Vivian
The Havenreach Highlands rose before them in waves of mist and shadow.
For the last couple of days, they had been traveling north—moving on foot through land that seemed to breathe in slow, ancient rhythm. The cliffs and valleys of the south had given way to rolling hills and clusters of vast, towering trees older than dynasties, straight as spears, their trunks wide enough to swallow wagons whole. Vivian had never seen trees like them. They grew in dense patches scattered between the highland slopes, each grove rising from the fog like pillars of a forgotten temple. Their bark was dark as iron, their canopies high above, filtering sunlight into muted gold and green. Between them, the wind carried the scent of pine, wet earth, and cold stone.
The locals called them havens, and apparently these havens were one of the only places people could remain safe on the Havenreach Highlands.
It was beautiful—and it made her uneasy.
The terrain was unlike anything she’d known near her home or around Solcarin. The air itself was different: thinner, cooler, sharper. The warmth of the southern winds was gone, replaced by mountain chill that bit at her cheeks and turned their breath into fog.
They had been walking for two days straight since leaving the Cliffs of Moher behind and disembarking from the barges on the river. They followed the remnants of an old merchant road that wound north through the Havenreach Highlands. The Zhou guards—twenty-two men and women under Captain Chiron Zhou—moved with quiet discipline. Even the chatter that had filled their early marches had fallen silent, voices absorbed by the vastness of the forest.
The further north they went, the more Vivian blamed herself for bringing the twins and Marissa. She couldn't believe how stupid she had been. Sure, the princess claimed it was necessary. If that was the case, Vivian should have prepared a proper guard. She should have called her brothers, Ethan, brought her retainers. Nobody would have dared touch them then. She didn’t know how strong this Murai and his sword demons were—but she doubted they were stronger than her brother Nathan. Certainly not stronger than her father.
Damn, she was a fool.
She glanced back at the group. The twins kept pace—hoods pulled tight against the cold, faces pale but determined. Marissa trailed just behind them, her usual glib confidence tempered by fatigue. Anmei ranged ahead, her red hair a flare of color amid the gray-green world.
“Progress is progress,” Marissa had told her that morning, when Vivian had voiced her concern. “We’re alive, we’re upright, and nobody’s been eaten by orcs. I call that a success.”
But Vivian couldn’t shake the guilt. She’d brought them into this. And now, each mile north seemed to pull them closer to something she couldn’t yet name.
They made camp beneath the boughs of a haven that evening.
The grove was vast—its outer ring of trees rising like columns, their roots curling around the slope like sleeping beasts. Within the circle, the air was calmer, muffled by the thick canopy overhead. The soldiers built fires in narrow trenches to hide the light, cooking in silence.
Vivian took first watch. She stood on the edge of the grove, looking westward where fog rolled through the ravine like a living thing. The last light of day struck the trunks around her, turning their bark to bronze.
Sophie joined her a short while later, the hem of her cloak damp with mist.
“They’re moving slower than you’d like,” Sophie said quietly.
Vivian didn’t answer.
“You can stop blaming yourself,” Sophie continued. “We chose this. The twins, Marissa—all of us. You didn’t drag us here.”
Vivian exhaled through her nose. “I understand that, but we should have thought this through better. I shouldn’t have led us—”
Sophie smiled faintly. “I led us here. Not you. This was my call, my magic, and my responsibility. I assure you it was necessary. But necessary doesn’t mean easy or peaceful.”
Vivian glared. “You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep not listening.” Sophie’s tone sharpened. “It was my choice to recruit and bring you all here. This whole thing is on me. If anything happens, it will be my fault, no one else’s. Period. Stop blaming yourself.”
She left before Vivian could respond, the burden and knowledge of her Insight clearly weighing on her.
By dawn, the temperature had dropped again. While not exactly frost, it was close—silver gathering along the roots, shimmering on the moss. The Zhou guards moved quickly, their movements brisk with cold.
Vivian checked their surroundings, circling back to find Leiden crouched beside a fallen waystone—an ancient marker half-buried in dirt. Faded glyphs glowed faintly along its surface.
