Above the city walls, a few watchtowers loomed in faint outline. From time to time, the silhouettes of patrolling soldiers flickered past, gone as quickly as they appeared. Torches guttered in the night wind, their flames casting wavering halos that blurred into the darkness. The fortress stood hushed beneath the sky, steeped in a chill austerity and a whisper of menace—as if within its stone heart, some earth-shattering plot, and perhaps a fragile redemption, were quietly taking shape.