2026-01-04 21:07:09Thorne kept up a steady stream of commentary: battle critiques, ancient war stories, and the occasional barb about Elias’s “soft modern upbringing.” It was irritating. It was also the only company he had.
On the fourth dawn, smoke rose on the horizon thin, black, deliberate. Not a wildfire.
Elias crested a ridge and stopped.
Below, in a shallow valley, a small caravan had been ambushed. Six wagons circled defensively, canvas torn and burning. Bodies lay scattered merchants, guards, a few in uniform. Ash wolves prowled the edges, but they weren’t the main threat.
A dozen raiders in mismatched armor ringed the survivors. At their center stood a hulking man with a two-handed axe, laughing as he kicked a dying guard.
Thorne whistled low. “Border scum. They hunt the waste’s edge for easy pickings. Those uniforms Greyhaven academy recruits. Fresh meat on training expedition.”
Elias’s eyes narrowed on the survivors.
Five recruits still stood, backs to a wagon. Three men, two women all around his age, uniforms torn but holding formation. One of the women stood at the front: silver hair tied in a tight braid, violet eyes sharp even from this distance. She wielded a slender longsword crackling with faint storm mana, stance perfect despite a gash across her ribs staining the fabric dark.
Even wounded, she moved like lightning parrying a raider’s mace, riposting with a thrust that dropped the man choking on his own blood.
But they were losing. Outnumbered, exhausted.
Elias felt the rage stir, hot and immediate. Not the bloodline’s mindless fury something colder. These were kids like Mira could have been, if fate had been kinder.
He started down the ridge.
Thorne sighed. “Rescuing strangers already? You’re not even at the academy yet.”
“They need help.”
“They’ll owe you. Debts complicate things.”
Elias kept walking.
The raider leader noticed him first a lone figure in ragged servant’s clothes, greatsword across his back, walking calm as morning stroll.
“Fresh meat!” the big man bellowed, axe resting on his shoulder. “Take him alive. He’ll fetch a price.”
Three raiders broke off, grinning.
Elias didn’t slow.
The first swung a spiked club. Elias sidestepped, drew Crimson Reaper in a smooth arc, and removed the man’s arm at the elbow. Blood sprayed hot across his face. The raider’s scream cut short as Reaper’s backswing took his head.
The second hesitated. That was enough. Elias stepped in, blade piercing chest, twisting out in a wet crunch.
The third turned to run.
Elias let the aura flare just a pulse. Crimson mist coiled around him, and he was suddenly there, sword buried in the man’s spine. He yanked it free as the body dropped.
Silence fell across the valley.
The raider leader stared. The recruits stared. Even the wolves paused.
Then the leader laughed, deep and ugly. “A wild one. Boys kill him slow.”
The remaining nine charged.
Elias met them.
It wasn’t a fight. It was execution.
Reaper sang. Aura veiled him in red. War God’s Instinct painted every move before it happened. He danced through them severing tendons, opening throats, shattering weapons and the hands that held them. Blood soaked the ground until it squelched under his boots.
When the leader finally swung his axe in desperation, Elias caught the haft mid-swing, snapped it like kindling, and drove Reaper through the man’s chest. Pinned him to a wagon wheel and left him there, twitching.
The wolves fled.
Elias stood in the sudden quiet, breathing hard, aura fading. Bodies lay in pieces around him. The metallic reek of death hung thick.
Thorne’s voice was almost gentle. “Controlled. Good. You didn’t lose it.”
Elias wiped Reaper on a corpse’s cloak and sheathed it. Only then did he approach the survivors.
The recruits had lowered their weapons but kept formation. The silver-haired woman stepped forward, sword still pointed at him, violet eyes wary.
“Who are you?” she demanded. Voice steady despite the blood soaking her side. “And why intervene?”
Elias met her gaze. Up close, she was striking sharp features, pale skin dusted with ash, a faint scar across one cheek that only made her look fiercer. Nineteen, maybe twenty.
“Someone who hates raiders,” he said simply.
One of the male recruits a broad-shouldered boy with earth mana flickering weakly snorted. “Convenient timing.”
