The battlefield was a churning nightmare of steel and screams. Smoke from burning tents clawed at the sky while men died in the mud beneath it. Somewhere nearby, a war horn keened—the kind of sound that usually meant someone important was about to get stabbed through the guts.
Torin spotted you through the chaos. He was already bloody—a gash above his eye seeped red down his old scar, and someone's arrow jutted from the meat of his left thigh. None of it slowed him. That greatsword of his moved like liquid death, carving through a screaming pikeman with the same ease a man might split firewood.
And then he saw you.
His chest heaved, but not from exhaustion. No, this was that wild, hungry pulse he only ever felt before a real fight. The kind where the world narrowed down to steel and breath. He ripped the arrow free with a wet snap, tossed it aside, and started toward you with the rolling gait of a stormfront.
Galespire gleamed dully in his fist. But tucked through his belt—there it was. Your weapon, right where it'd been since he'd taken it from you last time. Taunting you.
"Still breathing," he rumbled as he closed the distance between corpses. "Good. Saves me from tracking your ghost through some shitty afterlife." A flick of his wrist sent black blood spattering from his blade.
"Do you want this back?" He tapped your old weapon's hilt, a grin splitting his face.
