Dreth curled beside the ruined altar while four sentries guarded his shoulders and the cuff bearer watched Aria's warning marker. Hajin kept the Chain looped around his wrist as surrendered ranks shuffled toward water carts beyond the dead domain's edge.
A wet cough shook the prisoner, but his right hand stayed jammed beneath his torn sleeve.
"You think this ends with me?" Dreth rasped, lifting his face from the gravel.
"The alliance has a hundred thousand legionnaires beyond that pass."
He dragged one knee beneath him until the nearest guard lowered a spear against his collar.
"When the snow melts, they'll hang you from your own gates, an exile doesn't get to keep a province."
Hajin squinted up through the shattered roof, where the mountain road vanished beneath its winter cover.
"Uh-huh, cool story," he drawled, rolling one link between his fingers, "except forty feet of snow is sitting on their supply pass, and your vanguard's queuing for my soup."
