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Lan looked back toward the horizon where the sun was beginning to break through the perpetual gloom. For the first time in his life, he didn't see a battlefield. He saw the faint outlines of where the towers would rise again—not as fortresses, but as homes.

For twenty years, he had been a ghost. He was the King of a country that lived only in the memories of old men and the songs of bards. Malkier was a name for a grave, and Lan was its chief mourner. He had expected to die with his sword in his hand, a final, bloody punctuation mark at the end of a tragedy. But the world had not ended. 125015

Lan looked down at his hands. They were calloused from the hilt of his blade, scarred from a thousand cuts. These were hands meant for breaking, for holding back the tide of the Shadow until the very last breath. Lan looked back toward the horizon where the