In the distance, the pyre glowed and the chants of the Golden Lances accompanied the souls of the fallen as they rose into the firmament. Dragar's sealed parchment tucked into a leather pocket against his chest, the paladin gritted his teeth. Every movement pulled at his ribs and the wound at his hip — a line of fire pulsing beneath the fabric — his gaze fixed on the horizon crushed beneath the eternal zenith. There, nearly fifty kilometers away, the Index of Solar?s rose like a distant promise, a dark and trembling needle drowning in waves of heat, an indistinct glimmer beneath the white light that seemed to devour everything.

  They set off at a measured pace, their boots sinking into fine dust that spiraled upward in small eddies with each step. To their left, the canal stretched out, a scar carved by Solheim, its stagnant waters reduced to murky pools where the zenith reflected in blinding shards. The light, white and merciless, seemed to consume the edges of the world, erasing shadows and turning the horizon into a blurred, almost unreal line. Silence weighed upon them, broken only by the scraping of sand and the short breath of the squadron, each lost in their own thoughts as Port-Foam disappeared behind them.

  The plain stretched out, infinite and hostile — a desert of cracked earth mixed with dust, dotted here and there with bleached bones, perhaps of monsters, perhaps of men, jutting from the ground like forgotten relics, cracking beneath their steps. The eternal zenith, that disc of fire suspended above them, was not a sun but a raw light, a celestial forge that crushed everything beneath its relentless blaze. The heat seeped in everywhere, an invisible weight pressing down on their shoulders, burning their lungs with every breath. The air, dry as powdered glass, scraped at their throats, and the sweat beading on their brows evaporated before it could even reach the ground, leaving crusts of salt that pulled at their skin.

  In small sips, following the veterans' advice, they drank. The lukewarm water barely grazed their parched mouths before vanishing in a fleeting relief. The wind, far from being a blessing, blew in abrasive gusts, carrying grains of sand that stung their faces like needles. Their eyes reddened and watered under the assault, and their cloaks, meant to protect them, grew heavy with dust, clinging to their drenched bodies. Every step was a struggle — the furnace heat of the ground burned through the worn soles of their boots — and the silence between them thickened, broken only by labored breathing.

  Juuh'ma, who usually kept watch in Siegfried's shadow, took the lead with a mute determination. His colossal frame, broad as a forge door, rose before them like a living rampart against the wind and the light. He advanced in long strides, his arms slightly spread, his cloak stretched like a moving barrier that broke the gusts and cast a narrow but precious shadow over Mei and R?chard. The sand crunched beneath his boots — a steady rhythm in the chaos — and his imposing presence seemed to defy the desert itself.

  "Stay close," he said, a simple order laden with care.

  Sheltered in his wake, the Noohrikane adjusted her hood to protect her eyes, while the boy, head bowed, muttered a muffled curse against the heat.

  Siegfried followed at the rear, a few steps behind, his breath short and irregular. The wound at his hip, reopened by the effort, pulsed like a living heart, each movement sending flashes of pain down his legs. He pressed one hand against the bandage, his trembling fingers stained a dark red, but refused to yield, his eyes fixed on Juuh'ma's back like an anchor. Time stretched on, endless. The zenith's light blurred his vision, turning the Index into a wavering needle — always there, always out of reach. For a long while now, his boots no longer struck the ground but scraped along it, his knees trembling beneath his weight. He stumbled once. Caught himself barely. A second time. His hands plunged into the burning sand. He rose again, with difficulty. His strength should have abandoned him at the end of his duel, but the will and determination of a Blade of Solar?s had kept him standing this long. Yet at that precise moment, they let go. He collapsed first to his knees, then his face struck the earth with violence.

  In a flash, the N'zonki turned and rushed toward the paladin, his heavy footsteps shaking the ground. Without a word, he crouched down and lifted him with an ease that betrayed his superhuman strength, hoisting him over his free shoulder. Siegfried, barely conscious, hung like a broken puppet, his head lolling against his brother's back.

  "I... I can keep going," he murmured, but the words crumbled, his voice hollowed out by exhaustion, his body refusing to obey.