“Old merchant script,” Leiden murmured. “Probably pre-Imperial. It’s… warning travelers about something up ahead. The words are worn, but I think it says ‘the road bends where the tide breaks.’ Whatever that means.”
Vivian’s stomach tightened. She didn’t like the word tide in this context. Probably a coincidence—but with the orcs and the Murai out there? It didn’t feel that way.
They pressed on.
By mid-morning, clouds swallowed the sun entirely. The light became diffuse, colorless.
At first, Vivian thought the strange stillness was just weather. But then she realized—there were no birds. No crickets. Not even the faint hum of insects that normally haunted the undergrowth.
The world had gone quiet.
“Captain,” Vivian called softly.
Chiron was already looking around, his instincts the same as hers. “I noticed,” he said.
“Anything on the ridges?”
“Not that I can see, but the mist makes it difficult. Damn this weather.”
Vivian’s hand brushed the hilt of her sword. Instinct rippled faintly—a warning, like the air before lightning.
They continued north along the old roadway, tension thickening with each step.
By noon, they reached a wide clearing where the ground sloped down into a shallow valley. The grass was tall and rippling, shot through with veins of silver frost. In the distance, several other groves of havens stood like a wall of trees.
They began to cross the open ground. They walked for a long time in silence, the Zhou family guards and remaining mercenaries pacing around the noblewomen in formation.
Vivian almost didn’t notice the scout sprinting up the line. Sophie caught his movement at the same time she did. He went straight to Chiron, who looked around sharply and motioned to Leiden. They conferred briefly, then waved the Princess and Vivian over.
Vivian and Sophie approached cautiously.
“What is it?” Vivian whispered.
Leiden pointed toward the horizon as he handed her a spyglass. At first, she thought it was the play of fog against the ridge. Then the fog moved. The shapes within it were too large, too steady.
They weren’t shadows.
They were orcs.
“Green-skins,” Leiden murmured. “Not the red ones.”
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Well shit.
She studied the orcs and felt her blood go cold—and for someone with her powers, that meant something. It was downright horrifying. The orcs were massive—eight feet tall, broad-shouldered, their armor crude but uniform. The sunlight caught on the tips of their spears, glinting off dark iron coated in mana that seemed to corrupt the air itself. Their skin was deep green, mottled with darker veins, their eyes burning like coals under frost. They moved like beasts possessed—hungry or vengeful; she couldn’t tell which. They were headed toward another haven, one large enough they might have considered using it themselves.
“So much for orcs never reaching the mainland,” Chiron muttered. “That’s two kinds of them now—and no one seemed to know either were here.”
Vivian’s jaw tightened. “We are going to have to talk to Imperial Intelligence—if we survive this.”
She aimed for flippant, but her voice landed pensive.
Sophie frowned. “How far?”
“Hard to tell for sure. Several leagues,” Leiden said. “Maybe less.”
“Do they see us?”
Vivian narrowed her eyes. “It doesn’t look like it—but I don’t think we want to give them the chance.”
“What do we do?” Chiron asked. “Back to that larger haven to the west?”
No one got the chance to respond.
The spears screamed through the fog—iron-tipped, mana-wrapped, glowing with corrupted runes. One slammed into the ground, shattering the stone like glass.
“Shields!” Chiron barked.
The Zhou guards fanned out and threw up individual barriers that did a decent job of defense. Lines of glyphlight sprang into existence, overlapping like scales. Anmei sent a wave of flame into the air—the mana thickening as it ripped apart a second volley of spears.
The next volleys hit, thunder rolling across the clearing.
And then the fog screamed.
Something else was coming—fast, moving across the wind-swept highlands. Shadowy figures, humanoid, wearing black masks and carrying sleek black swords, descended on the retainers.
They were followed by about twenty Red Orcs.
“The sword demons from the plateau,” Sophie hissed. “So much for the question of the Murai coming after us.”
The demons and retainers collided—three Zhou men died instantly.
Red Orcs followed with huge hammer-like clubs. The twins’ barrier cracked.
Vivian was already moving.
