"Push Mama Push !"The wind that brushed across the courtyard of Emberhold felt softer that morning. Even the ever-burning flame atop the central spire flickered with a gentler glow, as if the very kingdom was holding its breath—waiting.Inside the citadel walls, a different kind of battle raged. One not of swords and blood, but of breath and sweat and the unrelenting rhythm of life being ushered into the world.Ayame's cries echoed down the stone corridors, sharp and primal, yet threaded with fierce determination. Kairo stood just outside the chamber, fists clenched, heart pounding harder than it ever had during any battle. The silence of a warrior was easy. But this silence—this waiting—was unbearable.He paced. His steps left shallow prints in the dust covering the hallway floor. Talon sat nearby, sharpening a dagger out of habit, but even he had paused now, the blade resting against his thigh as he glanced at Kairo.“You’d rather face ten Veylun generals than wait through this, wo

"The wind shifts even when the forest sleeps."—Ayame’s last recorded words in her journalThe days following Raien’s fifth birthday passed like soft wind through tall grass—quiet, unbothered, but not without purpose. The kingdom was in bloom. Fields once soaked with blood now burst with grain. The markets in Haven were filled with laughter and voices from distant lands. Children ran freely without the fear of arrows or war drums.Kairo watched it all with a deep, settled pride. The world had become what he once fought for but never believed he would live to see. And yet, something stirred—something he couldn’t quite name.Ayame noticed it too.“You’ve been staring at the horizon a lot,” she said one evening, brushing her fingers through his greying hair as they sat on the porch, Raien asleep behind them.Kairo nodded slowly. “The wind feels… wrong.”She tilted her head. “Wrong how?”He hesitated. “It’s too calm.”Ayame smiled gently, resting her head on his shoulder. “You’ve lived in

"The past does not sleep. It lurks—in blood, in fire, in the names we dare not speak." —Elder TareinThe Citadel did not sleep that night.Word spread like wildfire. The Serpent Flame—once believed shattered and scattered to the edges of the realm—had returned. And they weren’t hiding anymore. They were watching, positioning, readying.Kairo stood at the edge of the council chamber’s balcony, eyes fixed on the dark ridges far beyond Haven’s walls. His thoughts twisted like the smoke rising from the torches. Behind him, the council murmured, argued, feared.He knew what they all wanted to ask, but no one dared say it aloud.Would Kairo fight again?He hadn’t drawn a blade since the Reckoning.Ayame entered quietly, her presence grounding. She didn’t speak, just stood beside him, offering a calm that no council decree or war strategy could.“They won’t wait long,” she said finally.“No,” he agreed. “They’re testing us. Studying the gaps.”“Do you think the boy—the son—knows who you are?

"I laid my blade down in faith... in love. I thought peace would hold if I held on tighter to them—Ayame and Raien. But peace is a fragile thing... and war doesn't wait for fathers or husbands to grieve in silence."— Kairo, Whispered Confession to the Flame.The sun dipped low behind the obsidian towers of Emberhold, casting long, crimson shadows across the training grounds where laughter once danced between stone walls. Now, silence settled like dust. Kairo sat alone in Ayame’s garden, knees folded beneath him, hands resting on the rough wood of the bench they had built together just two summers ago. The air was heavy with the scent of blooming firelilies—Ayame's favorite—and their gentle sway in the evening breeze seemed to echo her quiet strength.His fingers traced the edge of a delicate blossom, his thoughts miles away, torn between the warmth of memory and the chill of what lay ahead. From the corner of his eye, he could see Raien playing near the small pond, trying to balance

The night Talon died, it rained.Not a fierce, thundering storm, but a quiet, mournful drizzle—just enough to soak through armour and cling to skin like the breath of the dead.Kairo heard the news from a scout who arrived at dawn, his cloak torn and eyes wide with disbelief. The Silent Blade’s second-in-command—Kairo’s oldest companion—had fallen defending a convoy of villagers fleeing from the south.“They were ambushed,” the scout said, voice cracking. “It wasn’t a raid. It was a statement.”Kairo said nothing at first. He simply stood there, staring past the horizon as though he might see Talon’s final stand etched into the sky.“They left no survivors,” the scout added. “Except me. They… they wanted someone to deliver the message.”The scout dropped a piece of cloth onto the stone floor—a black banner soaked with crimson. The symbol on it twisted like thorns—an ancient Veylun war crest long thought extinct.But that wasn’t what caught Kairo’s attention.It was the mark scorched b