Greyhaven rose out of the morning mist like a bruise that refused to heal.
From a distance, the city looked almost gentle—grey stone walls softened by fog, watchtowers like dark teeth, banners hanging limp in the cold air. Up close, it was noise and grit and the sour tang of too many bodies packed behind too little certainty. Market wagons rattled over cobbles. Dockhands shouted over gulls. Civic scribes hurried with ink-stained fingers, already turning yesterday's deaths into today's numbers.
Ronan walked through it with his hood up and his shoulders set, the way he always did after a raid: as if he could make himself smaller without losing the edges that kept him alive.
Behind him, survivors from the March drifted apart like ash on wind. Some peeled off toward healer halls, dragging limps and coughing red into rags. Others headed for taverns, not for celebration—Greyhaven didn't do celebration for the March—but for the only kind of forgetting they could afford.
The raid team disbanded without ceremony.
There were no speeches. No hero's welcome. No shining medals pinned to battered armor. Just nods, muttered goodbyes, and the quiet understanding that anyone who hadn't died was already being asked to live with it.
Brann clasped Ronan's forearm at a crossroads. "You eat something. Real food."
"I will."
"You sleep."
"I'll try."
Tamsin's eyes flicked over Ronan's posture like she was still counting threats. "If you file that report, do it clean. No rage."
Ronan almost smiled. "I don't waste rage on paperwork."
Pike hovered, then finally blurted, "If you really—if you really retire…"
Ronan met his gaze. Pike's bravado was gone, stripped away by the March like flesh from bone.
Ronan's voice softened by a fraction. "I'm not disappearing. I'm just… stepping off the blade."
Pike swallowed and nodded like he understood.
They split.
Ronan turned toward the guildhall, boots finding the familiar route without thought. The building sat near the heart of Greyhaven, stone-block solid and stubborn, with a broad stair and an iron crest above the doors: a stylized compass rose pierced by a sword. Adventurers came and went in a constant tide. Some were green recruits with bright eyes and too-new gear. Others were veterans with dead expressions and well-kept blades.
Ronan walked between them like a ghost that still had weight.
Inside, warmth hit him—hearth smoke, sweat, spiced stew from the mess corner. The guild was loud the way living places were loud. Laughter, arguments, dice clattering, someone bragging about a C-rank clear as if it was a legend.
The noise thinned when people saw him.
Not because he demanded it. Because everyone knew what a March return meant.
A woman behind the main counter straightened as he approached, braid swinging over her shoulder. Tessa had the kind of face that smiled easily until it didn't, and eyes that missed nothing even when she pretended to be daydreaming. She wore the guild's clerk sash and a dagger at her hip—because Greyhaven clerks learned quickly that words weren't always enough.
"Ronan Kerr," she said, relief threading through her tone. "You're back."
He nodded. "Mostly."
Her gaze flicked over him, sharp and practiced: shoulders? intact. Hands? bandaged. Limp? subtle. Eyes? too calm.
"You look like you slept in a grave," she muttered, then caught herself and cleared her throat, switching to the professional brightness she'd been trained into. "Report?"
Ronan pulled the rolled parchment from inside his cloak. "Full raid report. And an addendum."
Tessa took it with both hands like it weighed more than ink. "Guild master in?"
A pause. The smallest hesitation.
Ronan watched her. "Is she available?"
Tessa's mouth tightened, then she nodded. "Helena's in her office. She's been expecting you."
"Good."
He started to move past.
"Ronan," Tessa said, and the way she said it—without rank, without formality—stopped him.
He turned slightly. "Yeah?"
Her eyes held his for a heartbeat too long. There was something there she didn't put into words: a kind of worry that had learned to pretend it was annoyance.
"Don't get yourself killed in a meeting," she said, voice dry.
Ronan huffed. "I'll try not to bleed on her rugs."
Tessa's lips twitched. "If you do, I'm charging you."
He gave her a brief nod—thanks disguised as acknowledgment—and walked deeper into the guildhall.
Behind him, the noise rose again, but it felt farther away, muffled by the weight of what he was about to do.
Tessa watched him go.
One of the returning raiders—a spearwoman with her arm in a sling—leaned on the counter and sighed. "So? The March really that bad?"
Tessa didn't look away from Ronan's back. "Worse."
The spearwoman whistled low. "Heard some folks didn't come back."
"A third didn't," Tessa said, voice flat. Then, softer, almost to herself: "Not his. But still."
A second clerk, a lanky boy with ink on his nose, leaned closer. "Why'd he ask for Helena right away?"
Tessa's fingers tightened on the parchment. "Because someone needs to hear the truth before it gets turned into a song."
The spearwoman's brows lifted. "Truth about what?"
Tessa's mouth compressed. She should've stayed silent. She should've been the clerk.
But she'd heard things. She'd heard Lucien Harrow's name carried in with the survivors like smoke. She'd heard the bitterness in voices that were too tired to lie.
She exhaled. "Truth about Harrow."
The lanky clerk's eyes widened. "War Court's golden boy?"
