The fortress of Rust newly christened Last Light by the defenders buzzed with desperate activity. Smiths hammered swords until their arms went numb. Healers tended wounds until their hands were stained red. Children carried water and arrows and messages, their faces pale with a fear they were too young to fully understand.
Lee sat on the battlements, the Dawnblade across his lap, watching the horizon. The sky had changed in the days since his return. The stars were dimmer, as if something vast was passing between them and the world. The sun rose later and set earlier, and when it did set, the darkness that followed was thicker than any natural night.
He's coming, Onyx Tempest murmured from its sheath at Lee's hip. The old sword had grown quieter since the Dawnblade's arrival, as if respecting its younger, brighter sibling. The Hollow King. Not a general. Not a herald. Himself.
"I know," Lee said.
Can you feel him?
Lee closed his eyes. Yes. He could feel the Hollow King a pressure at the edge of his consciousness, like a migraine waiting to bloom. The King was vast, impossibly vast, a being of pure hunger that had existed before the stars were born. And he was hungry. Always hungry. Never satisfied.
"He's been feeding for eons," Lee said. "Consuming worlds. Civilizations. Gods. And now he's come to Tenmon because he smelled something different here. Something he's never tasted before."
What?
Lee touched the spiral on his chest the mark that connected him to Inyocha, to the light and the shadow that had been split at birth.
"Hope," Lee said. "He's never tasted hope before. Not real hope. Not the kind that fights back."
The Dawnblade pulsed in his lap, its light flickering like a heartbeat.
Then we give him a feast, the Dawnblade said. We give him so much hope that it burns him from the inside out.
Lee smiled. "That's the plan."
Footsteps behind him. Inyocha climbed onto the battlements, his new sword the one forged from Eclipse Engine remnants strapped to his back. His brown eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, but there was something else in them too. Something that looked like peace.
"Can't sleep?" Lee asked.
"Never could. Not before a battle." Inyocha sat down beside his brother. "You?"
"Same."
They sat in silence, watching the dim stars.
"I've been thinking," Inyocha said finally. "About what the Hollow King offered me. Power. Unlimited power. All I have to do is betray you."
Lee's heart clenched, but he kept his voice steady. "Are you thinking about taking it?"
"No." Inyocha's answer was immediate, certain. "I thought about it. For about half a second. Then I thought about everything you've done for me. Everything our friends have done for me. And I realized..." He paused. "Power isn't worth being alone. I was alone for twelve years. I had all the power I could consume. And I was miserable."
"You're not alone anymore," Lee said.
"No. I'm not." Inyocha looked at his brother. "Thank you for that. For not giving up on me. Even when I gave up on myself."
Lee put an arm around Inyocha's shoulders. "That's what brothers are for."
They sat together as the stars continued to dim, waiting for the darkness to come.