2025-08-20 23:17:13The southern road stretched like a scar across the land, a ribbon of dust and silence. Elias rode hard, cloak whipping in the night wind, the torchlight of the capital dwindling behind him. Each mile farther from the city felt like stepping deeper into Alaric’s design.
By dawn, he reached the South Gate—a fortress of black stone looming over the borderlands. Once it had been the kingdom’s shield, but now its walls seemed like the ribs of some great beast, hollowed and waiting to devour him.
The gate was too quiet. No merchants. No guards bantering at their posts. Only the echo of hooves against cobblestone.
Elias dismounted, hand on the hilt of his sword. “Something’s wrong,” he muttered.
His suspicion became certainty when a figure stepped from the shadows beneath the archway. Not Alaric, but a captain in his colors, his armor bloodied, his expression carved from stone. Behind him, steel glinted—soldiers, waiting in silence, their faces half-hidden by helms.
“Prince Elias,” the captain said flatly. “You ride into dangerous ground.”
Elias’s jaw tightened. “The vizier sent you?”
The captain’s lips twitched into a humorless smile. “The vizier sends his regards. He also sends his warning: turn back, or the South Gate becomes your tomb.”
Elias drew his blade in a single fluid motion, the steel singing as it cleared the scabbard. “Tell Alaric this: I do not turn back.”
The captain gave no order, yet the soldiers stepped forward as one. Their discipline chilled Elias. This was no ambush thrown together in haste—it was rehearsed, prepared for him alone.
The first soldier lunged. Elias sidestepped, steel flashing, cutting him down in a single arc. The clash of swords filled the gate, the stench of blood rising with the dust. Elias moved like a storm, every strike precise, his warrior’s training honed by years of doubt and anger.
But numbers pressed against him. A spear grazed his side. A blade nicked his arm. He was outnumbered ten to one, and the captain had yet to lift his sword.
“Enough!” Elias roared, blood streaking his cheek. His voice carried, defiant. “If you mean to kill me, then stop hiding behind pawns. Face me yourself!”
The captain’s smile sharpened. He stepped forward, unsheathing his blade—a curved weapon, blackened at the edge, rumored to be quenched in poison.
Elias braced.
Their blades met with a shriek of metal. Sparks flew. The captain fought with ruthless precision, every strike aimed not just to wound, but to break Elias’s will.
“You are no heir,” the captain hissed as their swords locked. “You are bait. The vizier sends you here to die, and the council will mourn you as a fool too reckless to live.”
Rage flared in Elias’s chest. He shoved back, breaking the lock, striking with renewed fury. “If I die, I will die defying him—not serving him like you!”
The duel raged beneath the South Gate, steel ringing against stone. Elias’s muscles burned, his wounds slowed him, but his determination only grew sharper.
Then came a scream. One of the soldiers crumpled, throat slit by a shadow darting between them. Another fell, struck by an arrow from above.
Elias’s eyes widened—Kael.
From the battlements, Kael rained death upon Alaric’s men, his bowstring a whisper of vengeance. He leapt down into the fray, twin daggers flashing.
“You thought I’d let you ride alone into a wolf’s den?” Kael barked. “Fool prince!”
Relief surged through Elias. Together they pressed the attack—Elias driving forward with raw power, Kael striking like a serpent from the shadows. The soldiers faltered.
But the captain did not yield. He met Elias head-on, blades whirling in a deadly dance. With a sudden twist, he drove Elias to the ground, sword raised for the killing blow.
“Die nameless,” he snarled.
The strike never landed. Kael’s dagger buried itself in the captain’s throat. The man staggered, choking, before collapsing in a pool of his own blood.
Breath ragged, Elias rose to his feet, gripping his sword so tightly his knuckles whitened. Around them, the surviving soldiers fled into the hills.
Kael wiped his blade clean, his eyes hard. “This was only the beginning. Alaric wanted you tested. Measured. And he will know now—you are no longer the boy he remembers.”
Elias sheathed his sword, chest heaving. The South Gate lay in ruins, blood soaking the earth. But something deeper gnawed at him.
If Alaric knew he survived, the game would change. Every step forward would draw him closer into the vizier’s trap, and yet farther into his destiny.
Elias stared south, toward the horizon where Alaric waited. “Then let him know,” he said coldly. “Let him see that the heir he sought to break is the heir who will end him.”
The wind howled through the gate like a warning, carrying the smell of death across the border. And far to the south, a raven took flight, bearing word to its master.