"Golden boys still bleed," the spearwoman muttered.
Tessa's gaze stayed fixed on the door Ronan had disappeared through. "And I heard…" She hesitated, the words tasting wrong. "…I heard he wants to retire."
The spearwoman blinked. "Ronan? Retire?"
"Rumor," Tessa snapped, immediately defensive. As if shutting it down could make it untrue. "Probably nonsense."
But the unhappy twist in her stomach said otherwise. Ronan had that look. The look people got when they were already halfway gone.
She didn't like it.
She didn't like that she cared.
Up the stairs—no, not stairs. A ramp tucked along the guild's left interior wall, wide enough for someone in armor to walk without clanging their pride into the railing. The guildhall had been designed by someone who understood that wounded veterans didn't always climb well.
Ronan took it without thinking.
He knew every turn. Every scuff mark. Every place where blood had once been scrubbed from stone.
Helena's office sat at the end of the second-floor corridor, door carved with the guild crest and a smaller sigil beneath: a fox curled around a quill.
He paused only long enough to knock once, then pushed in.
Warmth and cedar hit him. Helena liked her comforts. Not extravagant—just deliberate. A thick rug, shelves lined with ledgers, a small hearth with a steady fire. A window overlooking Greyhaven's inner yard where recruits trained with wooden swords and loud optimism.
Helena sat behind a wide desk, auburn hair pinned up in a messy knot that somehow still looked intentional. She wore a fitted coat with fine stitching and no visible armor, but Ronan had seen her put a knife in a man's throat without wrinkling her sleeves.
Her eyes lifted, bright and amused, like she'd been waiting for this scene.
"Ronan Kerr," she purred. "Alive."
"Disappointed?" he asked, stepping in and closing the door behind him.
Helena's smile widened. "Always. It ruins my schedule when you die. Sit."
Ronan didn't sit. He crossed to the desk and set down the raid report with a careful hand.
Helena's gaze flicked over the parchment's seals, the ink density, the clipped handwriting. Her smile faded into something more professional—still sharp, still foxlike, but focused.
"And the addendum?" she asked.
Ronan slid a second page forward. "Lucien Harrow. Protocol violations. Ignored scout warnings. Pushed past fallback points to chase the core. We lost a third because he wanted a story."
Helena's brows rose slightly. "Bold to write."
"It's bolder to do," Ronan said.
Helena's fingers tapped once on the desk. "You know I can't publicly slap him down. He has War Court backers. Crown eyes. If I move wrong, it becomes a political duel and the guild bleeds for it."
"I know," Ronan replied. "That's why I'm giving it to you clean. So you can pull strings quietly."
Helena's gaze sharpened. "You're assuming I want to."
Ronan's eyes didn't flinch. "You're the guild master. You either protect your people or you become a clerk for the crown."
For a heartbeat, the room went still. Even the fire seemed to pause.
Then Helena chuckled, low and pleased. "Still charming. Still blunt." She picked up the addendum and read it, eyes moving fast. "Mm. Good structure. Witness statements. Scout timestamps. You even included ward-stone fluctuation notes."
Ronan's jaw tightened. "Because he'll lie."
"And you don't intend to let him," Helena murmured. She set the paper down. "I can't guarantee consequences, Ronan. But I can guarantee discomfort. Enough discomfort and even golden boys learn to watch their footing."
"That's all I want."
Helena leaned back slightly. "No. That's not all you want."
Ronan's hand moved to his belt pouch.
He pulled out his badge.
A simple metal plate etched with his rank and name, worn at the edges from years of being shoved into pockets, slapped onto counters, pressed into the palms of clerks and captains alike.
He set it on her desk.
The sound it made was small.
In Ronan's chest, it sounded like the end of an era.
Helena stared at the badge. The fox in her eyes didn't vanish, but something human flickered beneath it.
"So," she said softly. "You're doing it."
"I told you before the raid," Ronan replied. "You said wait until after. I waited."
Helena exhaled through her nose, annoyance and regret tangled together. "I hoped the March would scare you into staying."
"It did," Ronan said. "Just not the way you wanted."
Her mouth twisted. "You're a veteran. A good one. Greyhaven doesn't have enough of those. Losing you is…" She searched for a word that wouldn't sound like pleading.
Ronan supplied it. "Expensive."
Helena's smile returned, but it was thinner. "Yes. Expensive."
She reached out and nudged the badge with one finger, as if testing if it was real. "What will you do with yourself, Ronan Kerr?"
Ronan's gaze drifted toward the window, toward the recruits below. Their shouts rose faint through the glass, bright and stupid and alive.
"I'm going to the Pantheon," he said.
Helena's eyes narrowed. "Blessing change."
Ronan nodded once. "A draft. A shift. Whatever the Civic Court decides to throw at me."
Helena's lips parted slightly, then closed. She studied him like she was trying to see the shape of the man he would become next.
"And you're sure?" she asked.
Ronan's answer was immediate. "Yes."
Helena's eyes softened a fraction. Then, because she was Helena, she couldn't leave the softness alone.