The woman shot him a look that silenced him. She studied Elias a moment longer, then lowered her blade.
“I am Liora Veyne, second-year cadet, Greyhaven War Academy.” She gestured to the others. “We were on a routine resource run. Got ambushed two days out.” Her mouth twisted. “Our instructor didn’t make it.”
Elias nodded. “I’m headed to Greyhaven.”
That earned surprised looks.
“You?” the earth cadet muttered. “You look like you crawled out of the wastes.”
“I did.”
Liora’s eyes flicked to the faint crimson scars on his arm, visible where his sleeve had torn. Something unreadable passed across her face.
“You saved our lives,” she said finally. “We owe you a debt.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
She bristled slightly pride, Elias realized. “Veyne Clan honors its debts.”
Thorne chuckled in his head. “Tsun already. This one’s going to be fun.”
Elias ignored him. “You’re hurt. Let me see.”
Liora hesitated, then lifted her torn uniform enough to reveal the gash deep, from ribs to hip, still seeping. The others averted their eyes politely.
Elias placed a hand near the wound, careful not to touch. He focused on Crimson Vitality, channeling a thread of regenerative energy. Warm red light flowed from his palm, knitting flesh, sealing the cut to a thin pink line.
Liora inhaled sharply, eyes widening. “How…?”
“Long story.”
She stared at him, something new in her expression curiosity, suspicion, maybe the first flicker of respect.
One of the other cadets cleared his throat. “We should move. Raiders travel in larger bands. More might come.”
Liora nodded, pulling her uniform closed. “We have a spare horse. You’ll ride with us.”
It wasn’t a question.
As they prepared the wagons salvaging what they could and burning the rest Liora fell into step beside Elias.
“You fight like no academy student I’ve seen,” she said quietly. “And that regeneration… that’s not common bloodline talent.”
Elias shrugged. “I’m not from an academy.”
“Obviously.” A pause. “My clan Veyne we’re storm descendants. Old line, older grudges. We don’t take kindly to debts, but we don’t forget allies either.”
She didn’t look at him as she spoke, focusing on tightening a strap.
“I was betrothed once,” she continued, voice flat. “Arranged. To a dragon-blood heir from the capital. Political. I was sixteen. He thought that meant ownership.” Her fingers tightened until knuckles went white. “I broke his jaw in front of both clans. The engagement ended. My father still hasn’t forgiven me for the insult.”
Elias glanced at her. The scar on her cheek he wondered.
“I chose the academy over marriage,” she said. “Chose the sword over politics. Some days I wonder if it was worth it.” She finally met his eyes. “But seeing what you just did… maybe there are still things worth fighting for.”
Thorne’s voice was wry. “Careful, boy. She’s got walls higher than yours.”
Elias didn’t reply. He just nodded.
As the caravan rolled toward Greyhaven, Liora rode beside him close enough that their knees occasionally brushed, neither moving away.
The wastes fell behind them. Ahead, the first true hills rose, green and alive.
And for the first time since his fall, Elias wasn’t walking alone.
