The twelve stood with ropes around their necks, their faces pale, hollow, already more corpse than man. And Maeron Vaelthorn, mighty beyond measure, looked just as doomed as they did.
The bells of Wolf Shore tolled a slow, heavy mourning, each clang driving nails deeper into the city's heart. Twice they rang—twice for death.
At the break of dawn, the whole of Wolf Shore had gathered before the Temple of the Three. Now they stood packed together in the shadow of the towering statues of Mercy, Justice, and Pain, breath misting in the chill air. It was the beginning of winter, yet here—in Wolf Shore, the city of sun and flower—it was snowing. It never snowed here. And yet today, even the sky mourned.
Next to the king stood Maeron Vaelthorn, a dusting of powdered snow settling on his shoulders, his green eyes reflecting the turmoil of the crowd. It was not his first time on this podium; he knew its bitter taste all too well. His fingers twitched with the urge to speak, to protest, but he stilled them with a practiced discipline learned long ago. He adjusted the pin on his chest—the Crownkeeper's pin, the mark of the king's most trusted man—and let his gaze wander over the square. Green-cloaked guards in gilded armor stood ready at every corner, hands resting on their sword hilts. Maeron knew the truth: in a city like Wolf Shore, a single spark could set the world ablaze, and many would leap at the chance to kill a king.
He sighed and lifted his eyes toward the towering effigies of the Three Siblings. Justice. Pain. Mercy. He almost prayed. Almost. But he caught himself.
The sun vanished behind a wall of thick grey clouds. Thunder roared across the heavens, echoing like war drums over the silent city. Then came the rain—no, hail—sharp, jagged pellets of ice hammering down onto stone and flesh alike. Maeron did not falter. He did not move. He simply brushed the wet, brown-blond hair from his face and wiped the water from his jaw, the skin still raw from a freshly shaved beard. Somehow, the storm was a comfort. It gave him something to think about besides the horror to come.
Through the roar of thunder came a different sound—the taut stretch of rope pulled to its limit—
And then crack... crack... crack...
Twelve times in quick succession, each snap a blow struck against the soul of the empire itself. It sounded like a woman screaming in labor, birthing something monstrous into the world.
The souls of the condemned fled their broken bodies, and with them, a piece of Vaeloria's own soul shattered. Crack after crack, the fractures deepened. It would not be long before the whole empire splintered under the weight of its sins.
The crowd dispersed, vanishing into the grey, rain-swept streets. But Maeron remained. His gaze lingered on the twelve bodies, their forms swaying in the storm like puppets on broken strings. He had often wondered why it was always twelve. No more, no less.
And standing there in the freezing rain, Maeron thought he finally understood.
Three gods: Justice, Pain, and Mercy.
Four great sins: Theft, Sorcery, Premarital Flesh, and Murder.
Four times three. Twelve.
Maeron turned, lifting his gaze to the towering figures of the gods. In the center stood Justice, stern and cold, casting his silent judgment upon the gathered city. To his left stood Pain, his face twisted in bitterness, a dagger gleaming in his clenched hand. To the right, Lady Mercy stretched her arms outward, as if offering kindness to any bold enough to reach for it. They rose higher than any monument Maeron had ever seen, so vast he could scarcely reach the height of Justice's little toe. Here stood the pride of Wolf Shore, the greatest statues in all the known world. Some claimed the gods themselves had taken residence within these stone titans, that mortal hands had built them homes for their divine spirits.
But to Maeron, they were only that—stone. Cold and blind.
He stood there still, hands clasped behind his back, the rain soaking into his cloak, letting the silence of the square fold over him like a burial shroud. His brief moment of peace was broken by the soft scrape of boots against stone and the heavy drag of wet cloth through puddles.
"I see you are praying in this bleak morning, my lord Crownkeeper," came a voice behind him—old, smooth, and unbearably calm. The voice of a man who believed he had already seen the end of all things and found them wanting.
Maeron did not need to turn to know it was Lord Barrin Solcar, High Priest of the Faith. Instead, he kept his eyes on the statues, refusing to grant the old viper the dignity of a glance.
"I was admiring the city's architecture," Maeron said, his voice colder than the ice in the gutters. "I do not pray, Lord Barrin."
A soft, disappointed hum rose from the priest, a sound too practiced to be genuine.