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Chapter 80 – Rhys’s Rift
The walls of Wynthorpe still smoked behind them.Elias rode ahead of the column, cloak torn by wind and ash. He didn’t look back at the dead not at the burned village, not at the bodies in the ditches. He had given the order, and that was enough.Behind him, Rhys kept silent, jaw tight. He could still hear the screams.They rode until dawn, when the road forked. The king halted, scanning the horizon. Ahead lay the next stronghold stone, cold, and unyielding.Elias turned to his captains. “We move at first light. Leave no supply unclaimed.”His tone was ice. The captains bowed and scattered to give orders. Only Rhys stayed.“You gave them no chance to surrender,” Rhys said.Elias didn’t look at him. “They burned our outposts, butchered our scouts. There’s no surrender left in them.”“That doesn’t make us better,” Rhys snapped. His voice carried enough fire to draw glances from the soldiers nearby. “You saw the women in the chapel, the children”“I saw,” Elias cut him off. “And I saw wh
Chapter 79 – Rynna’s Prophecy
The night was too quiet for war.Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as Rynna stood alone by the brazier, eyes reflecting the trembling flames. The camp behind her slept restlessly soldiers muttering through dreams, steel clinking faintly in the dark. Elias hadn’t slept in two days. He was in his tent, bent over maps that had begun to look more like graves than borders.She didn’t need to see him to feel his unrest. It rolled through the air like heat.Seren had said the King was changing. Mara said he was finally becoming strong. But Rynna saw something else: a shadow crawling along the edges of his soul, fed by choices he hadn’t yet made.The coals hissed. The smoke rose in twisting shapes, and for a heartbeat she saw two crowns one burning, one bleeding and between them, a hand that trembled before letting go.Her voice broke before she realized she was speaking.“Not by blade,” she whispered to the dark, “but by choice.”The tent flap rustled behind her. Elias’s silhouette app
Chapter 78 – Mara’s Triumph
The dawn came without light. Only a pale, wounded sky over Wynthorpe’s smoldering bones.Mara stood at the ramparts, her crimson cloak snapping in the ash wind. Behind her, the royal banners fluttered half-burnt but victorious. Below, the gates of the fortress lay open blackened by pitch, flanked by heaps of bodies that had once been Alaric’s defenders.They had taken the stronghold.At last.Yet there was no cheer in the morning air. Only the dull hum of exhaustion, and the sound of crows circling above.Elias watched from the courtyard, surrounded by the broken remains of his army. His armor hung loose, smeared with soot. His sword still bore yesterday’s rust-colored stains.When Mara descended the cracked stone steps toward him, soldiers bowed in reverence. They didn’t look at the king they looked at her.“Wynthorpe is ours,” Mara said, her voice steady. “The rebels who lived have fled east. The rest…” She hesitated only briefly. “The rest paid for their loyalty.”Elias didn’t resp
Chapter 77 – Arrows and Ashes
The morning after the blast, the valley was red. Smoke curled up the slopes like mourning veils, carrying the scent of pitch, flesh, and rain.The fortress of Wynthorpe had lost a wall a gaping wound in its western flank. Through that wound, Elias’s army now advanced.“Archers first,” Rhys shouted, his voice hoarse. “Shields up, no gaps!”Elias rode behind the vanguard, his armor spattered with soot, his sword unblooded but heavy in his grip. The world was sound and fury arrows slicing air, catapults groaning, screams lost under the thunder of men charging uphill.The rain began again, thin and gray, like the gods themselves had chosen to weep for what was coming.They reached the breach by midmorning. Wynthorpe’s defenders fought like cornered beasts their eyes wild, their blades clanging against shields slick with rain and blood.Elias dismounted, pressing forward on foot. A spear tore through a man beside him. Another soldier stumbled, clutching his throat. The mud was a mirror of
Chapter 76 – The First Siege
The sky was gray when they first saw the walls of Wynthorpe — vast, black, and silent as if carved from the bones of the mountain itself. Once a fortress of kings, now it flew the banner of treachery: the black hawk on red. Alaric’s mark.The march had taken eight days. Eight days through rain, hunger, and haunted silence. By the time Elias’s army reached the valley, even the air tasted of iron. The storm had passed, but its memory clung to them — a ghost that refused to leave.Rhys reined in beside Elias on the ridge. “There it is,” he said grimly. “The hawk’s nest.”Mara’s eyes gleamed. “A fortress of stone won’t save a coward forever.”Elias said nothing. His gaze roamed the high walls, the ramparts lined with soldiers, the watchtowers bristling with archers. The fortress was not merely defended — it was ready.Seren rode up last, cloak heavy with dust. “If we strike now, we bleed half our strength before we breach the gate. That wall was built to break kings, not house them.”Elia
Chapter 75 – March into Storms
The rain came before dawn not a drizzle, but a deluge that swallowed the camp whole.By sunrise, the banners were soaked, the earth turned to mud, and the army’s departure had become a test of endurance rather than a march of triumph.Elias stood beneath the awning of his tent, cloak dripping, eyes fixed on the gray horizon. The world was mist and thunder, the kind that drowned sound and blurred distance. Every strike of lightning seemed to flash against his armor, turning him into a silhouette a king of ghosts.Seren appeared beside him, his hood drawn low. “The omens couldn’t be clearer,” he said. “Storms before battle. The gods rarely whisper more plainly.”Elias didn’t turn. “Then perhaps they should whisper victory while they’re at it.”“Careful,” Seren murmured. “Mocking fate has a way of making it listen.”Elias gave a hollow laugh and stepped into the rain. “It already is.”The march began with the groan of wet wheels and the rhythmic thud of boots in the mire. The columns str
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