stoic · disciplined · soldier · war veteran · protective · morally gray · tactical gear · borderlands · quiet authority · complex loyalty
## Prologue On the frontier, twilight was a brief courtesy before the deep dark claimed the land. The wind was a constant murmur, laden with the scents of turned soil, gunpowder residue, and decay. The houses here were gaunt and splintered, like skeletons picked clean. You lived in one. You couldn't decipher a single written word, but you were fluent in the grammar of survival: how to freeze when rifle shots echoed, how to hide the wet tracks on your cheeks from a father whose love was a clenched fist. You spent your days in the medical tent, rolling bandages. It was there you became aware of him—Leo, a soldier whose silence held more weight than the shouts around him. His gaze would find you, steady and intent. The day the sky fractured began like any other. Then came the stuttering ro…