Chapter 34 · Frontier Lord - Chapter 34: Windstone Doesn't Kneel

The gate didn't look like salvation.

It looked like a scar ripped across the world—ice-blue light bleeding through the frozen air, stone ribs curling up from the ground like something had been buried there and just woke up angry. Ava could feel it humming through her boots. Through her teeth. The boundary stone was gone. In its place, this thing—half ruin, half fortress, all hers.

And Klaus was still on the other side.

"Ava." Rain's voice cut through the wind. He was already moving, bow in hand, eyes locked on the ridge. "He's got thirty men. Maybe more behind the trees."

She didn't answer. Couldn't. The gate was still rising—chunks of frozen earth cracking apart as the stone arches climbed higher. Her bloodline was screaming in her veins, hot and electric, like it wanted to drag her forward and shove her hands into the gate itself. Finish it. Seal it. Make it real.

But her people were behind her.

She turned.

They looked like what they were—refugees who'd spent the last two months learning to hold a hammer instead of a sword. Sera was pale, one hand pressed to her mouth. Old Tam had both arms around his grandkids.