got a few extra berths in the crew room.”

“It’s no problem for me,” Daine said. He and Lei had slept in ditches and trenches during the war—he assumed they could share a cabin.

“Good then. It’s just below decks, door on your left. We’ll ring the bell for dinner, and by then we’ll be on our way to the Thunder Sea.”

Daine nodded and turned away. He made his way below decks, hoping to find a warm bed and dreamless sleep.

Daine lay on a hard bunk in the small cabin, his mind slowly drifting in and out of sleep. Vague images drifted through his mind. A memory of Jode passed across his thoughts, and he found himself following, seeking one more moment of conversation with his friend, even if it was only in his imagination. A vision slowly resolved around him. Night. The sounds of sword and steel in the distant background. A warforged corpse lay on the ground; Jode was kneeling next to the fallen foe, studying the shattered body. Krazhal stood over him, looking down.

“Captain?” the dwarf growled. “How long do we wait? You can hear the battle above, and here we stand studying—”

Daine silenced him with a glare and a sharp gesture. “What have you found, Jode?” he whispered.

“Well, Captain, I’m a healer, not a spectacularly gifted House Cannith artificer standing less than a mile away from our current location—”

“Jode!”

The halfling smiled disarmingly. “I did manage to extract this from the arm of our little friend.” He held up a small platinum cylinder etched with arcane symbols. “I can’t decipher all of these signs, but I think it’s a key.”

Daine nodded, taking the cylinder. “Good work. Krazhal, keep that blast disk ready, but if the Flame is with us this day, we won’t need it.” He caught Kesht’s eye with a sharp gesture; pointing to Kesht and Donal, he gave the signal for them to move deeper into the tunnel.

“And when has the Flame been with us?” Krazhal grumbled as he slowly began to follow in the path of the scouts.

“The Flame is always with us,” Daine said. “Look for the Light and listen for the Voice. We’ll see this through, old friend.”

The words were ritual, but they felt empty even to him. Two years ago he’d had confidence in the Silver Flame, in the force that brought strength to the righteous and defended the innocent. These days, that faith was harder and harder to find. Every massacred village, every tale of atrocity from across Khorvaire, even Thrane itself—when he went to sleep at night, it was becoming increasingly difficult to say his prayers without biting his tongue, but his troops needed his faith, even if it was failing him inside.

Indeed, the faintest smile crossed Krazhal’s lips, the first of the night. “Aye,” he said. “Aye, I do believe we will, sir.”

Blades drawn, Daine stepped into the tunnel, moving as quietly as he could. He could see the glint of Donal’s hammer in the darkness ahead, and slid along the wall in the scout’s wake.

There was a flash of brilliant white light, a sunburst spilling blinding radiance over the field. Daine’s last thought was that this was wrong … that this hadn’t happened.

“Fool!” Lakashtai was standing over him, her eyes burning like emerald coals. “After all you’ve