Elyra watched it happen in real time. Watched the sentries on the watchtower walls lean forward, squinting at the approaching column. Watched them count. Watched them search—for the big man on the big horse, for the black hair and the green eyes and the laugh that could be heard from half a league away.
Watched them not find him.
The horn note bent. Cracked. Dropped an octave and then another, sliding from triumph into something else—something low and mournful and ancient, a sound that Elyra had only ever heard once before, the day they buried her mother.
The dirge.
The death horn of Veyranne.
It rolled across the plateau like a physical thing—a weight, a wave, a hand pressing down on every heart within earshot. Other horns picked it up. From the watchtowers, from the outer walls, from the fortress itself. One after another, a chain of grief spreading through stone and wind and frozen air until the entire northern approach was vibrating with it.
They know. They already know.
