The storm had been waiting all night.Outside the high walls of the Imperial Hall, thunder rolled like an army marching through the sky. Lightning flashed across the stained glass, painting the faces of the council in white fire.Kael Ardent stood before them — tall, calm, eyes shadowed with exhaustion. His uniform was still dusty from the front lines. Blood from another man’s wound had dried across his collar. He hadn’t even washed. He’d come straight here, summoned to “account for his failures.”Only now did he see what this truly was.Twelve council members lined the marble table, their armor polished, their faces untouched by war. At the center sat Lord Varic Dane, his old commander, mentor, and friend.The same man who had taught him how to win battles… and now stared at him like an enemy.“Strategist Kael Ardent,” Varic said, voice smooth as steel drawn in the dark. “You are charged with treason. With the deliberate loss of the Northern Campaign. With the deaths of ten thousand

The smoke hung low over Ashvale. It wasn’t from cooking fires this time — it was the smell of burning wood, broken carts, and spilled blood.Kael stood in the middle of the square, breathing through the ash. The rain had returned, soft now, washing streaks of red into the dirt. The bandits were gone. What was left of them lay where they fell, still and cold.Around him, villagers began to crawl out from hiding — pale faces, trembling hands clutching the edges of doors. A child cried somewhere. A dog barked and then went quiet.Kael’s sword slipped from his fingers, landing in the mud with a dull thud. His hands were shaking. Not from fear. From memory.He’d seen this before — not here, but everywhere the Empire had gone to “save” people. The same ruin, the same weeping. Different names, same end.“Kael!” Taren’s voice broke through the haze. He limped toward him, blood on his sleeve but still standing. “We did it. You… you saved us.”Kael didn’t answer. He just looked at his friend

Night came early that day.The kind of night that felt thick — heavy — as if the air itself remembered something it shouldn’t.Kael sat alone in his small room, the fire burning low in the hearth. A map lay open on the table, drawn in charcoal and old memory. He wasn’t supposed to have it — this version of him shouldn’t even know the northern routes or the troop lines. But he did. Every hill, every river bend, every mistake that led to his death.His fingers traced the borders slowly.“So much blood,” he whispered. “And for what?”The Echo Stone pulsed under his shirt again — faint, steady, alive. It was like a heartbeat that wasn’t his own. He took it out, setting it on the table. The stone was dark gray, smooth, and cold. When he held it close to the light, a soft red shimmer rippled through it — like the glow of dying embers.The air shifted.He could almost hear it — voices, far away, layered on top of each other. Like whispers carried through fog.He stared hard, breath shallow.

The night was colder than usual.The kind of cold that sinks into your bones, not because of the wind — but because something in the air feels wrong.The mill stood at the edge of Ashvale, forgotten by the farmers who once brought wheat there. Its roof sagged, its walls breathed dust. But for Kael Ardent, it was enough.A roof, a table, and silence.The candle on the table burned low, its light trembling with every gust that crept through the cracks. A map lay open before him, corners held down by stones and an old dagger. Lines crossed over old ones, arrows and circles drawn in dark ink. He had drawn them by memory — the battlefields of his past life.Ten thousand men.One wrong order.And a pyre that ate him alive.His hand stopped over the mark labeled Falric Ridge.That’s where it began — where he’d been told to hold until reinforcements came.Reinforcements that never came.Kael leaned back, the chair groaning beneath him. His fingers brushed the cold metal of the Echo Stone besi

Night had fallen over the western trade road — a thin trail of dust and silence winding through dying fields.Kael’s horse moved slow beneath him, breath rising in pale clouds. The stars were faint, the moon a thin scar across the sky.He rode without speaking. Daren followed behind, fidgeting like the silence itched.“You ever gonna tell me where we’re going?” Daren finally asked.Kael didn’t answer right away. His eyes were fixed on the distance — on a ridge of dark stones jutting from the earth like bones.“Somewhere the empire forgot,” he said at last. “A place that remembers what it’s not supposed to.”Daren frowned. “You talk like a priest sometimes.”“I talk like a man who’s seen too much.”They rode on, the wind whispering through dry grass.When they reached the ridge, Kael dismounted. The stones weren’t natural — each carved with marks half-buried in dust. Old words, faded by time.Daren crouched beside one. “Graves?”Kael shook his head. “No. Warnings.”He ran a hand over o