"Have you told Seraphina?" she asked, voice almost casual.
Ronan's shoulders tightened so subtly most people wouldn't have noticed. Helena noticed.
"She's on a long-term mission," Ronan said. "Deep road. No reliable courier. And it wasn't… urgent."
Helena's smile sharpened into a grin. "Not urgent," she echoed, delighted. "Because Silver Gale Vael never considered you urgent at all, of course."
Ronan's jaw worked. "Helena."
"Oh, don't glare at me," Helena said, waving a hand. "I'm simply imagining her face when she comes back and hears you retired and went to the Pantheon without even mentioning it."
Ronan's mind served him the image with cruel clarity: Seraphina, silver hair wind-tossed, eyes like winter steel, mouth tightening as she tried to find words and failed, anger turning into something worse—hurt.
His stomach dipped.
He flinched. He couldn't stop it.
Helena's grin widened, predatory and affectionate at once. "There it is."
Ronan exhaled slowly. "She'll survive."
"Perhaps," Helena said. "But will you?"
Ronan's gaze snapped back to her. Helena held up both hands, palms out. "Not in a fight. In… the conversation."
Ronan's mouth twisted into a grim line. "I'll deal with it when she's back."
"You always do that," Helena murmured, softer now. "Delay the emotional wound until it festers."
Ronan didn't answer.
Helena picked up the report again and tapped it lightly. "I'll forward the raid details to the guild's external auditors and the March oversight desk. Quietly. Harrow will feel pressure."
"Good."
"And your badge," Helena said, looking at it again, "will go into the lockbox until the paperwork clears. I'm not letting the crown claim you as 'inactive asset' until you're legally off my roster."
Ronan inclined his head. "Thank you."
Helena's expression turned sly again. "Don't thank me. Pay me by staying alive long enough to become boring."
Ronan almost smiled. "I'll try."
He turned for the door.
"Ronan," Helena called.
He paused.
For a moment, her voice lost its teasing. "Whatever the Pantheon gives you… don't let it eat you."
Ronan's hand tightened on the door latch. "I won't."
He left.
The door closed with a soft click, sealing Helena alone with ink and fire and the heavy metal badge of a man she didn't want to lose.
Helena stared at the door for a beat longer than necessary, then she shook herself and moved—because movement was how she survived regret.
She reached for a stack of letters on the corner of her desk, skimmed seals, broke one with a knife. March casualty lists. Crown requisition requests. A note from a War Court liaison asking for "continued cooperation" and "proper handling of commendations."
Helena snorted under her breath. "Commendations."
She took Ronan's addendum, copied key lines into a fresh sheet in her own hand—clean, neutral, lethal. Then she sealed it with the guild wax.
"To the oversight desk," she murmured. "And to the auditors."
She paused, quill hovering, then added a second note—shorter, pointed—addressed to a name only a few people in Greyhaven would recognize. A favor. A string.
Lucien Harrow would not be publicly punished.
But he would be watched.
And watched men made mistakes.
Helena leaned back, rolling her shoulder once. The fire popped.
For the briefest instant, she let herself feel the loss: Ronan Kerr's steady presence in her roster, the kind of veteran who kept young fools alive and kept monsters from reaching the gates.
Then she shoved the feeling down and returned to her ledgers—because Greyhaven did not pause for sentiment.
Far from Greyhaven, on a road that cut through frostbitten fields and broken hills, Seraphina Vael rode alone.
Her cloak snapped behind her like a banner. Her horse's breath steamed in the cold air. The world ahead was grey and empty, the kind of emptiness that made a person start hearing their own thoughts too clearly.
She adjusted the strap of her pack with a sharp tug, as if anger could tighten leather.
The mission was simple on paper: intercept a Wild Court anomaly near the border, confirm the gate's stability state, report back. Simple. Necessary. Far.
She preferred far. Far was quiet. Quiet didn't ask questions.
Her fingers brushed the hilt of her blade—a familiar comfort. The steel was clean, sharpened that morning. It felt right in her hand.
And then—without warning—she shivered.
Not from cold.
From something else. A sudden chill that slid down her spine like someone had breathed her name into the wind.
She slowed her horse, eyes narrowing as she scanned the empty road. No movement. No ambush. No sound but hoofbeats and the distant cry of a hawk.
Seraphina's brows drew together. Her jaw tightened.
A bad feeling.
She hated bad feelings. They were irrational. Unhelpful. Unwelcome.
And yet her hand moved—unconscious—toward the inside of her coat, where a folded scrap of paper rested against her chest. Old. Softened from being handled too many times.
A note Ronan had once written her after a raid, years ago. Only a few words. Practical. Stupid.
Don't be reckless. Come back.
She stared at the road ahead, throat tight for reasons she refused to name.
"Tch," she muttered to the empty world, as if it had offended her. "He's fine."
The horse snorted.
Seraphina kicked it forward, pushing on.
But the chill clung to her like shadow.
And somewhere in Greyhaven, Ronan Kerr walked toward the Pantheon, not knowing the storm he'd just set in motion.