The aqueduct chamber stank of mildew and smoke. The resistance team slumped against the damp stone walls, wounds hastily bandaged, breaths shallow from the brutal escape.Adrian hadn’t sat. He stood apart, staring into the darkness, his cloak still wet from the sewer water. His silence was heavier than the battle they had just survived.Ronan finally broke it, spitting blood onto the ground.“Well… that went to the abyss, didn’t it?”Mira rounded on him. “You think this is funny?”Ronan raised his scarred brow. “If I don’t laugh, I’ll break something. Preferably her neck.” He jerked his chin at Elara, who sat huddled in the corner, arms around her knees.She didn’t respond. Her eyes were empty now, haunted and hollow.Adrian’s voice cut through the tension, low but sharp.“No one touches her.”Mira snapped her head toward him. “After what she’s done? Adrian, she sold us out. We nearly died because of her.”Adrian finally turned, his eyes like stormfire.“She’s not the enemy. Darius

The ruin of the foundry still smoked when the news reached Redhaven — a dagger of light through the city’s restless night. Fires flared in alleys; people crowded windows to see the orange horizon where iron once fed shadow. For many it was hope. For Darius it was provocation.Adrian had expected reprisal. He had not expected how quickly the Regent would answer.By first light Redhaven thrummed with urgent movement. Drumbeats that meant warning rolled through the streets. Adrian was at the command post before the sun had fully risen. Mira and Ronan stood with him, maps strewn across a battered table.The men and women he had freed — some of them still shaking from hunger and pain — were gathered in the yard, eyes hollow but attentive.“We knew he’d come for blood,” Adrian said, voice low. “He’ll try to take the palace and turn it into his stage. If he controls the palace, he controls the city’s legitimacy — and the rest will fold.”Mira’s jaw tightened. “He’ll bring the Black Crowns a

The Iron Marches did not sleep. Its villages, tucked between black ridges and rivers that ran like molten veins, burned with fevered activity. Smithies roared through the night; drums echoed from one mountain hollow to another. The Regent’s banners spread like oil across stone, but it was not just soldiers who gathered now. Something older stirred.Darius stood before the ruin known as the Black Chapel — a cathedral carved centuries ago by nameless monks, abandoned after whispers of blasphemy. Its spires leaned like broken teeth, its windows were gaping mouths. Yet when Darius entered, the air pressed against him with the weight of expectation.The cultists were already waiting. Cloaked in ragged black, their faces hidden, they knelt as one. At their center stood a woman whose presence commanded silence. Her name was whispered only as Maerith, the Shadow-Seer. Her eyes were milk-white, yet she looked upon Darius as though she saw the marrow of his bones.“You come with banners of k

The march north began in silence. Adrian traveled with only a handful — Selene, Garrick, and two scouts loyal beyond question. The fewer who knew their destination, the safer it would be. Word of this shrine could spread panic through the ranks, or worse, embolden Darius’s fanatics.The Iron Marches stretched before them: desolate hills streaked with blackened soil, trees twisted as if in torment. Legends said the land itself had been warped when the covenant was forged. The further they rode, the more Adrian felt the weight of invisible eyes upon him.On the third night, Garrick broke their uneasy quiet.“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”Adrian shook his head, though his scar burned as though in denial. “Not in body. But my blood remembers.”Selene frowned. “That’s not a memory. That’s influence. Be careful what you trust.”Yet the strange certainty in Adrian’s steps could not be denied. He led them through valleys where maps faltered, across rivers no cartographer had marked

The abyss yawned wide beneath the shrine, and from it rose the ancestors of the Cole bloodline. Not portraits in gilt frames, not proud rulers in history’s pages — but twisted revenants, bound in chains of shadow, their eyes hollow sockets that burned with cold fire.They climbed from the pit one by one: kings crowned with rusted iron, warriors clad in corroded armor, women with their hands stained black from sacrifices long forgottenEach bore the spiral sigil branded across their flesh, glowing with the same cursed light as Adrian’s scar.The entity’s voice thundered through the chamber:“Face the legacy you spurn. If you cannot stand against those who gave everything, you are nothing.”A tall warrior advanced, his jaw sharp as an axe, his chest scarred with battle marks Adrian had seen carved in stone memorials. His greatsword, blackened by shadow, cut the air with a sound like a wailing wind.Adrian’s throat tightened. “That’s Halric Cole. My great-grandfather.”The revenant spo