  "You talk too much, you fool. Rest," replied the Stone-Skin, a fleeting smile softening his rugged features.

  He walked on this way, carrying his brother for kilometers, until he caught sight of the ruins of what appeared to have once been an inn or a simple structure. There, less than twenty-five kilometers from their destination, the walls of Solheim finally emerged — a white, massive line detaching itself from the horizon, still hazy but solid, a real rampart beneath the shimmering veil of heat. Here, between the two remaining walls, the wind whistled less fiercely, and the shadow they cast offered a fragile respite.

  The colossus gently rested his brother against the stone, and they set up a rudimentary camp: a light tent stretched between four stakes driven into the earth, and thick blankets spread on the ground, already warm to the touch. Once done, Juuh'ma laid Siegfried inside. Then he stepped back to make room for the Noohrikane, who knelt beside her chief, her nimble fingers undoing the bandages with a gentle precision. The wounds at his hip and brow were red and swollen, seeping slightly under the pressure of the march, but free of fever or pus.

  "You pushed yourself too hard, Sieg," she chided him in a low voice, under the anxious gaze of the N'zonki, as she applied a fresh layer of ointment whose sharp smell filled the tent. "If you keep this up, you won't live to see Solheim."

  He opened his eyes, a tired glimmer in his gaze.

  "Thank you, Mei..."

  He sank into a restless sleep almost at once.

  The young archer crouched beside the provisions sack, his fingers rummaging through the rough canvas to pull out the rations: a few pieces of hard bread, strips of salted meat, a handful of shriveled dried fruit. No fire in this world crushed beneath the eternal zenith — the ambient furnace was enough. He handed out flasks to his companions, their faces marked with lines of fatigue and crusts of dried salt.

  With the wind as their only backdrop, they shared the rations. The weight of the day lingered, heavy as the dust that seeped in everywhere, until Mei, seated cross-legged near the tent, raised her eyes toward the colossus standing motionless beside his brother.

  "If I may, Juuh'ma — there is a question I have always wanted to ask you."

  With a low grunt, he agreed.

  "How is it that you protect Sieg so fiercely?" she asked, lying back on her bedroll, her voice soft but trembling with a deep curiosity.

  Busy breaking a piece of bread, R?chard looked up and tossed the piece to the colossus standing across from him.

  "That's true. Especially since, strong as he is, he doesn't really need it... unlike our shadow over there," he added, casting a teasing glance at the Noohrikane. "What really piques my curiosity is that I have never once seen you kill anyone in the three years I've spent at your side. You're a mountain — a titan who could crush everything in his path. And yet you only ever push back, you never strike. Why?"

  The Stone-Skin went still, his immense hands resting on his knees, a gleam of a past he would have preferred to forget passing through his gaze.

  "Hmmmph. Why protect him so fiercely?" he breathed, a barely visible smile touching his lips before he began.

  "Because before being a paladin, he is first and foremost my brother. Because I learned what humiliation and loneliness truly are. It may seem strange to you, but before I became the one people love to call the Shield — before I was the one who would stand before the gates of hell to protect him — all the N'zonki laughed at me and called me the big softie. Where my brothers loved to break rocks and clash with one another, I preferred to help those in need, to read, to tend to the rare plants that had the good fortune to grow in our area. I was simply not like them... I was a little different. Despite this, the people of my clan never actually did anything to me — it was only laughter without cruelty at gatherings or the rare feast — but the other children..."

  He paused for a brief moment, the pain of the memory carving furrows across his brow.

  "They, knowing I was too gentle, took advantage of it to be cruel. For years, without flinching, I absorbed the blows, the insults, the thrown stones. Never did I fight back. Not out of cowardice, but because I knew... I knew that deep within me hid an anger. A rage — a strength that I feared more than their blows. As though Solar?s had given me a gift I had never wanted."

  R?chard opened his mouth to interrupt, but Mei's gaze fell on him — a single glance, heavy with meaning and silent authority. The young man closed his lips without a word, instinctively understanding that this moment was not to be broken.

  The Stone-Skin laid a gentle hand on the knight's forehead to check his temperature, then went to sit beside his bedroll, his gaze fixed on his sleeping brother.

