The road north was little more than a memory.

  Two rutted tracks carved into frozen earth, winding through fields of dead grass and skeletal trees. We rode in silence, the only sounds the crunch of hooves on frost and the low creak of leather saddles.

  The sun had barely risen. A sickly, half-hearted thing that smeared gold and gray across the sky without warmth.

  I pulled my cloak tighter around my shoulders and leaned into the rhythm of the ride, letting the cold settle into my bones.

  It was easier than thinking.

  Safer.

  But thoughts had a way of slipping through the cracks when you least wanted them.

  Chronicles of the Crown.

  That was the name of the novel I'd spent so many nights reading in the world I’d left behind. A sprawling, messy, beautiful story about war and destiny and heroes too stubborn to die.

  Aiden Crestfall.

  The boy who rose from nothing to challenge gods.

  I remembered him clearly. His awkward beginnings in some remote village. His first faltering steps at the Academy of High Doctrine. His laughter, his mistakes, his victories.

  His stubborn hope.

  It had been comforting, once — reading about a world where perseverance actually meant something.

  Where the broken and the small could become more.

  But living here...

  Breathing this cold air...

  Feeling the ache of old wounds and the bite of real fear...

  It wasn’t comforting anymore.

  This world wasn’t ink on a page.

  It wasn’t a sandbox where protagonists could stumble, fall, and be saved by fate.

  Here, people died screaming and cold.

  Here, monsters weren't poetic metaphors — they tore your guts out and fed them to the crows.

  Aiden’s story wouldn’t even start for another year.

  A year before the Academy opened its doors to the next generation of heroes.

  A year before the wheels of fate began to turn in earnest.

  And between now and then...

  How many villages would burn?

  How many lives would snuff out like candles in a blizzard?

  How many nameless extras like me would be swallowed by the dark?

  I tightened my grip on the reins, leather creaking under my gloves.

  Not me.

  Not my son.

  Not if I had anything to say about it.

  "Tracks veer left," Jonas called softly, snapping me out of the spiral.

  I blinked, scanning the ground.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Sure enough, the wagon ruts split from the road, carving a path into the thin woods that hugged the base of the hills.

  Fresh, too. Snow had dusted the area last night, but the tracks cut clean through the thin layer of white.

  I nodded.

  "Take it slow," I said. "No torches."

  Jonas grunted his understanding, signaling the others.

  We turned off the main road, horses picking their way carefully through the underbrush. Branches clawed at my cloak. Somewhere distant, a wolf howled.

  The air smelled wrong.

  Not just the sharp tang of frost and rotting leaves.

  Something thicker.

  Bitter.

  Like burning oil and wet iron.

  I shifted my sword slightly, loosening it in the scabbard.

  Durendal pulsed faintly at my side. Not in warning — not yet. Just... ready.

  It always knew before I did.

  The wagon lay ahead, half-sunk in a ditch at the base of a hill. One wheel shattered. Canvas cover torn open like a wound.

  Crows circled overhead, black against the gray sky.

  I raised a hand, signaling halt, and slid down from my horse.

  Boots crunched against frozen dirt as I approached.

  The first thing I saw was the blood.

  A thick splash staining the ground in front of the wagon, already turning brown in the cold.

  The second thing was the smell.

  Rot.

  Old, wet rot — but mixed with something else.

  Something wrong.

  I edged closer, sword drawn low and ready.

  Inside the wagon, tangled amid crates and torn cloth, lay bodies.

  Three of them.

  Two men, one woman.

  All wearing heavy traveling cloaks, stained dark with blood.

  But it wasn't the wounds that stopped me.

  It was the black veins spiderwebbing their skin.

  I knelt slowly, blade tip resting lightly on the ground.

  Cursed.

  Their life force had been twisted, drained, until even death couldn't purge the taint.

  Abyssal corruption.

  Hell’s fingerprints.

  It was too early.

  Too soon.

  In the story I remembered, the Abyss wouldn't start its slow invasion for another two years — three, even.

  The Princes of Hell were supposed to be slumbering.

  Biding their time.

  Something had changed.

  Someone had accelerated the clock.

  I rose, breath misting in the frozen air.

  "Captain," I said without turning. "Burn the bodies. Salt the ground."

  Jonas hesitated. "You sure?"

  "They're cursed," I said. "If we leave them, the taint will spread."

  He swore under his breath, but began barking orders.

  The men worked quickly, gathering kindling, stacking it into a crude pyre.

  I stayed back, watching the woods.

  Feeling the weight of the world settle heavier on my shoulders.

  The Academy would open its gates in a year.

  The next generation of heroes would step forward, bright-eyed and unblooded.

  But if things were moving faster...

  They would walk into a world already burning.

  And if they failed—

  No.

  I shook my head.

  They wouldn’t fail.

  Because people like me — the broken, the tired, the ones the story never cared to name — would buy them time.

  With blood.

  With steel.

  With stubborn, unyielding will.

  Even if history never remembered it.

  Even if it cost everything.

  Ryel pov

  The fire caught quickly, smoke and ash rising into the dead gray sky.

  I watched it burn until the last of the pages turned to soot.

  Letters from mum.

  Then I turned north again, mounted up, and rode on.

  The keep’s fires had burned low by the time I slipped inside.

  The heat was faint, barely a whisper against the stone walls. Ash drifted in lazy spirals through the air, settling on the old anvil, the worn tools. The place smelled of iron and sweat and smoke.

  The smell of my father's life.

  I leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, staring at the empty room.

  He was gone again.

  Riding north.

  Chasing bandits. Monsters. Ghosts.

  I hated it.

  Hated the way my chest twisted every time he rode off into the dark.

  Hated the way the other boys in the keep whispered about how he was a relic. A man out of time.

  But mostly—

  Mostly I hated that a small, ugly part of me wondered if they were right.

  What good was old steel against the things coming?

  What good was a broken man against the end of the world?

  I stepped inside, picking up one of the old swords from the rack.

  Heavy. Balanced. Scarred.

  I swung it once, twice. Clumsy. Awkward.

  Nothing like the way he moved.

  Nothing like the way he fought.

  But someday—

  Someday, I would stand beside him.

  Not behind.

  Not sheltered.

  Beside.

  And maybe...

  Maybe I'd be worthy of the name Vorran.

  I set the sword back carefully, reverently, and turned to go.

  The keep’s fires slept, but they weren't dead.

  Not yet.

  Neither were we.