Not because we were tired — gods knew half the men here hadn’t slept properly in four nights — but because the land itself seemed to resist us now. Mud dragged at boots like the hands of the dead, and every distant hill line might’ve hidden one of the scattered warbands who’d decided they'd rather burn than kneel.
It was never clean, this kind of war. Never the kind sung about in court songs.
This was the war of torchlight and trenches. Old blades and hungered eyes.
A coalition of six minor lords — once at each other’s throats — had rallied under a hedge-claimant calling himself Sable Prince Vorn. Bastard of some old mercenary bloodline. Styled himself in black-and-gold, said the North was being stolen by a foreign tyrant with no noble crest.
He meant me, of course.
And he wasn’t entirely wrong.
I wasn’t born here. Not really. I was forged here — in blood and snow and unrelenting necessity. And the truth was, these men weren’t rebels so much as frightened beasts. They’d tasted what I’d built. They saw what would come if I stood unopposed when the South called.
They were trying to survive.
So were we.
We’d taken three supply lines. Crushed a forward bastion at dawn. The knight-commander said morale was high.
But I didn’t like the way the air moved this evening.
Too still.
My war tent was a sagging dome of stitched wolf-hide and chain-laced canvas. Inside, maps littered the central table. Faction colors pinned to territory marks — green, red, pale yellow. Ours was black and silver. A forged crown above a blade. An emblem I never asked for.
I sat alone, unbuckling my gauntlets slowly, as if my hands beneath had grown unfamiliar.
The wounds were healing poorly.
Old breaks. New aches. My Aether took longer to return each day. I was no longer a young man. Not even by this world’s slower reckoning.
And then the messenger arrived.
He was a lean, dusty-haired rider from the capital post. Emblazoned with neutral courier markings — parchment-brown cloak, no House seal.
But the letter he carried was sealed in black wax. Stamped with a silver dagger and flowing cloak.
My mouth went dry.
I didn’t open it for a full minute.
Didn’t need to.
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Elira.
Her name hit like an echo I'd tried to outrun. Elira Elrane, second daughter to Duchess Naeva, high mage of the Obsidian Coast, and the only woman who ever made me feel like the world might actually stop spinning when she left a room.
She had hair like dusk-gold. Eyes like deep crimson flame. Just like Ryel. A voice that could bend men and weather alike.
And a heart colder than any sword I’ve ever drawn.
We met when I was barely twenty-three — a minor knight rising through blood-ranks, stationed to guard a mage envoy along the coastal route. She was already a mage of the Fourth Circle back then. Brilliant. Distant. Lethal.
She chose me.
For reasons I still don’t quite understand.
And for a time, we were fire and steel. She taught me the language of shadow, I taught her the rhythm of breath and blade.
She said she wanted a child.
We made one.
Then, without ceremony, she was gone.
In the novel — Chronicles of the Crown — Elira Elrane was a fan favorite.
The “Storm of Silence,” they called her.
The Embodiment of the Tides.
The Ocean’s Wrath.
She was a side character, yes — but an unforgettable one. Towering power, veiled motives. Always entering scenes like a curtain of lightning and mystery.
The readers loved her.
I remembered scrolling comments like:
“Why didn’t she get her own arc?”
“Kael? Lmao. She should’ve married the Sword Saint.”
“Elira supremacy. Period.”
In-universe, Kael Vorran — her husband — was mentioned twice. An “honorable knight who never returned from the north.” A narrative footnote. Less than a memory.
And that was all I was meant to be.
Until I took a wrong horse at the edge of the world and pulled Durendal from the bones of a dead emperor.
Until I started making war.
I cracked the seal. Slowly.
Inside was a single page, folded once.
Kael,
It has been long enough. You’ve built your north, I’ve built my legacy. Our son stands at the threshold of becoming a man — and names must be made clean.
The High Church requires both parties present to dissolve the vow. You will come to the Capital. In one month’s time. Or you will be judged in absence.
I expect you to understand the necessity of this. Do not bring Ryel into this. And do not mistake this for sentiment.
— Elira
I read it twice. Then once more.
My hand trembled only after I folded it.
I did not weep.
I did not curse.
I just sat there, for a long time, remembering the way her silhouette used to linger longer than her shadow. How her magic always smelled faintly of salt and smoke. How, when she held Ryel for the first time, she didn’t smile — just studied him, as if committing the shape of him to some private book of sorrows.
He called her a traitor, when she left.
Said she’d chosen magic over motherhood. Power over duty.
I never blamed her.
She was born to rule oceans and bend storms. She was never meant to be someone’s wife, or a mother.
But it didn’t hurt less.
I poured a cup of heated wine. Bitter stuff. Northern grapes never learned sweetness.
And I stared at the map again.
The coalition forces were massing near Wyrmgate Hollow — an old fortress carved into the cliffside.
If I crushed them now, decisively, I could be back within three weeks. Maybe less.
But I would have to leave the north exposed.
And if House Elrane was calling me south...
...it might not just be about a divorce.
It might be a message.
Or worse — an invitation.
I stepped out of the tent.
The warcamp smelled of iron and pine resin. Torches flickered. Men shuffled like ghosts.
Far above, the moon hung like a tarnished coin — silver and watching.
And I thought:
If I go... who leads while I’m gone?
Ryveth was loyal, but green.
Commander Hallen had ambition — too much.
Teyla could manage logistics, not strategy.
And the cult remnants in the frostlands were stirring again.
Damn it all.
I reached into my coat, pulled free the sigil token I'd carved for Ryel — iron-cast, shaped like a wolf head split by a sword.
I would have to send a letter of my own.
He was almost ready.
He has been in the academy for 4 months already.