  "Six years had passed beneath the Zenith when fate placed Siegfried in my path. As was their habit, boys our age encircled me while I was making my way to the Herbalists' Quarter to visit the one true friend I had at the time — an old man who kept a shop where I had found refuge. They began to mock me, to call me a black brute, a savage, to throw stones at me, as they always did when they crossed my path. That time was the last. Coming from nowhere, without even knowing me, a boy with the greenest eyes who should have run from me like all the others — or worse, joined the pack — threw himself at them, raining down his fists. He fell, got back up, and bled... a Vaan Hart bled for me, a N'zonki. For what reason, when our two peoples are raised to hate each other from the cradle to the grave without even knowing why — us, the 'primitive brutes' with dark skin whom they fear and despise for our raw strength; them, the 'little arrogants' with cold eyes whom we are taught to see as threats? Surely his pure heart, or his knightly spirit — that inner fire which refused the shadows of a hatred he had not chosen. From that day on, I was alone no more, and our shadows have never been apart, despite the bitter remarks from both our clans — the whispers of my own calling me a fool, and the looks from the Vaan Hart who saw him as a traitor. Despite our differences, he had become my brother, my wall, the one who protected me from my own darkness."

  He paused a moment, a melancholic smile crossing his lips.

  "Then the years turned, and still he placed himself before me like a rampart to protect me, as though he knew — or sensed — what lay deepest within me. I never truly understood why he constantly took my side, but I knew one thing..."

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  His eyes grew distant, as though lost in the winding paths of a painful past.

  "We were happy — him, me, and Er?, his twin sister. But the sky always ends up stained with blood. Barely thirteen or fourteen years old, and already we were tasting hell. His cousin didn't yet have his tavern, but we ate there often, and it was there — passing through an alley near the Four Roads tavern — that filthy, dead-drunk men who surely wanted my gold encircled me. And as was his way, Siegfried stood against them, like an ashwolf facing a pack of sand hyenas. He broke the jaw of a grimy bearded man, knocked another down, but they were grown men and we were still children. Then a coward drew a blade. And drove it into his back. Several times."

  He closed his eyes for a brief moment and drew a long, powerful breath, exhaling as if to drive away a terrible memory.

  "I watched him fall. His blood poured like a river. And in that instant... something inside me broke. Everything I had held back for so many years... shattered."

  His gaze dropped to his immense hands before he continued in a voice heavier than usual.

  "The beast I had feared since childhood finally devoured me whole. A roaring blaze in my veins that swept away everything — my reason, my conscience, my humanity. After that... after that, I remember nothing. A black void, a red emptiness where only rage existed. My memory went dark, as though the beast inside had taken the reins and driven out the man I was... And then a voice rose — clear and firm, cutting through my madness like a sword of light. A woman who had come from I know not where cried out for me to stop. Her hand fell upon my shoulder, and something in her gaze froze me in place. When I came back to myself... nothing human remained around me. Not corpses. Only shreds — pieces, still-steaming entrails. Nothing but heaps of torn flesh, limbs ripped away and scattered like broken toys. And blood... blood everywhere — on the walls, the ground, my hands... I understood that the beast had taken over and slaughtered everything while the man slept."

  He paused again.

  "'Your friend is dying while you waste your strength on the dead. Where does your priority lie, young N'zonki — in vengeance, or in love?' That is what she told me, in a voice that carried a natural authority. Her words pierced through my rage, and suddenly I saw him — lying in his blood, so pale, so fragile... My hands still soaked in crimson, I wanted to beg her for help, but she had already knelt beside him, examining his wounds with an expert eye. Her face darkened as she checked his pulse, and without a word, that knight in radiant armor hauled him onto her shoulders as though he weighed nothing, passed me her cloak to cover myself, and carried him to a healer. There, kneeling beside the bed while the old man did everything he could to save Siegfried, I made the oath that still defines every beat of my heart. I prayed to Solar?s to spare the one who had always protected me with his life, swearing that as he had done for me, I would protect him with mine, never again letting the beast resurface nor taking a single human life. That I would be his rampart, his eternal shield. I repeated that prayer again and again, through several lights that felt like eternities. The words poured from my lips, my voice breaking and reforming, imploring the Sun not to take my brother from me... And then, at the first toll of the Melody of the Zenith — like a divine breath — Siegfried moved. His weak hand rested on my head, interrupting my desperate litany, and in a whisper barely audible, he told me that I would have to keep my word, and that if one day he were to become a Blade of Solar?s, then I — I was to become his Shield."

