Chapter 6: Stormwatch’s Oath

Captain Arlo held Stormwatch through a night of tearing wind, asking no one to stand alone. The citadel had been built to bind the sky, and its fall had let storms roam free over Velharrow. Raiders fed the corrupted spire with stolen storm rods; thunder golems pulsed in the lightning wells as if the mountain were trying to restart a heart it no longer trusted.

Above the battlements, the Skyforged Warden fought its own corruption. Arlo's defenders cleared the ramparts so the chorus's restored call could reach the spire — a voice the Warden had been straining to hear through pain and static.

When the binding broke and the Warden remembered its oath, it raised the sky barrier anew. The storm broke against light instead of stone. Velharrow looked up and saw weather where there had only been wound. Arlo wept without shame. The region had won breathing room — but Arlo knew, as soldiers do, that victory is often a door, not an ending.