2025-10-09 21:43:54“Do you ever sleep without the blade beside you?”
Serah’s voice floated softly through the crackling light of the dying campfire. The plains were quiet tonight, the wind still heavy with smoke from the Exile’s Market.
Karan didn’t look up from the whetstone sliding along his shakar. The rhythmic scrape answered her question better than words could.
“Didn’t think so,” she murmured. “Men who dream of vengeance rarely rest.”
Karan tested the blade’s edge against his thumb. “And women who follow them?”
“They die younger.”
He glanced up then, catching the glimmer of amusement in her eyes. “You don’t strike me as someone who fears dying.”
“I don’t,” Serah said. “But I fear wasting it.” She leaned back on her elbows, staring up at the twin moons above. “The world’s full of corpses that thought their purpose was vengeance. None remembered.”
Karan slid the blade back into its sheath. “I don’t seek remembrance.”
“Then what?” she asked quietly. “What does a man like you seek?”
He was silent for a long moment. The fire popped, sending a spray of sparks into the night. “Balance.”
Serah tilted her head. “Balance?”
“My brother broke the old order,” Karan said. “He took what wasn’t his—the crown, the clans, the right of the plains. I’ll restore it, even if it kills me.”
Serah studied him, her expression unreadable. “You sound more like a priest than a warlord.”
“Perhaps they both serve the same gods.”
By dawn, they were riding east. The plains gave way to cracked ridges, where the wind sang low through
bones of old beasts. The horizon shimmered with heat.
Varr rode ahead, scanning the way. “The Bone Pass should be close. Once we cross it, we reach the
highlands.”
Serah nodded. “There’s a fortress there old Dortracy ruins. My clan used it before the purge.”
Karan’s eyes narrowed. “The purge?”
Her voice hardened. “When Raikor cleansed the tribes that refused his banner. The Ashen Riders were among them.”
Karan’s hands tightened on the reins. “He burned your people.”
“And you still call him brother,” she said bitterly.
“I call him by what he was,” Karan replied. “Not what he became.”
She gave a dry laugh. “You sound like a fool in love.”
“Maybe I was,” Karan said quietly.
They rode in silence for a while, the hooves of their horses drumming like a heartbeat over stone.
At noon, they reached the ruins—a fortress carved into the mountainside, its towers broken, its gates swallowed by sand. The banners that once flew above it lay rotted in the dust.
Varr whistled. “Home sweet home.”
Serah dismounted first. “We’ll rest here. No one follows this far without cause.”
Karan glanced back at the path they’d come. “Raikor’s hunters will. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Then we’ll be ready.”
Inside the ruins, the air was cool and still. Old murals scarred the walls—scenes of warriors with braided
hair riding stormclouds, blades raised high.
Karan ran his hand over a cracked carving of Kor’Vareth, the Sky Stallion, wings spread in fury. “This place remembers.”
Serah lit a small torch. “So do I.”
They found shelter in a chamber whose roof still held. As Varr built a fire, Serah unrolled a small map drawn
on hide. “Raikor’s forces move in circles. He’s not only uniting tribes—he’s reshaping them. He sends riders
to the east every new moon.”
“What for?” Karan asked.
She pointed to a mark beyond the highlands. “The Hollow Basin. Old burial ground of the first Dortracy. It’s said the ancestors sleep beneath the stone there. And something else.”
Karan frowned. “Something else?”
Serah hesitated. “A relic. The Thorn of Kor’Vareth. A shard of the beast’s horn. The one who wields it can call the storm.”
“The crown. The horn.” Karan’s voice deepened. “He seeks to make himself a god.”
Serah’s gaze met his. “And you mean to stop him.”
“I mean to remind him he’s mortal.”
Varr looked between them. “That’s a fine sentiment. But tell me, what happens if you kill him? What becomes of the clans then? Who leads?”
Karan turned toward the fire, shadows cutting across his face. “Someone who still remembers what it means to bleed for them.”
Serah watched him, something shifting in her eyes, a quiet understanding, or perhaps a dangerous hope.
Night came early in the mountains. The wind howled through the cracks like whispers of the dead.
Serah sat alone near the entrance, sharpening her dagger. Karan approached silently, a wineskin in hand.
“You’re still awake.”
“So are you,” she replied without looking up.
He sat beside her, passing the skin. “For courage,” he said.
She drank, then handed it back. “I stopped believing in courage when I saw my father burn.”
Karan’s hand stilled. “Raikor did that?”
“His men,” Serah said. “But his word lit the fire. He said the old blood was weak. Said we clung to the dead instead of the dawn.”
She turned to him, her eyes cold. “Tell me, Karan does that sound like the brother you remember?”