  A melancholic smile crossed his lips.

  "Witness to my brother's courage and to the beast that slept within me, that knight decided to take us under her wing, and so our training began under her tutelage. Dame H?lda — that is what she told us to call her — became our mentor, teaching us the art of combat according to our natures. To Siegfried, she taught how to keep his composure even in the fury of battle, how to master his rage and forge it into a precise and deadly blade. To me..."

  He paused, his fingers tracing his chains.

  "To me, she taught the art of defense — techniques to parry, block, and protect without ever having to deal death. She showed me how to transform my strength into a rampart, how to make my body a living shield. She used to tell us that one of us would be the sword, the other the shield, and that together we would be justice made flesh. Since that day, I walk at his side — a rampart against winds and blades, but never a scythe to reap a life. He gave his blood for me. I will give my life for him, without ever breaking that vow. And under Dame H?lda's teaching, I learned that love is always worth more than vengeance, and that a heart which protects is nobler than a hand which destroys."

  With a new understanding in his gaze, and a curiosity far too great to remain silent any longer, R?chard asked:

  "And those chains, then? Why do you wear them?"

  Juuh'ma raised his eyes, a gentle glimmer crossing his gaze.

  "A gift from Dame H?lw?nd. They are an excellent means of defense, but above all they exist to remind me, my young friend. They hold nothing back, nor do they keep the monster within me at bay. But they remind me — each clink is like a note from that day, a promise forged in the iron of my soul. When Siegfried lay between life and death, the healer told me there was nothing more he could do, and that only Solar?s would decide. I offered my vow — a pact in the eternal light — and at the sound of the Melody of the Zenith, he lived."

  Still lying on her bedroll, her head resting on her hand, Mei, who had listened closely to the Stone-Skin's every word, finally spoke.

  "And this beast inside you — do you still feel it?"

  With a single approving nod of his head, Juuh'ma answered her.

  They went on talking for a long while, and then, before taking advantage of their chief's peaceful sleep to rest themselves, they decided who would take the first watch. The young boy volunteered.

  Lying on her blanket, Mei did not find sleep right away. Juuh'ma's words — that brother ready to give everything, that glimmer saved from the shadows — turned in her mind, and another shadow slipped in alongside them. Her elder sister, squadron chief who had vanished at Fort-Ombre, the one Dragar still believed to be alive. She rested her fingers for a moment on the twin daggers at her belt — two slim blades, a gift from Sara?, a piece of their past etched into steel — and murmured into the still air.

  "I too have a blade to find..."

  Her eyes closed to the sound of R?chard's timekeeper, carrying two oaths into the eternal light.

  No less than two lights had passed when Juuh'ma, back against the wall and keeping watch, scanned the horizon. To the east, a cloud of smoke rose — dense and churning, as though the earth itself were exhaling a threat. His eyes narrowed, and suddenly a deep rumble tore through the stifling heat, a rolling tremor that shook the ground beneath his feet. With a swift motion, Juuh'ma struck his fist against the wall, his heavy voice shattering the silence.

  "On your feet! Something is approaching from the east!"

  The Vaan Hart squadron sprang up at once. Weapons in hand, they scanned the open plain beneath a pitiless zenith. His face creased in a grimace, the paladin straightened, one hand pressed against his bandaged hip. His gaze was alert and the fever had gone. R?chard, whose sight surpassed all others, glanced quickly toward his chief who gave him a nod to proceed. The boy leapt nimbly onto the nearest wall, his keen eyes searching the horizon through the smoke.

  "It's the Solheim convoy heading to Port-Foam! Plume made it!" he called out with joy, his clear voice carrying over the commotion. "Ten carriages in total on the other bank. Three loaded with what I would say are provisions. Three others seem to bow under construction materials — bricks, iron rings, coils of rope."

  "What else?" asked his chief.

