The rain fell in silence over the ashes of Kael's past. Where once there was a home, there now lay blackened timbers and scorched earth. The wind whispered through the hollow skeleton of his former life. Smoke still lingered.
Kael Voss opened his eyes.
Pain. Searing, alive, and cruel. His body was half-buried under collapsed beams, his limbs trembling. His armor, half-melted to his skin. His heart—numb.
He should have died.
He almost wished he had.
The memories came in flashes—his daughter's laughter, Lira's embrace, the blade in his side, the fire—
He screamed. Not in pain, but in the way a soul rips itself apart.
He crawled from the wreckage like a man reborn in hell. His fingers dug into the dirt, dragging his body inch by inch until he reached what was once the garden.
All that remained was a single, blackened hair ribbon.
Lira's.
He held it to his chest.
And in that moment, Kael Voss ceased to be a man.
He became a name.
A curse.
A storm waiting to be unleashed.
---
Three Months Later
A nobleman's estate burned under the moonlight. Screams echoed through the halls. The guards lay dead—throats slit, chests pierced, eyes wide with terror.
Kael moved like a shadow. Hooded. Silent. Precise.
He found his first name on the list—Marn Valter, a merchant who supplied the men who torched Kael's home. A coward who laughed at the cries of women and children. Kael had carved the confession from his lips before ending him.
Tonight was name number four.
There would be many more.
---
Kael sat alone in the woods that night, watching the fire he'd lit behind him. The flames roared. But they didn't warm him. Not anymore.
He unrolled a torn scroll from his cloak.
Twenty-eight names. Written in his blood.
He crossed another off.
And whispered, "You're next."
To be continue...