The road to Velmora was a wound carved into the earth — a red, scorched trail of dust and shattered bones. Soldiers marched in silence, their armor dulled not by time but by blood. The banners of the House of Ardros fluttered above them, golden lions emblazoned against fields of crimson. Their leader, General Harun Valen, rode at the head, but it was not him the others glanced at with hidden glances and hushed dread.
It was the prisoner.
He walked in shackles, barefoot, blood trailing from his split lip and raw wrists. A thick iron collar dug into his throat, runes etched along the curve glowing faintly in response to his presence. His eyes were not human — one was a molten gold, the other a pitch-black void that swallowed light. He looked like a man, but none of them truly believed he was one.
They called him the Storm That Bled. Once a general in the East, now a traitor, a killer, and worse — a mage.
They said he turned an entire valley to glass with a scream. They said he drank the soul of a god during the Siege of Vorthen. They said many things. But what Kellen knew, as the youngest son of House Ardros and the newly sworn squire of General Valen, was that this man was not to be touched, looked at, or spoken to. Not unless you wanted to lose your mind.
So, naturally, Kellen couldn't stop staring.
He had only been with the campaign for a week, freshly seventeen, still stupid enough to carry hope like a torch in his chest. War hadn't stripped it from him yet. But what he saw in the prisoner's eyes was not hopelessness. It was hunger. A sleeping storm, chained and laughing at those who thought iron was enough.
When the caravan reached Velmora, the skies turned gray. The ruins loomed on the horizon like the ribs of a dead god — towers snapped in half, domes caved in, bones of buildings left to rot under cold wind and crows. Velmora had once been the capital of the Archanate, the oldest kingdom of magic. Now it was a tomb.
They were here to bury something deeper.
Inside the old cathedral, under the shattered starglass window where the High Archan once gave sermons, they chained the prisoner to a stone pillar and encircled it with salt and silver. Runes burned into the earth beneath him. He made no sound.
Kellen stood at the edge of the chamber, torch trembling slightly in his grip. General Valen issued orders, spoke of containment protocols, and warned the others not to approach within ten feet of the circle. Then he left with the rest, leaving Kellen behind to stand watch.
It was meant to be a lesson. A punishment, perhaps, for the question he'd dared to ask at camp. He had said, "What if he's not guilty?" and that was enough.
Now he stood alone with the monster.
For a time, neither spoke. The wind moaned through the holes in the stained glass. Dust settled slowly. The prisoner sat still, legs crossed, back straight. Regal, even in defeat.
Then he said, "You blink too often."
Kellen stiffened. "I'm not supposed to talk to you."
The prisoner smirked. "Ah. That old rule."
He shifted slightly, the chains rattling softly like whispering serpents. "Do you always follow rules you don't understand?"
"I understand this one well enough."
The man tilted his head. "Do you?"
Silence fell again.
The torch cracked.
Kellen tried not to look. But the man's voice was low, smooth — like snow falling on glass. It sank under the skin.
"You've never seen war," the prisoner said.
Kellen bristled. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"Marching is not war. Watching others kill is not war. Holding a sword doesn't mean you know how to use it."
The boy stepped forward. "And what would you know of it? You betrayed your own."
The man's eyes met his. "I burned cities because kings asked me to. Then they called me traitor when I questioned the cost. They buried truth under banners. I just dug it back out."
His voice held no emotion. No pride. No shame. Just truth, bare and heavy.
Kellen's stomach turned.
"But you did kill them," he said.
"Yes."
"Thousands."
"Hundreds of thousands."
"Then you are a monster."
The prisoner gave a soft laugh. "So is every man with a sword who follows orders too long."
Kellen had no answer to that.
That night, after General Valen returned and dismissed him, Kellen walked back to camp in silence. He couldn't sleep. He kept thinking about the way the prisoner spoke — not like a madman or a devil, but like someone who had nothing left to lie for.
The next day, the guard rotation changed. But for reasons no one questioned, Valen kept assigning Kellen the same post.
Every night, he stood watch.
Every night, the prisoner spoke.
At first, it was small things. Old stories. Parables. Riddles. Then, slowly, it became more. Lessons. Truths. Things no one had told Kellen — about the wars, the nobility, the lies of history.
"You know what they call my kind?" the man asked once.
Kellen shook his head.
"Wyrdborne."
It was a curse. A title. A death sentence. The mark of magic not taught, but inherited. Wild, ancient magic that answered to no book or creed.
"It's in my blood," he whispered. "And blood cannot be caged."
Kellen asked why he didn't run, if he could break chains.
The man replied, "Because sometimes staying is the only way to change what remains."
Days turned to weeks.
Velmora became a prison of its own. The soldiers grew restless. