Hendrik moved through the winding streets of Gondolia with the solemn grace of a man long accustomed to silence. The port town, once vibrant in his memory, now felt distant—its merchants casting wary glances and stepping aside, not out of fear, but reverence for the Heliodorian general whose name had become myth. He had been summoned again, this time for a disturbance haunting the western docks—an echo of unrest in a city that had once known peace.