Duskfire Glacier main title

@Faust // no fancy format on this one bc im on my phone lol

he finds faust at dusk.
snow clings to his pelt, blood crusting one foreleg—dried, belonging to the doe he felled only moments ago. dragged the carcass back, left with @Astier to be properly cached.
his breath fogs, as words rush. morwenna, crimson eyes settle harsh upon his cousin. he hears the beat of war drums within his mind. she and several others have been cast out. there was a battle; traitors and loyalists. she says he’s outnumbered now—what’s left of his band few.
blackfell steps in close, voice dropping into something lower, harder.
he’s exposed. blind. wounded. we’ll never get a better chance.
a pause. his breath curls like smoke.
we strike now. they will not see us coming. his words are that of dealing blood. we can have their heads mounted upon pikes before the sun rises.

the black queen lives.
the words were pulled from faust like smoke from the coals—relieved, astonished, half a curse. he paced once beneath the dusk, the chill clinging to his wounds, to the breath that came sharp in his chest. it had not been hope that had kept him looking. it had been resolve. hope was too soft a thing for the glacier.
he turned fully now to face blackfell. the blood on his leg flaked like old rust. his breath came steady, though his eyes sparked like flint.
then we end it.
a nod. sharp. final. his silence had not been indecision, but thought, calculation. now he had what he needed.
he’s crippled. demoralized. it will spread. fear in the ranks. doubt. faust’s voice was low, a war drum of its own. we’ll use the dark. strike like vultures. leave no time for mourning. only aftermath.
a beat. then, more quietly: he hurt her. your wife.
the edge of his voice was steel.
i want to be gone by midnight.
his eyes narrowed toward the eastern pass.
darukaal marches.

---

— this is no longer revenge. it is blood.
he took her from me. words that come now in a silent, boiling anger. a wrath that is all consuming and moves through his black veins like adrenaline. he looks east, eyes burning red through the dusk. i will bleed him.
a sardonic chuckle at the image. by the neck. until his legs stop kicking. until what remains of his clan hear the sound of him choking and know their fate follows his. blackfell follows faust in his pacing, muscles bulging with pressure beneath a onyx hide.
i’ve waited too long. it has only been days but it feels like centuries. i will gather the ones who have vowed to fight. we will meet you within black break—if we march from there, we have the cover of the walls.

faust did not speak at first.
the wind moved through the high ridges, a whispering thing that carried old oaths and older ghosts. he stood like the mountain itself—silent, dark, immovable. but when blackfell’s voice faded, when the name of the traitor turned in the mouth of night, the kaan finally nodded.
it was not a nod of agreement. it was confirmation.
then we march, he said, low. steady. the kind of voice that did not rise, because it did not need to. it ruled.
black break will hold us, he affirmed, shifting his stance slightly to face the horizon. we'll move beneath the cover of the cliffs. take the valley, choke them from the roots.
there was no battle fervor in his voice, no firebrand. only cold strategy. a blade drawn in silence.
rally the ashfangs. the old blood. every name that's ever had a stake in darukaal. they will follow it to war.
his gaze flicked toward blackfell. and the moment you find him— his tone dropped, iron and ice, you take his breath.
a pause.
i'll take everything else.

---

— his jaws flex once, tension pulsing beneath the onyx. good, a breath sharp through his nose as his head inclines between two thick shoulders.
rolling thickly. he steps forward, pacing now with purpose. there is a controlled violence in the blackbird. he does not look at faust for a moment.
warbringer to kaan. cousin to cousin. brother to brother.
a silence, a nod. he moves suddenly, then, rising like ash from smoke and goes into the heart of the territory to rally their men and women.
to war.

faust watched him go, the coiled storm of his cousin unraveling into purposeful motion. they did not need words. not between them.
his own muscles tensed beneath his pelt, fur bristling slightly as if to catch the wind of what was to come. war. it was no longer an idea. no longer a promise. it was flesh and bone now—gathering at the gate.
he turned, sharp-eyed, toward the glacier’s expanse, where their kin would rise at blackfell’s summons, where darukaal would answer its call with bloodied teeth and frozen banners.
to war, then, faust muttered, voice low and edged like a blade kissed with frost.
and he went to stand at the front, where he always had.