The delegation arrived at dawn—deliberately, Kaelen noted. They wanted to see him in his element. They wanted to know if the stories were true.
They were not from any remnant of the Magisterium. Their banners were unfamiliar: a silver tree on a field of deep green, the roots curling into the shape of a sleeping dragon. Their soldiers wore armor made of laminated bark and what looked like frozen sunlight. Their leader was a woman with skin the color of river stones and eyes that shifted between brown and gold—almost Ember Vein, but not quite.
Kaelen met them at the city gate. He wore simple clothes again, no crown, no sword. Zene stood at his right, Mercy on her hip. Theron stood at his left, his dawnfire eyes unreadable.
"I am Ambassador Serene of the Verdant Dominion," the woman said. Her voice was calm, measured, the voice of someone who had negotiated with monsters and lived. "I come on behalf of the Thorned Throne. We wish to discuss an alliance."
Kaelen inclined his head. "The Solborn Covenant welcomes you. But I must ask—why now? The Magisterium has been fallen for months. You could have come sooner."
Serene’s golden-brown eyes flickered. "We could not. We were… occupied."
"Occupied with what?"
She did not answer directly. Instead, she reached into her cloak and withdrew a small box made of bone. She held it out to Kaelen.
"Open this," she said, "and you will understand."
Kaelen took the box. The Ember Vein pulsed—not in warning, but in recognition. He opened it.
Inside was a tooth. Not human. Not animal. Divine. It glowed with a faint, sickly light, and Kaelen could feel the hunger radiating from it even now.
"The God-Eater," Kaelen said. "This is one of its teeth."
"Yes," Serene said. "The Verdant Dominion has been fighting the God-Eater's fragments for three hundred years. We thought we were containing a disease. We did not know it was the corpse of a divine parasite. When you killed the heart, the fragments went wild. They are consuming my people's lands as we speak."
Kaelen closed the box. "Why didn't you ask for help?"
"Because we did not know you existed. The Magisterium controlled all information. They told us the Solborn were a myth. That the Ember Vein was a lie. That the Progenitor Dayborn was a fairy tale to frighten children." She smiled bitterly. "Imagine our surprise when your Covenant's name reached us through the Sylph wind-routes. A million freed slaves. A new god. A seventh race born from torture."
"You've been watching us."
"Watching. Waiting. Hoping you were real." Serene stepped closer. "The fragments are not just destroying our lands. They are changing them. Forests are becoming flesh. Rivers are turning to blood. The dead are rising—not as wraiths, but as echoes. They repeat their last words over and over, forever. My people are going mad."
Kaelen looked at Zene. She nodded almost imperceptibly.
"How many fragments?" Kaelen asked.
"Seven. One for each of the God-Eater's original mouths. We have contained four. Three remain active. The largest one is consuming our capital."
"Then we go north," Kaelen said. "The Covenant marches within the week."
Serene’s composure cracked. Her eyes—both brown now, the gold retreating—filled with tears. "Just like that? You don't want tribute? Territory? Binding oaths?"
Kaelen stepped forward and took her hand. His dawnfire warmed her cold fingers.
"I spent my entire life in chains," he said. "I did not break those chains to put them on someone else. You asked for help. We are helping. That is what the Covenant is."
Serene wept. She did not try to hide it.
Behind her, the Verdant Dominion soldiers—bark-armored, frozen-sunlight-weaponed—knelt as one.
The council met that night. The hall was crowded—not just with the usual representatives, but with the seventh race, the survivors of the Province of Screams. They had come because the God-Eater's fragments were, in a terrible way, family. The same hunger that had created them was now consuming the Dominion.
"We cannot send everyone," Ashara argued. "Dawn's Rest is still vulnerable. The Magisterium loyalists are regrouping in the eastern provinces. If we march north with our full force, we leave our home undefended."
"The fragments will not stop at the Dominion's borders," Aris said. The floating man had become the seventh race's voice in the council. His calm was no longer empty—it was focused. "If the Dominion falls, the fragments will turn south. Toward us."
"The seventh race understands the hunger better than anyone," Evola added. She had shifted into a form with four arms and three eyes, the better to see all sides of the argument. "We can help contain the fragments. But we cannot do it alone."
Kaelen listened. He did not speak for a long time.
Finally, he stood.
"Here is my decision. Theron will remain at Dawn's Rest with fifty thousand Solborn and the Iron Dwarf garrison. Ashara will coordinate with the Magisterium loyalists—not to fight them, but to offer them amnesty. We are not conquerors. We do not need to crush every enemy. Some enemies become allies when given the chance."
Ashara looked like she had swallowed something sour. But she nodded.
"Zene," Kaelen continued, "you will come north with me. The crown—Mercy—has knowledge of the God-Eater that I do not. You will be our historian and our heart."
Zene's hand tightened on the crown. "Okay."
"The seventh race will march with us. Not as soldiers—as guides. The fragments are made of hunger. You were made by hunger. You know its language."
Evola's three eyes gleamed. "We will teach you how to speak it."
"Then it's settled." Kaelen looked at Ambassador Serene. "How long until the largest fragment consumes your capital?"
Serene's voice was steady, but her hands trembled. "Three weeks. Maybe less."
"Then we march at dawn."
The night before the march, Kaelen visited the Memory Oak alone.
The tree had grown since the Fawn Kings planted it. Its trunk was now wider than a house, its branches reaching toward the stars. The names carved into its bark—the names of the fallen, the freed, the forgotten—whispered in the wind.
Kaelen pressed his forehead to the trunk.
"I don't know if I'm doing the right thing," he said. "I'm leading our people into another war. The first war barely ended. They're tired. I'm tired."
The Memory Oak did not answer. But the wind shifted, and Kaelen heard his mother's voice—not a ghost, not a memory. Just the echo of a lullaby she used to sing.
River, river, carry me home. I've been wandering, and I'm so alone. River, river, don't let me drown. I'm coming home, I'm coming down.
Kaelen wept. He did not try to hide it.
"I miss you," he whispered. "I miss you every day."
The wind died. The lullaby faded. But something remained—a warmth in his chest that was not the Ember Vein. Something softer. Something mortal.
He stayed beneath the tree until dawn.
The army marched at first light. Fifty thousand Solborn. Ten thousand from the seventh race. A contingent of Iron Dwarves. A flight of Gargoyles. A choir of Sylphs to carry messages. And at the front, Kaelen on a black horse, Zene beside him on a smaller grey, Mercy pulsing softly on her hip.
Ambassador Serene rode at Kaelen's other side. Her composure had returned, but her eyes were still red.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "My people have been alone for so long. We forgot what it felt like to have allies."
Kaelen looked north, toward the Dominion's borders, toward the fragments of a dead god's hunger.
"Allies are what the Covenant does," he said. "But I need to ask you something, Serene. And I need you to answer honestly."
"Anything."
"The fragments. You said they were changing your lands. Making forests into flesh. Rivers into blood. That's not just destruction. That's transformation. Is it possible—" He hesitated. "Is it possible the fragments are trying to recreate the God-Eater? To build a new body for the hunger?"
Serene went pale. "We… we had not considered that."
"Consider it now." Kaelen's golden eyes hardened. "Because if the fragments are building a new god, we're not walking into a containment mission. We're walking into a birth. And we need to decide if we're going to kill the child—or raise it differently."
The army marched north.
Behind them, Dawn's Rest grew small on the horizon.
Ahead, the land was already screaming.