She burst past the line of retainers, the barrier parting just enough to let her slide through. Cold mana flooded her veins, sharpening her sight, her breath, her focus. Her sword met the demon’s blade mid-swing—Imperial-forged froststeel against demon iron—colliding with a crack like frozen glass under a hammer. Frost ripples tore outward from the impact, freezing the grass underfoot white.
The exchange lasted no more than three moves.
Vivian didn’t hold anything back. She pushed her mana and swordsmanship to full bore right from the start. She didn’t test with slashes or waste time gauging distance. She knew better. Sword demons weren’t the type of enemy you tested. They were the type you erased.
Her interpretation of Li Swordsmanship was more balanced than Nathan’s aggressive abandon or her father’s overwhelming force. Vivian had mastered the razor-thin line between them—fluidity, clarity, and lethal timing.
She fought with both defense and offense, cold calculation acting as two halves of the same inevitable cut.
She thrust for the sword demon’s chest.
The creature twisted unnaturally, spine bending backward with a wet crack, the blade grazing inches from its heart. It retaliated instantly—its left arm elongating into a hooked blade of shadow and iron. Vivian pivoted, letting the hook pass through the trail of frost she’d left behind. Her blade snapped upward, slicing along its arm.
Black ichor hissed where her frost mana met corrupted flesh.
The demon’s shriek was high and metallic. It lunged again, faster this time.
Vivian stepped into the attack, not away from it. Her heel dug into the frost-slick ground, anchoring her weight, and she rotated her hips, letting the demon’s momentum carry it into her counter-cut. Form Seven, Movement Eight—the Severing Crescent.
Her blade drew a perfect arc of silver light.
The demon tried to block, but it was too slow.
The crescent sheared clean through its shoulder and half its torso. The creature’s body froze mid-motion, frost crystallizing from the wound outward like veins of shattered glass. It convulsed once, the black fire in its chest flickering.
Vivian whispered, “Fall.”
And it did—shattering into a hundred brittle shards.
She didn’t pause.
Another demon darted from the treeline—this one bigger, carrying a sword so oversized it bordered on absurd. Behind it, the fog parted, revealing a line of red-skinned orcs barreling forward, eyes glowing with embedded sigils.
“Vivian!” Sophie’s warning rang out. “Left!”
Vivian was already moving.
She slid into a lower stance as two more demons burst through the fog. Her blade flickered—one, two, three—each strike precise enough to thread between raindrops. Frost bloomed across their limbs before they could blink.
But the last one pushed through, its blade arcing toward Emily.
Vivian’s Insight snapped into place—
Move.
Cold mana burst from her feet, propelling her in a flash of blue-white light. She intercepted the demon inches before it reached the twins, her blade sliding between its ribs with surgical exactness. It froze and shattered.
“RUN!” she shouted to Emily and Elise. “NOW!”
Then the ground shook.
A massive green orc slammed into the outer shield line, its iron maul shattering the nearest ward anchor. Three more followed—green and red skins together, roaring as they crashed through the timberline like a living avalanche.
Vivian turned, breath fogging.
Sword demons.
Red orcs.
Green orcs.
All converging.
Her fingers tightened on her hilt. Frost bled down the blade, aura flaring like moonlight caught in a storm.
“Form up!” she shouted. “They’re pushing in on all sides!”
Chiron’s roar echoed hers. “Shields! Regroup on me! Brace the line—BRACE!”
The orcs answered with their own thunderous roar.
Vivian exhaled once. She would get her sisters-in-law out of this if it killed her. She would not let anything happen to them.
She swore it on her open blood.
Then she charged.
Vivian cut down every demon she touched.
She tried not to think about the blood that came from the one whose mask shattered, revealing a human face—terrified or frenzied, she couldn’t tell.
Another followed. Then another. Vivian received several wounds and would have died if Anmei hadn’t intervened—fire lancing across a demon’s spine, splitting it in half.
The sword demons fought with a strange blend of brutality and finesse. They moved faster, struck harder, fought with intention. They weren’t wildlings. They were trained—in a sword style both unfamiliar and horrifying.