"What a shame," Lord Barrin murmured. "I thought an intelligent man such as yourself would possess a strong devotion to our gods."
Maeron allowed himself the smallest of smiles, one that did not reach his eyes.
"Being an intelligent man is precisely why I do not."
Beyond them, the bodies of the hanged were being dragged from the podium, their boots scraping grotesquely across the flooded square. The metallic rattle of the guards' armor rang hollow against the stone, a mournful percussion to accompany the morning's grim theater.
At last, Maeron turned to face the priest. Lord Barrin stood slumped slightly, his heavy red robe dragging through the mud, gathering filth as a river gathers dead branches. His skin sagged like melting wax, his few strands of silver hair plastered to his scalp with rain, and those nearly colorless grey eyes gleamed with something Maeron could only describe as smugness. That smile—the eternal, poisonous smirk—had never left his face. Maeron had once tried to grow indifferent to it. Now, it burned in him like a brand.
"Then you must fear your end, my lord," Lord Barrin said softly, with the serene certainty of a man offering condolences at a funeral he himself had arranged.
Maeron met his gaze, the storm hissing around them, and thought—for a moment—that there was no god who could save men like them. No Mercy. No Justice. Only Pain.
A small scoff escaped Maeron's lips, a sound thick with disdain. "Fear my end?" he asked, his voice dripping with contempt. He locked eyes with Lord Barrin's smile once more, that eternal, maddening curve that only deepened his loathing for the old man. "And who doesn't fear death? You can't tell me you don't." His words lingered between them, sharp and heavy, like the blade of an executioner's axe.
Lord Barrin didn't flinch, didn't so much as twitch in the face of Maeron's challenge. His smile never wavered, solid and unyielding as the iron gates of the capital. With measured steps, he moved towards the base of Justice, a towering presence of stone, and placed his hand upon its foot. He was a small, pitiful figure compared to the immense god of judgment, yet his touch seemed deliberate, as if seeking some connection to the divine—a connection that felt as fragile as his own existence. Taking a breath, the priest turned and locked eyes with Maeron, his gaze unwavering.
"A man who follows the words of the gods does not fear death," Lord Barrin said, his voice calm, almost suffocatingly so. There was a finality in the words that struck Maeron like a blow. A man who truly believed... could he be so far removed from the truth?
Maeron shut his eyes for a brief moment. He had never believed in gods or their divine proclamations, and likely never would. The truth was simple to him: they were all liars, spinning tales to justify their own power. If he slid a knife across this old man's throat, Maeron knew Barrin would forget all about his gods in an instant. Or perhaps, the thought crossed his mind, Barrin was no fool, no mere man of faith—maybe, in his own twisted way, he knew something that Maeron could never understand. That belief, that unwavering faith... it was something that Maeron could never accept, could never let go of. But even more than that, it frightened him. How could you argue against a man so certain of his own delusions?
He sighed deeply, his gaze returning to the grey depths of the old priest's eyes. "Only if there are gods for you to follow," Maeron replied, his voice softer, but just as cutting.
Barrin's eyelids fluttered shut and then opened once more. The flicker of frustration was unmistakable now, a crack in the facade. Maeron could feel the growing tension in the air. The old man couldn't maintain that serene calm forever. "Such a skeptic, aren't you, my lord?" Lord Barrin chuckled, though the sound was reluctant, like a forced release from a man who had forgotten how to laugh.
Maeron turned his gaze back to the towering statues, to Justice, to Mercy, and to Pain—symbols of a broken faith, a faith that could never answer the questions he had lived with since childhood. With a final glance at Barrin, he spoke, his voice distant, as if the city itself pulled at his heart. "I will leave you with your gods of stone, Lord Barrin. The empire needs its Crownkeeper." And it did. The empire needed him, perhaps more than ever. He felt the weight of it now, pressing against his chest like a dying man clutching at the last shred of life. Wolf Shore had never been so close to the edge, and Maeron knew that if it fell, it would take him down with it.
As he turned and walked away, the streets of Wolf Shore opened up before him, familiar and unchanged. He had walked these streets for years, his feet tracing paths he had known since he was a child. Though he had been born in the mountain-clad Valtharis, Wolf Shore had long since become his home—a home he knew better than his own skin. Every corner of this city, every vendor along the market of Butcher's Bay, every tavern on the Street of Joy—it was all a part of him, just as much as he was a part of it. The people, the noise, the relentless tide of life flowing through the streets... it was more than home to him now. It was his soul's echo, his connection to something that, for better or worse, he could never escape.
