There was no splash. The impact dissolved into endless grey swirling around him in perpetual, irregular motion.

  Sound burned away in remembrance of itself leaving vacuos emptiness in its wake.

  The fall became an ascent into nothing, perception twisted around axioms he didn’t recognize. It felt as though the ground moved to break his fall prematurely.

  The golden-eyed smile burned itself behind his eyelids, haunting his every breath.

  Too beautiful to be serene. Too serene to be beautiful. Twisted beyond human capability, lacking the same imperfection that made it true.

  Images of past cities overlapped with her pupils.

  Liliare, burning with the intensity of her sun-coloured eyes.

  Veleroth’s treachery dyed crimson with her guts.

  Caladras breaking, as did her corpse in the soil.

  The dark swallowed him whole.

  It moved as though it breathed. Pulsing, shivering, shimmering like a thing alive.

  He struck what felt like water, dissolving all around him, enveloping him from spine to to chest.

  He gasped, but breath never came. His lungs filled with something that wasn’t air.

  When sense returned, he was no longer drowning in nothingness.

  He was staring down a carpet of marble and gilt.

  One he knew and had walked upon many times in the past.

  Valekyr’s Grand Hall.

  Raised by the Emperor, where only the most accomplished of servants were permitted to stand.

  The marble floor stretched like an ocean of gems: ivory veined with green, obsidian dark glistened as the darkest of nights, ribbons of blue and grey flowing through it like rivers frozen in stone.

  Each colour bled seamlessly into the next, polished to such radiance that the surface mirrored the very air above it. Alric’s boots struck it softly, yet each step rang as if upon a crystal sea.

  It was so flawless that even a weaver’s beam might falter before its measure. Perfection made solid, indisputable grace made manifest.

  Yet what caught his attention wasn’t its splendour, but its reflection.

  The banners above swam in those depths, colours and images rippling through the stone as though the marble itself remembered their forms.

  The torches’ light multiplied into constellations in the sheen, their glow scattering shadow like a sky of shifting stars.

  Even his own figure shimmered there, magnified, clad in splendour greater than he remembered.

  When he lifted his eyes, he saw the hall in its majesty.

  Pillars of pure alabaster rising from the ground like dawn, their fluted sides adorned by gilded vines.

  The vaulting above blazed with hammered leaf, metal that glistened as the sun at midday.

  Banners hung in endless procession, their silks alive with depictions of past generals and emperors, each victory told in colour and thread.

  And at the end of the hall, upon a dais of crimson and steel, sat the Emperor.

  His hand was raised in welcome, his gaze steady and unbroken, carrying the warmth of a father for a son returned from a long exile.

  “My son.” His voice rose from the hall as though the pillars themselves were speaking in thunderous intimacy.

  The words struck Alric like a crown laid upon his brow, and before he could think, he sank to the marble and bowed his head.

  “My father, here I am.”

  “My son,” his voice rolled like a tide through the hall once more. “Do not bow at my feet.”

  He rose, crimson cape fluttering like flame against reflected stars.

  “You bore my judgement through the Southern Purge.” He took a step toward him.

  “You bore the Empire’s weight when others did not.” He took another one.

  “And you bore their scars through it all.” He stood before him now.

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  He placed his hand upon Alric’s shoulder.

  Alric lifted his eyes to meet the Emperor’s.

  “You are my blood in all but name and rank.”

  He drew him upwards, gaze radiant with pride.

  “Come. Let them see you as I’ve always seen you. Let them call you son.”

  Still holding Alric’s shoulder, the Emperor turned, and with a gesture the vast doors of the hall opened. Light rushed in like molten gold, and the great city of Valekyr lay bare before his eyes.

  The Heart of the Empire beat with the sound of priestly chants and jubilant celebrations.

  Towers of white stone crowned in gold, avenues straight as lances flanked by countless stalls and shops, the river shimmering in aquamarine silver hues through the city’s breast.

  All of it shone like perfection had been remade in stone and grandeur. As though Valekyr had been given a new name.

  Eternity.

  Alric’s breath caught. His chest ached. Tears threatened to surge from his eyes as he gazed on the city he had carried through fire and ruin for three long years of march and battle.

  My city… how long I have longed for your streets.

  The Emperor’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

  “This is yours, Alric. You bled for it and kept it alive when all others faltered. You belong here. You were always meant to stand here with me.”

  Alric turned to him and saw his smile.

  It reached to his eyes, warmth spilling over like fire over an altar.

  “Come. Stand at the Porches of Glory. Let them bear witness.”

  He released Alric and stepped beyond the doors where the porches blazed with iridescent, golden light.

  As he lifted his hands, all sounds quieted, and complete attention was given him.

  “Valekyr, hear your Emperor! I present to you your shield and your strength, the one who broke rebellion’s sting, the one who kept ruin at bay that you might be safe.”

