Not with sunset.
With smoke.
Thick, black plumes curled above the treeline, staining the clouds with soot and cinder. I could taste ash on the wind long before we crested the ridge. Bitter. Metallic. Wrong.
It smelled like the end of something.
Maybe the beginning too.
“They’ve fortified the ravine,” Merren said, scanning the distant walls through his spyglass. “Barricades on the south gate. Sigil stones along the perimeter.”
“Range?” I asked.
“Too far for arrows to matter, but close enough for spellfire.”
I nodded.
“Jonas?”
“Two flanking squads are ready,” he said. “Stoneborn and Stormbearers up front, Crownshields on reserve.”
“And the mage?”
“Not seen. But his family’s at the walls.” He spat. “All branded in that black flame mark.”
The Obsidian Flame.
A cult built on destruction disguised as enlightenment.
The mage—Kaelarion Ashveil—had fled the Theocracy decades ago after angering a high-born cult scion. He’d carved his own kingdom out of frost and blood in the far North, gathering family, followers, and those too broken to know the difference.
Four hundred and fifty zealots, bound by blood and rituals older than the Empire itself.
And today, they would fall.
“Signal the advance,” I said.
Jonas nodded and raised the horn.
The call echoed across the valley—low and long.
Steel answered.
Five hundred warriors—men and women hardened by frost, loss, and my will—moved like a tide of gray and white. Shields up. Spears leveled. War cries swallowed by the weight of their silence.
No war drums. I find them performative.
The first wave of spells struck as we crossed the open ground.
Black flame roared from the ramparts—unnatural fire that burned without heat, consuming not flesh, but aether itself.
I felt the tug at my core as it passed overhead—a hungry, gnawing pull, as if something tried to rip the Forge from my chest.
But we pressed forward.
“Scatter formations!” I barked. “Watch the sky!”
Merren’s squad veered left, shields raised. Jonas took right, axes gleaming in the haze. I moved with the center—Crownshields at my back, blades ready.
Another volley. This time lower.
A half dozen men fell, screaming—no wounds on their bodies, but their eyes gone glassy, their aura snuffed out like candles in a storm.
The mage’s signature spell.
Ashen Crown.
A slow burn—consuming life force, leaving nothing but husks.
I clenched my jaw.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Push!”
The gates loomed ahead—iron-bound, covered in carved bone totems and painted sigils.
The chanting began as we reached the walls.
Low. Resonant.
A chorus of voices—men, women, children—whispering in a tongue that made the air vibrate with wrongness.
Then he spoke.
A single voice rising above the others.
Smooth. Calm.
Like a man inviting guests to dinner.
“You’ve come far, Kael Vorran. Far enough to die beneath my shadow.”
Kaelarion Ashveil stood atop the wall, robes dark as oil, bare chest etched with runes that pulsed faintly with ember light. His eyes—black pits, rimmed with crimson veins—watched us without blinking.
“Your reign ends today,” I said.
He smiled.
“I have no reign. Only a promise.”
He raised his hands.
And the world ignited.
Fire bloomed from his palms—not orange, not gold, but ashen gray, swallowing the air around it like a void given form.
It wasn’t heat that struck us.
It was absence.
The Crownshields beside me staggered, gasping as their aura circuits flickered. One collapsed, his heart seizing as his life force was ripped apart.
I surged forward.
“Break the line!” I roared. “Shield the casters!”
Jonas was already moving—axe in hand, carving a path through twisted zealots spilling from side gates, their skin marked with bone carvings and blackened runes.
Merren’s squad flanked left, drawing fire with shields and staggered formations.
We needed to close the distance.
Before the mage bled us dry.
I crashed through the gate with ten men at my back, Durendal humming faintly in my grip.
The inner courtyard was a twisted mockery of a village—altars made of bone, effigies of scorched wood, bodies hanging from posts, charred and half-melted.
And everywhere—families.
Men. Women. Children.
Branded. Chanting.
Praying to Ahriman.
It wasn’t a war camp.
It was a cult’s heart.
Kaelarion stood at its center, robes billowing, arms outstretched. Shadows curled around him like smoke, flickering with flame that never burned out.
His mouth moved—no words, just guttural sounds that vibrated through the stone.
His casting organs glowed faintly beneath his skin—runes etched into his heart, throat, fingers.
Voice for resonance.
Heart for elemental conversion.
Hands for precision.
He was a Spellforger—one of the most dangerous kinds.
He didn’t just cast spells.
He built them, using his body as a conduit.
I didn’t give him the chance.
I moved.
Durendal sang as it cut through the first wave of zealots—steel slicing through flesh, aether burning away corruption. A woman lunged at me with a knife, eyes wild with fervor. I cut her down.
A child—no more than fifteen—raised a spear, chanting between sobs.
I deflected, disarmed, left him alive.
Kaelarion watched, smile never fading.
“Mercy? How quaint.”
I didn’t answer.
I was already closing the distance.
The first spell struck my shoulder—an invisible weight that crushed down with bone-shattering force.
My body jerked sideways, armor denting, ribs screaming.
The second seared across my chest—a shadow-flame whip that tore through metal and flesh.
I grunted, dropping to one knee, breath ragged.
The mage’s fingers moved in delicate patterns, weaving light and darkness together like silk.
“I crafted this spell for you,” he said softly. “A crown of ash. It will burn your aether until nothing remains.”
He raised his hand.
The world dimmed.
I pushed off the ground, body screaming in protest, and charged.
A roar split the air—mine or Durendal’s, I couldn’t tell.
I swung.
Steel met flesh.
The first layer of his shields shattered—runic wards collapsing in sparks of red.
His eyes widened, just enough for surprise to bleed through.
“You shouldn’t—”
I drove my shoulder into his chest, slamming him back.
His hands twisted for a counter—too slow.
Durendal cut down.
Something struck me hard from behind—a blast of pressure that sent me stumbling forward.
My helmet clattered to the ground, vision swimming.
Cold air kissed my face—exposed now, skin slick with sweat and blood.
I heard gasps from both sides.
A face they’d never seen.
Kael Varron, even before I transmigrated into his body, made it a rule to never remove his helmet in-front of his subordinates as a way to remove a chance of any feeling other than subservience, and it was too much of a habit to chance.
Dark brown—almost black—hair, damp and matted against my forehead.
Green eyes—hard, cold, edged with exhaustion.
A middle-aged face lined with scars—one jagged line across the jaw, another fading beneath my left eye.
I raised Durendal again.
Kaelarion stared, blood trickling from his lips.
“You… are handsome,” he rasped.
“Thank you.” I said quietly.
The battle ended before dawn.
We burned the stronghold to the ground.
Ash drifted through the air, mixing with snow.
The zealots were dead or scattered.
The mage’s body lay buried beneath rubble and flame.
But his corruption lingered—etched into stone, carved into bones.
It would take time to root it out.
But we would.
I stood at the edge of the ruins, wind whipping at my bloodstained cloak.
Merren approached, gaze flicking to my exposed face.
“So that’s what you look like.”
“Disappointed?”
“Just surprised you still have both eyes.”
I snorted.
He fell silent, then said, “It’s done. The North is yours.”
I looked out across the burning remains of a cult that had hidden in plain sight for forty years.
Not mine yet.
But close.
“Send word to the villages,” I said. “The war’s over.”
“And when the south hears of it?”
I gripped Durendal’s hilt, feeling the weight of what was coming.
“Let them.”
The world was beginning.
And so was I.