He stopped dead in the middle of the street, his boots rooted to the worn stones beneath him. His breath caught in his chest as his eyes found the writing—black, jagged scrawls defacing the clean walls of the houses. Not just one wall. Not two. A dozen, perhaps more, defiled by the same furious hand. The words were as clear as they were profane: "Fuck the Cursed King."
Maeron stared for a moment longer than he should have. The rebellion was no longer a shadow whispered about in taverns; it had bared its teeth in the very heart of the capital. And yet, this was no new wound. The seeds had been sown long ago, long before King Darian Valareth, his own blood, had ascended the Black Throne. The cracks had first begun when Branton Corilon—the White Tiger of the North—had betrayed the Aurelion crown and handed the empire to the Valareths. The loyalists who had worshiped House Aurelion's ancient line had never forgotten that treachery. Never forgiven. To them, the empire had fallen the day a Corilon bowed to a new king, and it had rotted ever since.
The rebellion Maeron saw now—the curses, the riots, the saboteurs lurking in the alleys—was merely the same fire, burning with new breath. They hated Darian for his blood. They hated Maeron for standing beside him. And they called Darian the Cursed King, a man who once had been the hope of all the empire, now reduced to a mad tyrant imprisoned in a golden cage.
No one, not even Maeron himself, could say for certain when the rot had begun. Darian had been a bright beacon once—a war hero who had fought with valor against the last dying embers of Aurelion loyalists, a man who had spoken of unity, of healing the rifts left by centuries of bloodshed. He had been beloved, almost revered. And then, without warning, the man had begun to break.
Some whispered it was the weight of the crown, that it crushed the mind as surely as it crushed the spirit. Others spoke of darker things—the vengeance of the Aurelions, the ghosts of kings long dead, cursing the Black Throne with their unending hatred. And there were those, darker still, who whispered of sorcery. Of old blood magic, woven into the rock itself. Thus was born the legend of the Cursed King—a title that clung to Darian like a shroud, and would follow him to his grave.
Pushing the thoughts away, Maeron finally reached the gates of Wolf Shore Keep, the heart of royal power. As he passed through the great iron gates, the world seemed to shift. Within these walls, the city's decay could not be heard—the rebellion was but a distant rumor. The royal gardens lay spread before him, a sculpted paradise of green and gold. Banners of House Valareth hung proudly from every stone archway: a field of green bearing the golden wolf, strong and resplendent.
Guards snapped to attention as Maeron passed, their armor gleaming in the sunlight, though their eyes betrayed the fear that had seeped into the marrow of the empire. He crossed the courtyard swiftly, reaching the massive oak doors of the throne room, doors so finely carved they seemed to breathe. For a long moment, he paused, letting his hand brush against the old wood. It was not wolves carved there—not the sigil of House Valareth—but the colossal wings of storm-bringing birds: the rocs of House Aurelion. A relic of a forgotten time.
Maeron remembered well when he had first been commanded to erase all symbols of the old dynasty, to scrub the very memory of Aurelion from these stones. And yet it was Darian—merciful, sentimental Darian—who had stayed the hand of destruction, convincing their father to leave the doors untouched. They remained now, silent witnesses to a kingdom that refused to forget.
Drawing a breath that filled his lungs with cold dread, Maeron pushed the doors open and entered the throne room.
The Black Throne loomed at the far end of the hall, monstrous and majestic, a creation not of mortal craft but something deeper, something almost holy in its terror. It was not built; it had been carved from the heart of a single mountain of ashen crystal—black as the void between stars and said to be the most precious material in the known world. It soared toward the heavens, as tall as the marble columns that upheld the vaulted ceiling, a testament to power, and to madness.
Gold thorned vines—no, not vines, but grotesque tentacles—had been fused into the stone, spiraling upward in gnarled, predatory tendrils, cradling the seat of the king as though protecting it from the touch of mortal men. They cascaded down the sides like thick rivers of frozen blood, pooling around the stairs that led, painfully, to the seat itself. To climb to that throne was not merely a walk; it was a ritual of struggle, a reminder that kingship was not given freely—it must be seized, conquered, survived.
There sat his brother, Darian Valareth, slumped upon the black crystal, dwarfed by the monstrosity that had once been his pride and now was his prison.