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The Price of Victory
The throne hall air hung heavy with the smell of copper and charred flesh, Seraphine’s body still warm on the marble, blood pooling beneath her in a slow, dark mirror that reflected the guttering torches and Harlan’s roaring flame aura in fractured, mocking shards. Her eyes were closed now my doing and the wound in her chest still leaked in weak, rhythmic pulses, the gurgle of her last breath echoing faintly in the high ceiling like a whisper that refused to die. My hands were slick with her blood, Reaper dripping red onto the stone in fat, wet drops that splattered and spread, the metallic tang thick on my tongue, mixing with the bile rising in my throat. Liora stood frozen beside me, lightning still crackling faintly along her blade, blue white arcs dying in the air like dying stars. Her face was pale, eyes wide, locked on Seraphine’s body, the scar on her cheek stark against skin gone gray. Kora’s wind had stilled, dust settling around her feet in a soft, choking cloud, her hands
The Hall of Broken Promises
The throne hall doors had barely groaned shut behind us when the air turned thick with the smell of old fire and fresh blood, the gold plated walls reflecting the last guttering flames in warped, distorted patterns that made every shadow look like it was bleeding. The floor was cold marble streaked with old scorch marks and newer, darker stains dried blood from older fights, fresh from the loyalists we’d just cut down in the antechamber. The echo of their dying screams still lingered in the high ceiling, bouncing back faint and hollow, like ghosts too tired to scream anymore. Harlan stood at the far end, flame aura roaring around him in a crown of white-hot fire, eyes locked on me with that same smirk he’d worn when he pushed me out of the airship years ago, the one that said he’d already won. Lord Voss sat the throne behind him old, broken, flame dim and flickering like a candle in a draft, but his eyes were still sharp, watching, calculating, the way a dying man watches the vultur
The Slaughter at the Threshold
The throne hall doors loomed ahead like the jaws of a dying beast, gold plating cracked and blackened from failing wards, the faint hum of dying mana vibrating through the stone floor and into my boots, each step sending small tremors up my legs that made the stitches in my side tug with fresh, dull pain. The air in the antechamber was thick, hot, heavy with the stink of scorched metal, old blood, and the sour rot of mana cores that had finally given up the ghost, the smell clinging to my tongue and making every breath feel like swallowing ash and regret. The last loyalists had pulled back deeper inside only a handful remained here, crimson plate gleaming dully under flickering torchlight, flame auras low but steady, eyes hard with the kind of fanaticism that doesn’t flinch at death because it’s already decided the cause is worth it. We burst through the side corridor in a tight wedge me at point, Reaper drawn and low, crimson mist already coiling around the blade like living smoke;
The Whisper’s Origin
The whisper had been growing louder for days, no longer just a faint vibration in the stone but a voice that seemed to speak directly into the marrow, soft and persistent, repeating my name in tones that felt both ancient and intimately familiar, like someone who had known me long before I knew myself was trying to remember how to speak. It came most clearly in the hours when the cavern was still, when the fire had burned down to embers and the only sounds were Rag’s deep, rhythmic breathing and Mira’s small, occasional murmurs in her sleep; it rose then, threading through the quiet like smoke, curling around my thoughts until I could no longer tell where my own mind ended and the voice began. I lay awake that night, Liora curled against my side, her head on my chest, silver hair spilling across my shoulder in loose strands that caught the last red glow from the dying fire. Her breathing was slow and even, one arm draped across my waist, fingers loosely curled against the bandage on
The Last Threshold
The manor had finally stopped pretending it could hold on. It drifted downward in exhausted, uneven lurches now, each drop accompanied by a deep, metallic groan that rolled through the mountain like thunder trapped in stone, the lowest spires no longer scraping but gouging long, jagged scars across the upper platforms, sparks flying in brief, angry bursts that lit the gray dawn like dying fireflies. The air carried the heavy, acrid scent of molten gold cooling too fast, mixed with the faint, wet rot of mana conduits that had given up entirely, leaving only the throne hall’s solitary glow high above a pale, flickering gold that looked less like defiance and more like a lantern someone had forgotten to extinguish before abandoning the house.I stood at the forward ledge in the thin, cold light of pre dawn, cloak pulled tight against the wind that bit harder now, carrying flecks of ash and the sharp tang of exposed wiring that stung my nose and made my eyes water. The ache in my side ha
Still Here, Somehow
The cavern smelled like old smoke and damp stone and the faint copper tang of blood that never quite washed out of the air no matter how many times we tried to scrub the floors. The embers in the fire pit were down to almost nothing, just a dull red line that barely reached the walls, throwing shadows that moved slow and tired, like they were as exhausted as the rest of us. I sat against the crate, back to the rough wood, legs stretched out in front of me, the ache in my side a steady pulse now, not screaming anymore, just reminding me with every breath that I was still leaking a little inside, still not quite whole. Liora was curled beside me, head on my shoulder, silver hair loose and tangled from the wind and the sweat of the last push. One arm draped across my chest, fingers loosely curled in my tunic right over my heart, like she was checking it was still beating even while she slept. Her breathing was slow, even, but every now and then she’d hitch, a small catch in her throat,
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