  The young archer narrowed his eyes further.

  "The last four are carrying some fifty men. I think I recognize the emblem of the Golden Lances. I can also see N'zonki and craftsmen..."

  "Good. Break camp immediately," Siegfried ordered, moving toward his bedroll. "I have made us lose enough time already."

  As he knelt to fold his blanket, Mei approached and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  "Let me check your wounds first, Sieg," she told him calmly, with a look that invited no unfavorable response.

  The knight sat down on a low wall, and while the specter examined his wounds, he called out to his archer.

  "Can you tell me which light of the day we are in?"

  "The second has just sounded," the young man told him, replacing his timekeeper against his chest. "If we march as we have been, we will reach Solheim before the third."

  The wound at his hip having not worsened, the specter applied only a fresh coat of ointment, and the squadron set off again once the camp was packed away. Juuh'ma took the lead to share his shadow with the others, followed by his brother, then Mei and R?chard. They marched this way for a short while before stopping level with the convoy heading toward Port-Foam along the opposite bank.

  A man emerged from one of the carriages drawn by horned oxen, his lean silhouette outlined against the trembling light of the eternal zenith, his assured steps raising small clouds of dust from the cracked earth. Tall, almost lanky, he wore a light tunic worn down by the sand, a veil pushed back on his forehead allowing fine, long chestnut hair — tossed by dry gusts — to cascade around a face of angular features lit by sharp brown eyes. When he recognized knight Desrosiers among the squadron, a frank smile split his lips, and a laugh laden with gruff nostalgia rang out in the burning air.

  "R?chard, by all the suns — is that really you? What are you doing dragging your boots through the middle of these cursed lands?" he shouted to be heard.

  The young archer stepped forward in turn and returned a quick salute, fist against solar plexus. A warm smile spread across his lips as he met his old companion's gaze.

  "MAKEEL, MY FRIEND!" he shouted back. "We are heading back to the city. We were at Port-Foam defending the port."

  "On foot?!" the man asked, eyes wide.

  "No choice. And we couldn't afford to wait," the boy replied.

  Makeel nodded slowly, his chestnut hair slipping over his shoulders as he took in R?chard's words, his sharp gaze moving from his friend to the squadron surrounding him. A gleam of understanding crossed his eyes, and he straightened his lean frame with a determination that seemed to defy the crushing heat.

  "And for the return journey, with only your legs as your carriage and this light that drinks everything alive — do you have enough water left to avoid ending up shriveled before you see the walls of Solheim again?" he asked, raising a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the Sun and squinting to examine their flasks as though assessing their chances of survival.

  Silent until now beneath her hood, Mei tapped one of her near-empty flasks hanging at her belt, her fingers grazing the worn leather.

  "Enough remains, but one or two more — full if possible — would not go amiss."

  Makeel gave a sharp nod, and with a quick gesture, he signaled to one of the convoy's craftsmen — a stocky man with a blacksmith's hands — who stepped forward with two warm but brimming containers and held them out.

  "Here, take these — but don't waste them. You never know what might happen in these forsaken places."

  He took a few running steps and launched the flasks across the bank with force.

  "We cannot linger any longer. Safe travels, my young brother — and may the zenith spare you a little mercy on what remains of the road to Solheim."

  R?chard saluted his friend with a slow nod, his gaze touched by a gleam of sincere gratitude.

  "Thank you — take care of yourself, and good luck with the reconstruction of the port," he called out before turning away.

  As he pivoted back toward his convoy, Makeel raised one hand with authority.

  "Soldiers — enough dawdling, back on the road and quickly — Port-Foam will not wait!" he cried, his order echoing across the carriages where silhouettes stirred into motion with a murmur of obedience.

  The convoy set off westward, its carriages rolling away in a low rumble, wavering silhouettes in the heat mirages. As for the squadron, they turned their gaze to the east and continued their march. The heat became an invisible wall as Solheim drew near — a pressure that seemed to push back against their steps — as the city of white stones rose before them less than five kilometers away. The Index of Solar?s, slender and carved from the same white stone, dominated the city, while the walls, massive and bristling with towers, gleamed beneath the eternal zenith.