Maeron did not bow. He did not flinch. The awe he had once felt for this place—for the throne, for the man who sat upon it—had long since withered into something colder, something harder. The Black Throne did not make gods of men. It only made their fall more devastating when they finally shattered.
"Your Grace," Maeron said, his voice even and indifferent.
"My dear half-brother," King Darian replied from atop the black throne, his smile stretched thin against the pain etched deep into his face.
Half-brother. The word landed like a blow across Maeron's heart, a brutal reminder of the blood that had always divided them. He might bear the title of Lord Crownkeeper of the Empire, he might walk among lords and kings, but in truth, Maeron was still what he had been at birth: a bastard, born of sin, stamped forever with the name Vaelthorn, not Valareth. His existence was a scar left by a single mistake of their late father, a mistake no crown nor title could ever erase. Darian had never spoken the word before — it had always been simply brother, with warmth, with pride. Why now? Maeron could not say, but the wound was already stitched deep into his mind.
He forced the thought aside and bowed his head stiffly. "Your Grace, I came to remind you of the feast. For Prince Kaelen's name day."
"I know," Darian said, his voice quieter now. "The boy will be fourteen. The feast will be held at sunset." His eyes, still sharp despite the madness gnawing at him, glinted with something Maeron could not name. "We should prepare the guards. When the lords and ladies come crawling through these gates, there will be no peace."
Maeron raised his head and met the king's gaze. "Yes, my king. I have already ordered Cassian to ready the Green Cloaks for tonight's festivities."
Darian gave a small nod, the movement almost too slight to see, then rose from the black throne with slow, deliberate steps, beginning his long descent down the towering crystal stairs. Each step seemed an effort of will. "Any news?" he asked, his voice lower now, almost wary.
Maeron understood without needing to ask what news he sought — the rebellion, the civil war that bled the empire dry from the inside. He let out a long breath. "Not yet, my king. But I will learn everything from Cassian."
Darian offered him a ghost of a smile — something both grateful and hopeless — before turning away. "You go do that."
Maeron bowed and left the throne room behind. As he walked through the hallways of Wolf Shore Keep, the cold black marble that cloaked the entire stronghold swallowed the light around him. The walls were like sheets of shadow, seamless and endless, broken only by the gleam of gold torches burning dimly in their sconces. It was a castle built for kings who feared no darkness, or perhaps kings who invited it.
At last, he reached his chambers. A guard stood stationed outside his door, clad in the green and gold of House Valareth.
"Fetch Commander Cassian Valareth," Maeron ordered curtly.
The guard saluted and disappeared down the corridor. Maeron entered his room, a modest space by royal standards but still rich — leather chairs, velvet banners, and a girl's delicate writing table he had taken a liking to. He poured himself a goblet of wine, the deep red liquid sloshing quietly into the glass, and finally allowed himself to sink into the chair with a sigh. For a fleeting moment, he could pretend there was no empire to save, no cursed king, no coming storm.
But the knock came soon enough. The door creaked open, and Cassian entered.
The boy was a man grown now, though his youth clung to him like a second skin. Nineteen years old and already burdened by more than men twice his age. His eyes were a piercing green, clear and strong, the same as his late grandfather's, and his hair — a deep, dark chestnut — curled in smooth waves like the inside of an ancient oak tree. He wore the armor of the royal guards, gold polished to a gleam beneath his dark green cloak. Two wolf-head brooches fastened his cloak to his shoulders — the twin symbols of the Lord Commander of the Army and the Royal Guard, titles that rested heavy on those young shoulders.
Cassian's face lit up with a warm smile as he saw Maeron. "Uncle," he said, his voice carrying the rare, untainted affection that could not be faked in a court full of liars.
Maeron smiled in return, a rare thing for him these days. "Cassian. Come in. Sit down. We have much to discuss."
He poured a second glass and set it before the boy. Cassian sat without hesitation, but the warmth in his face faded swiftly, replaced by the hardened, neutral mask of a soldier ready to carry out his duty.
"Any news?" Maeron asked, cutting to the heart of it.
Cassian nodded grimly. "One attack at Oryndale, two at Rivermire, and another one at the Red Mist. Three separate spirit fires across the countryside as well."