Vivian kept fighting until another sound split the battlefield—
Drums.
Behind them, green orcs broke through the fog—twenty or so. The orcs, green and red alike, stopped moving for the briefest moment.
Then a roar tore the air open—and the two groups collided.
Green and red, surging together in impossible alliance.
Chiron swore. “Gods help us—”
Vivian didn’t wait for help.
She moved like the wind given form. Every step deliberate, every strike exact. Her sword blurred—silver arcs trailing mist, slicing through limbs, armor, air. She fought not like a woman defending—but like a storm unbound.
The ground around her turned white with frost.
A red-skinned orc charged, roaring, its double-headed axe burning with inner fire. Vivian pivoted, ducked under the swing, and drove her blade up through its ribs. The impact burst its corrupted core in a flash of blue-white light.
When the smoke cleared, six corpses lay at her feet—and she was still moving.
Sophie’s voice rang out through the chaos, amplified with mana: “Stagger! Pull back!”
But Vivian wasn’t listening.
The steel sang in her hands, feeding off her cold-aspected mana. The blade’s vein pulsed silver, resonance harmonizing with her breath. Every enemy she struck fell before they could scream. She was past exhaustion, past pain—running on pure rhythm, survival, and mastery.
Anmei appeared beside her, cutting down an orc that tried to flank her. “Aren’t you glad I came?” she shouted, grinning even as her blade dripped black blood.
Vivian didn’t answer. She was too busy killing.
Anmei’s fan flared, fire leaping across the battlefield. Trees ignited, steam boiled where snow met flame. The air became chaos incarnate—smoke, blood, and magic clashing in waves.
“Leiden, flank left!” Chiron shouted. “Push the wounded back through the trees!”
Emily and Elise’s linked sigils flickered, struggling to sustain the collapsing barrier. Their bond pulsed like a tether—one bright when the other dimmed. Vivian saw it—felt it—and anchored her own mana to theirs, freezing the air before another demon could breach.
The demon shrieked as frost crawled up its limbs, locking it solid. Vivian ended it with a single upward cut.
Her Insight burned—images flashing: rivers of fire, Solcarin swallowed by smoke, horns calling across the highlands.
She forced the visions away.
“Fall back!” she yelled.
They began the retreat.
Chiron’s voice cut through the roar: “House of Zhou! Now is the time! Hold these bastards back! Don’t break the line!”
The guards obeyed, dragging the wounded through the mist.
They were lucky the orcs—red and green—were too busy fighting each other to follow.
Sophie led the rear, throwing radiant shields that deflected incoming spears. Elizabeth and Anmei moved in tandem, flame and steel carving a bleeding corridor north.
They reached the treeline of another haven, moving through the underbrush as fast as the low branches allowed.
Vivian stayed behind until the last of them passed. She turned once more to face the tide.
The orcs were still coming. Green and red together, roaring in two languages. Above them, sword demons skittered along the treetops like carrion crows.
Vivian felt the edges of her control slipping.
She let them slip.
Cold erupted from her in a tidal wave, surging out in all directions. The nearest orcs froze mid-charge, frost spiderwebbing across their bodies before they shattered into shards. The ground turned white, the air thick with snow that hadn’t existed a moment before.
When the storm cleared, she stood alone in a ring of bodies, steam rising from her shoulders, breath ragged.
Sophie appeared beside her, eyes wide. “Vivian—enough.”
Vivian blinked, then nodded once, clarity returning to her gaze.
They pulled back to the haven. The survivors collapsed in the shelter of the large trees and undergrowth, their lungs burning, armor streaked with ash and blood.
Chiron counted heads. “We lost ten. Another four wounded.”
Vivian closed her eyes briefly. “Then we move faster. We can’t let them regroup.”
Sophie turned north, where fog swallowed the highland path. “They won’t stop now.”
“No,” Vivian said quietly. “They won’t.”
She wiped her blade clean on her cloak, the Moonsteel vein along its spine catching what little light remained. In the distance—faint but rising—came the echo of drums. This time, more than one rhythm answered.