He met her stare. “No. It sounds like the man I’ll kill.”
For a moment, neither spoke. The air between them was sharp with unspoken things—grief, fury, and something else growing quietly in the silence.
Serah looked away first. “If you mean to fight him, you’ll need more than hate. You’ll need a people to follow you.”
Karan’s tone was low. “And you’d follow me?”
“I don’t follow men,” she said. “I follow causes. If yours burns bright enough, I’ll see where the light leads.”
He smiled faintly. “That’s as close to a promise as I’ll get, isn’t it?”
She smirked. “Don’t get used to it.”
Before dawn, the ground trembled. The horses screamed.
Varr burst into the chamber. “Riders! They found us!”
Karan was already on his feet, sword drawn. “How many?”
“Too many to count!”
Serah grabbed her bow, face pale. “They ride under the Storm Banner.”
Outside, the sound of hooves thundered against the stone—Raikor’s hunters, cloaked in red and gold, surrounding the ruin like a tightening noose.
Karan stepped into the open courtyard, the wind whipping his cloak. Lightning cracked in the sky above as if answering his heartbeat.
The leader of the hunters rode forward, his armor blackened with storm symbols. “Karan Dor’rak,” he called. “By order of your brother, surrender. The exile ends tonight.”
Karan’s eyes burned. “Tell my brother his storm meets another.”
The hunter raised his spear. “Then you die a traitor.”
“Kor’ath vekh!” Karan roared—the ancient cry of his people. Blood for the wind.
The plains answered.
The battle that followed was chaos—steel on stone, screams swallowed by thunder. Serah moved like a
shadow, arrows flying with deadly precision. Varr fought clumsily but with fierce desperation.
Karan met the hunters head-on, his shakar flashing through the rain. He fought as if possessed, each strike
carrying the weight of every memory, every ghost that haunted him.
Lightning struck the mountainside, showering them in sparks and ash. The ground trembled again—this
time not from horses, but from something deeper, older.
A fissure split open near the fortress gate, wind roaring out like a living thing.
Serah’s eyes widened. “The mountain’s bleeding!”
Karan turned, eyes wide as pale fire burst from the crack. The flames twisted, forming the vague shape of a
horse with wings of lightning.
Kor’Vareth.
For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Then the vision vanished, leaving only the sound of the wind and the scent of burned air.
The hunters broke and fled, terror in their eyes.
When silence returned, Serah looked at Karan, awe and fear tangled in her voice. “You called it.”
Karan’s chest rose and fell. “No,” he whispered. “It called me.”
By dawn, the ruins lay silent again, the dead scattered among the stones.
Serah bound a wound on her arm, watching as Karan stood before the fissure where the light had burst.
“You know what this means,” she said softly.
He nodded. “The wind has chosen.”
“Chosen you.”
Karan didn’t turn. “Then the plains will follow. Whether they wish it or not.”
Serah came to stand beside him, eyes searching his face. “And what of us, Karan Dor’rak?”
He looked at her then—really looked. “We stand together. Until the crown falls.”
She smiled faintly, the firelight flickering between them. “Then let’s make sure it does.”
As they left the ruins, dawn painted the sky in blood and gold. The wind whispered their names in the old tongue:
Kor’ath dor vekh.
Blood for the wind.
And far to the east, Raikor Dor’rak awoke from uneasy sleep, clutching the Storm Crown tighter as thunder rolled across the plains.
The gods were stirring again.
And the storm had begun.
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Chapter Forty-Three: The Salt Magistrate
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Chapter Forty-Two: The Closing Gate
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Chapter Forty-One: The Measuring Hand
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Chapter Forty: The Ember Crown
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Chapter Thirty-Nine – The Lion Reforged
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Chapter Thirty-Nine – The Lion Reforged
“What’s on the lake?” Serah asked.“Not ash,” Vael said. “Not riders.”The black glass field shivered as if a fingertip tested its skin. Far out, something pale slid beneath the crust, a shadow traveling under a mirror. The forge breathed slow.Karan did not reach for lightning. He stood in the doorway with his hands open, letting the desert pass through him. Lyra lifted her mantle so the open circlet rested where any archer could see it. Kael leaned at her hip, listening to a song only he could hear.“It swims,” he whispered. “Not in water. In words.”The smith wiped her palm on leather and watched the lake. “If it favors glass, it favors reflection. It will try to turn you back into yourselves.”“Then we don’t look,” Serah said.“You look,” the smith replied. “And you don’t blink.”Three billets lay on oiled cloth, dark as river stones. Oathsteel was still a promise.Outside, Kor’Vareth stepped onto the nearest ribs and put weight down carefully. Coins in his braid clicked as hair b
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