Maeron raised his brows when he heard the word spirit—the hell-born liquid that once had been a miracle of war, a weapon wielded in victory fifteen years past, now nothing but a terror set loose upon the innocent. In his mind's eye, he could still see it: comrades soaked in sapphire light, their screams swallowed by the roar of thunder. Lightning would kiss the blue-soaked fields, and men would vanish, not into graves, but into the wind—reduced to ash and smoke in a heartbeat. That was the horror of Storm Bringers, the cruel alchemy of war that made gods of men for a moment—and ghosts of them forever after.
He exhaled a slow breath, the weight of memory pressing down on his chest.
"Three spirit fires," Maeron said, voice low, tasting bitterness on his tongue. "It wasn't the loyalists, was it?" He knew the answer before it came. The last barrels of spirit, sealed and guarded, belonged to the Crown alone. No common hand could have stolen them.
Cassian's jaw tightened. His anger was a living thing, barely caged beneath his armor.
"No, it wasn't," he said, each word a strike of iron. "It was His Grace. Our king ordered my soldiers to burn three towns to the ground."
For a heartbeat Maeron closed his eyes, and in the blackness behind his lids, he could almost hear the weeping. It would have been easier to rage—to shout, to curse, to swear vengeance—but all that lived within him now was an old, tired sorrow.
He opened his eyes, steadied himself, and shifted the current of the conversation.
"Your duty today, Cassian, as Commander of the Iron Militant, is this," Maeron said, his voice measured, deliberate. "You are to gather every sword, every green cloak, every loyal blade—and pull them off the streets. It is by order of the king."
Cassian studied him in silence for a long moment. Then, with the same grave solemnity, he lifted his cup, sipped, and set it down with a soft click. His youth was still visible in his face, but his soul bore the weight of a man far older—a boy asked to carry the bones of a dying realm on his shoulders.
"The requests grow crazier by the hour," Cassian said at last. His voice was not loud, but it carried a deadly kind of calm. The calm of a man who had seen too much, too soon, and understood that hope was a fragile, bleeding thing.
Maeron leaned back in his chair and gazed at his nephew—not the commander, not the soldier, but the boy he had once held as a child. The boy who had grown up under a sky of gold, now learning too young that the sky was cracked and bleeding.
He met Cassian's gaze without wavering. "You must be ready to do the right thing," Maeron said softly. "Even if it means staining your hands with the blood of your own kin."
The words hung in the air like a blade between them, sharp and gleaming, impossible to ignore.
Cassian said nothing. He drank again, slower this time, and when he set the cup down, his hands did not tremble.
He understood. They both did.
Because sometimes loyalty was not a chain binding you to a dying king. Sometimes loyalty was a blade you turned against your own blood—because the realm was bleeding, and someone had to cut out the rot before it killed them all.
Cassian's voice broke the silence, a knife hidden in velvet. "Why aren't you ready to do the right thing, uncle?"
There was no malice in the words, only the raw ache of betrayal and a desperate, burning need to understand.
Maeron did not answer at once. He took a final sip of his wine and let it burn down his throat, as if he could drink away the ghosts that clung to him. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper.
"I have soiled my reputation enough."
The truth came out brittle and broken, too fragile to bear the weight it carried, but Cassian heard it. He heard it all.
A long silence stretched between them. Maeron looked at the boy again—no, the man—and saw not anger now, but sorrow. A sorrow that mirrored his own. The sorrow of a heart torn between the blood in its veins and the oath sworn upon its soul.
He had known that feeling too well.
Maeron, bastard of Theron Valareth, born under a name not meant to be spoken at court, made Crownkeeper at the age of twenty. Once, the realm had sung songs in his honor—lords and ladies had smiled when he entered their halls. But behind closed doors, in whispered scorn, they called him the Crown-bound. A man of shifting loyalties, servant not to the realm, not to the people—but to the golden circlet and the power it promised. Crownkeeper to three kings. A blade for the highest bidder. Not a man of honor, but a shadow walking between thrones, belonging to none, loyal only to the cold, merciless weight of duty.
He had once clung to that honor—the dream of peace, of a flourishing realm. But it was that very dream that led him to the bitter truth: there was no peace.
Maeron closed his eyes for a moment, long enough to feel the old bitterness gnawing at his bones. The golden crown, that gleaming prize so many bled for, had never cared who bore it. It simply demanded worship—and Maeron had worshipped it too long, too blindly.