The Shattered Crown

Chapter 6 — Blade at the South Gate

The 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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