Three months later, the Warlord's favorite warhorse snapped a leg mid-charge. His second-in-command defected with half the army. A fever took his voice for two weeks—just long enough for rival clans to circle.
I watched him fall—watched the dagger clatter from his grip, watched his eyes go wide with the sudden, total understanding of every warlord before him. The Axis did not kill. It accepted. Every act of dominance over a willing vessel created a thread, invisible, unbreakable, tied from the conqueror's soul to the conquered's. And when enough threads gathered, they strangled.
Not the gentle chill of a winter morning, but the deep, unyielding cold of a forgotten tomb. Stone pressed against my cheek. Dust filled my lungs with every shallow breath. And above me, through a crack in the darkness, a single sliver of silver light.
But one woman did. A captain with a scarred face and sharp, tired eyes. She caught my arm as I passed.
A silhouette filled the frame—broad, armored, crowned with horns of twisted iron. The Warlord of the Broken Steppes. He had raided this village an hour ago. My new family lay dead upstairs. He had kept me alive because I had not screamed.
On the last night, he called me to his tent. His voice had returned, but weak, rasping. The rebellion had reached his doorstep.