  He reached back, and Alric stepped onto the Porches with him, into the sacred blaze of white.

  “I give you Lord Commander Alric Vaelgard!”

  The multitude present was unimaginable, as though the entire city had gathered for him.

  Their voices came as a rolling tide of devotion crashing against the stone, the wind carrying their cries as they shouted his name.

  Vaelgard! Vaelgard! Vaelgard!

  Their roars drowned out thought itself, thundering across rivers and plains until the earth seemed to quake beneath his feet.

  His heart swelled with every call of his name. A smile bloomed across his face as though sorrow had never met him.

  His countenance was clothed in serenity like a vestment.

  He lifted one hand and the tumult fell to silence.

  “People of Valekyr…” he began, his voice carried over the endless sea of faces.

  “You are my city. My true nativity. When I marched, I thought of you. When I fought, I thought of you. And when I killed, I thought of you.”

  He raised both hands to the air.

  “I’ve borne you through death and ruin for three years, and I would again, if it meant seeing you delivered from the hand of decay.”

  He drew a breath.

  “And if I have a name,” his chest swelled, warmth stinging his eyes. “It is yours to wield.”

  “Long live Valekyr and its Emperor!”

  As if to answer his plea, the stones themselves rang with his name, resounding with the multitude’s prayer of greatness.

  A cry louder than any he had ever heard shattered the silence.

  It enveloped him in a sacred surge that lifted him from the marble itself.

  He felt weightless, arms lifted, eyes closed, tears streaking down his face. He stood bathing in their adoration, the blaze of the Porches pouring over him.

  He felt remade, not as Lord Commander or Lord of War, but as Son of the Empire.

  The exaltation did not end. It rolled on unbroken until it became one echoing note in his ears.

  And in that height, it twisted. For a breath, it was not cheers he heard, but wails.

  He knew them well. He had heard them for years.

  Men bleeding out on the mud, bones crushed underfoot, charred throats rasping in the smoke.

  And then, through the smoke, a woman’s voice cut through like a knife in the dark, rising from the multitude with scorn, shaping his title as if to mock it.

  “Lord Commander.”

  His eyes flew open.

  The sun blazed above him stinging his vision from within, golden and unrelenting, as if it alone would not release him from its watch.

  And in that glare, he felt another gaze, hot-gold and merciless.

  Who called me that way? Who was it again?

  Unease took root in his heart like a splinter beneath skin.

  He lowered his hands and looked over the masses. Their cacophonous cheer collapsed beneath its own perfection.

  It sounded less like devotion, and more like performance. A song performed for him rather than born of them.

  With unsteady breath, he blinked once, and the faces nearest the railings blurred into one mass.

  Eyes, flesh, mouths, ears, brows slid into one another, fusing into a single entity, to then snap back into form. He blinked again, and it happened once more.

  Who was it again? Who spoke?

  His chest tightened. He leaned forward placing his hands upon the Porches, searching amid the multitude for the one who voiced such scorn toward him, desperate to find it.

  But the only thing he saw was thousands of unfocused eyes, raised to the sky past him.

  He felt as though he was the only soul left in the city, and the cheer only a noise flung at him for entertainment purposes.

  Who was it? I need to find out! I need to find it!

  Panic swelled in his breast.

  Then a hand closed around his shoulder.

  The Emperor had stepped forward, his gaze steady, his smile unchanged.

  “What troubles you, my son? Do you feel unwell? Your countenance has fallen. Tell me, why is that?”

  Alric turned to him.

  “I… I don’t know my Emperor. There’s something wrong and I cannot place it. I am only trying to understand.”

  The Emperor nodded.

  “I see. It is the strangeness of return. You have been gone for so long that home now feels like foreign land. Many soldiers feel the same way after they return from war. I have felt it myself once.”

  He lifted his hand to the crowds below.

  “But look. They are here for you, as I am. No one waited more eagerly than they did, knowing you had gone south. They welcome you home, as I do.”

  He lowered his hand, and let go of Alric’s shoulder with a final pat.

  “Trust me, my son, accept it as it is. Let go of unease. You are safe. You are welcome. You have nothing to fear.”

  Alric wanted to give heed to his regent.

  But the cheer had not ended, and the golden light pressed against his eyelids until it felt as though fire itself burned within his sight.

  And in that flare, he felt it again. A gaze, hot-gold and merciless set above a smile too beautiful to be serene, too serene to be beautiful.

  He staggered, breath catching in his throat.

  His hands caught the railings, but they gave way as though made of water, letting his fingers sink in halfway in.

  The droning grew again, the sun’s rays seared his body, and the Emperor’s voice still rang clear in his mind.

  And then, as if the world had decided to stop breathing, everything ceased.

  Silence took its place on the throne, letting a single voice break through the void.

  “Does this make you… good?”