The night after the Crimson Banquet hung over the capital like a funereal shroud. The gilded streets, once alive with celebration, now whispered only fear and submission. Lanterns flickered against the heavy mist that rolled in from the distant sea, cloaking the city in a restless, uneasy silence.
In the throne chamber — the heart of the empire now beating to Kael's rhythm — the fires in the braziers cast long, restless shadows. Each lick of flame seemed to dance to an unheard drumbeat, one that heralded the march toward a destiny greater than any mortal had yet dared to dream.
Kael sat alone upon the black throne, his figure radiating authority so absolute that even the emptiness around him seemed to bow.
He was studying a parchment laid across his knees: a coded message delivered only hours ago by one of his spectral messengers. Every letter was a warning.
The Frostborn had united.
Clans who had warred for generations — blood feuds so old their origins were forgotten — had now sworn themselves to a single cause: to resist Kael. To reject the inevitable.
It would have almost been admirable.
Almost.
Kael's hand curled around the parchment, and with a small exertion of will, it blackened to ash in his grip.
They had chosen their fate.
And he would deliver it.
A whisper of footsteps — measured, precise — echoed through the hall. Kael didn't need to look up to know who approached.
Selene, draped in her dark emerald gown, her silver hair cascading like a river of moonlight, knelt before him with a grace that masked her deadly nature.
"My lord," she intoned, "the scouts confirm the Frostborn are mustering at the Weeping Stones. They prepare for war."
Kael rose from the throne, his cloak unfurling behind him like the wings of some great predatory beast. His presence filled the room until it felt difficult even to breathe.
"Good," he murmured. "Let them gather. It will save us the trouble of hunting them individually."
Selene lifted her head slightly, a smile ghosting her lips.
"Shall I prepare the vanguard?"
Kael strode past her, his boots clicking softly against the polished marble.
"Prepare them all," he said. "The Frostborn believe the old ways will protect them. We will show them that the old gods are dead — and their worshippers with them."
He paused at the towering archway leading out into the starlit night, his gaze hardening.
"I will lead this campaign myself."
Selene's breath caught, though she masked it quickly. Kael rarely marched personally anymore; his very presence on the battlefield would be a statement louder than any army's roar.
It would mean total, absolute annihilation.
And she loved him all the more for it.
By dawn, the Imperial Legions had begun to mobilize.
Banner after banner unfurled in the cold morning breeze — obsidian black stitched with the crimson serpent, Kael's sigil. War horns echoed through the city, and armored columns stretched beyond the horizon like a river of steel.
Kael rode at the forefront upon a stallion as dark as night itself, his armor gleaming with runes that pulsed faintly with suppressed power. At his side rode Elyndra, Selene, General Aldred, and the newest addition to his council: Maelis, a sorcerer of ancient bloodlines, whose loyalty Kael had secured through a contract older and more binding than any mortal oath.
Soldiers knelt as Kael passed, a wave of reverence rippling outward.
This was not mere obedience.
This was worship.
Behind them, siege engines rumbled forward, titanic creations forged in secret, capable of leveling mountains.
Kael intended no siege.
There would be no negotiations.
Only obliteration.
The days that followed were a relentless march northward, through barren plains and frostbitten forests, each step hammering closer to the inevitable confrontation.
Along the way, Kael's forces swallowed lesser strongholds — villages, minor forts, outposts — leaving none alive to carry tales of weakness. He offered each settlement a simple choice: bend the knee or be ground into dust.
None who resisted survived the night.
At twilight on the fourth day, the Weeping Stones loomed before them — a vast expanse of ancient monoliths, said to weep with the souls of the forgotten. And there, among the towering stones, the Frostborn gathered: thousands of warriors clad in fur and iron, their banners fluttering defiantly against the dying light.
Kael studied the scene from a nearby ridge.
"A beautiful tomb," he mused aloud.
Elyndra shifted in her saddle. "Their numbers are greater than we anticipated."
Kael's lips quirked into a cold smile.
"It won't matter."
He turned to General Aldred.
"Form the Crescent. Press them against the Stones. No retreat, no surrender. When they break, the Bloodhounds move in to finish it."
Aldred saluted crisply, already barking orders to his subcommanders.
Kael then addressed Maelis, the sorcerer.
"Unleash the shrouds. Let them fight the mist as much as our blades."
Maelis grinned — a slow, unnerving expression — and began chanting in the Old Tongue, weaving thick tendrils of silver mist across the field.
The Frostborn did not flinch.
They believed they had the strength of their ancestors behind them.
Kael would prove that even gods could die.
The assault began with a roar that seemed to shake the heavens themselves.
Kael led the charge personally, cutting through the enemy ranks like a living embodiment of death. His blade, Voidfang, carved arcs of crimson light through shield and flesh alike, its dark enchantments devouring the souls of those it slew.
The Frostborn fought savagely — for every man Kael felled, three more rose to meet him. But they lacked unity. They fought for survival. Kael fought for dominion.
Selene, a blur of steel and sorcery, danced through their ranks, her daggers finding gaps in armor with deadly precision. Elyndra, wielding a massive glaive, became a one-woman phalanx, cutting down enemies with brutal, inexorable sweeps.
The mist thickened as Maelis' sorcery deepened, sowing confusion among the Frostborn lines. Screams echoed in the fog, unseen horrors dragging men into the abyss.
Kael moved through it all, unstoppable.
At the heart of the battlefield, a Frostborn warlord — towering and clad in ancient armor — challenged him, raising a massive greataxe above his head.
"Usurper!" he bellowed. "You shall not taint these sacred stones!"
Kael answered with a single, contemptuous slash.
The warlord's axe shattered.
His head followed moments later, rolling into the mist.
A cheer rose from Kael's forces — not wild or frenzied, but cold, disciplined, inevitable.
The Frostborn's will cracked.
And once it cracked, it shattered.
Kael's legions pressed forward mercilessly, crushing all resistance. Blood stained the Weeping Stones so thoroughly that for generations afterward, the ground would yield only blackened grass.
Victory was total.
By nightfall, the field belonged to Kael.
Thousands lay dead. Thousands more knelt in chains.
The Frostborn leaders — what few remained — were brought before him in chains, their faces grim and broken.
Kael regarded them dispassionately.
"Swear fealty," he commanded, "and you may yet live to see a new dawn."
The chieftains exchanged desperate, haunted glances.
One by one, they knelt.
One by one, they bound themselves to Kael's will.
The old world was dead.
And Kael was its reaper.
In the aftermath of the battle, Kael wasted no time.
He ordered the construction of the Bastion of the Stones — a new fortress, built directly atop the battlefield, as a reminder that no tradition, no memory, no sacred place was beyond his reach.
The surviving Frostborn were divided, their clans dissolved into new administrative regions ruled by Kael's chosen governors. Their ways were erased. Their gods forsaken.
And Kael, standing atop the central spire of the Bastion as the first stones were laid, looked out across the vast, broken landscape.
This was not conquest.
This was rebirth.
As Kael oversaw the final subjugations, a rider approached under a flag of truce — a courier bearing a message from deep within the eastern provinces.
It was sealed with the mark of the Abyss.
Breaking the seal, Kael read swiftly.
His eyes narrowed.
The Heralds had moved.
Not against his territories.
But against the stars themselves.
A celestial rift had opened — and something ancient, something forgotten, was coming through.
Kael closed the letter, fire sparking behind his cold gaze.
The Frostborn had been but a prelude.
The true war — the war that would decide not merely the fate of kingdoms, but of existence itself — was about to begin.
And he would be ready.
He would always be ready.
Because Kael was not merely a ruler.
He was inevitability incarnate.
To be continued...