The council chamber was hollow that morning — sunlight fractured through the stained windows, casting shards of red across the marble floor. Elias sat beneath the black banner of the crown, his eyes tracing the map before him. Thin lines of ink spread across the parchment borders, rivers, towns all bleeding into one another, as though the kingdom itself were trying to disappear.Rethmar lay at the eastern edge, a town forgotten by peace. Once, it had been a trade post; now, its silence was a question no one wanted to answer.“Your scouts have not returned,” Seren said. His tone was clipped, all soldier, no ceremony. “It’s been six days.”“I know,” Elias replied. His voice was low, tired. “They were meant to signal by the third dawn.”Rhys stood by the window, arms folded. His armor caught the light not polished, but functional, marked by use. “If Alaric’s men have moved east, Rethmar would be the first to fall. It’s too close to the pass. Too exposed.”Elias didn’t answer. His fingers

The capital never slept anymore. Not since the eastern fires began to glow on the horizon like the reflection of a coming storm. Merchants whispered of rebellion in the border towns, soldiers drank harder, and the streets filled with rumors thick enough to choke on.And Mara she thrived in the noise.In the upper chambers of House Velden, her private study flickered with lamplight and quiet ambition. Scrolls littered the table letters, promises, and debts, all neatly stacked and sealed in wax. Each bore the insignia of a noble family too proud to kneel but too frightened to stand alone.She dipped her quill, eyes glinting like coins. “Tell Lord Kael he will have his iron shipment doubled if he swears his men to my banner by week’s end,” she told her steward, a thin man with eyes that darted like mice.“Yes, my lady. And the others?”“The others,” she said softly, “will come once they realize who actually feeds the king’s army.”The steward hesitated. “Forgive me, but does His Majesty

The night the vision came, the moon was a pale shard of bone above the spires of Aurelion, thin and sharp as the edge of prophecy.Rynna sat alone in the tower’s observatory the highest point in the castle, where the wind always whispered of things best left unheard. A dozen candles flickered around her in a circle, their flames bending inward as if listening. The air tasted of metal and rain.She’d tried to suppress the visions for weeks, bury them under silence and duty, but the power within her was stirring again. It was older than her name, older than her fear a curse bound to her bloodline.She placed her hands on the crystal basin before her, its surface rippling though no water stirred. “Show me what lies ahead,” she whispered. “If I am to guide him, I must see.”At first there was nothing just the trembling of light on glass. Then, slowly, the world inside the basin began to twist.Smoke. Fire. Screams.A city, their city, Aurelion engulfed in crimson haze. The great towers me

Snow whispered across the northern plains, a slow white tide swallowing the road as Elias’s vanguard pressed forward. The wind cut through armor and wool alike, hissing between the pine trunks. Every breath came out silver, every boot crunch echoed like bones cracking under ice.Elias rode at the front, his black cloak snapping behind him, the royal insignia barely visible beneath frost. At his side, Commander Thane a grizzled veteran from Alden’s campaigns kept his hand on the hilt of his sword.“Tracks end here, Your Majesty,” Thane muttered. “The scouts say the hill beyond hides something… unnatural.”Elias glanced toward it. The rise was small, half-buried in snow, flanked by withered trees. Nothing about it seemed unnatural unless you counted the silence.Too still. Too clean.He dismounted. “No torches. No sound. We go on foot.”They climbed the slope slowly, boots sinking into soft snow. Halfway up, one of the soldiers stumbled. His foot had struck something hard beneath the su

The first messenger arrived at dawn or what would have been dawn if not for the choking haze that turned the sky to ash. He stumbled into the courtyard, cloak blackened, eyes wide as though he’d seen hell itself.“Rethmar… the village of Rethmar is gone!” he gasped. “Burned! All of it burned!”Elias froze mid-step. He’d been preparing for council, hands stilling over a scroll of strategy. The words hit harder than steel.“Gone?” he repeated, quiet but sharp.The messenger fell to one knee. “My lord, they set fire to the grain stores, the wells, the homes. There are no survivors.”The silence that followed was thick. Even the guards turned away. The king’s expression didn’t break, but the tremor in his hand betrayed the storm inside him.“Alaric,” Elias whispered. Not as a curse as a fact.Mara was the first to speak. “He’s answered your letter, Majesty. Not in ink… but in blood.” Her tone was cold, almost impressed.Rhys slammed his fist against the table. “That village swore loyalty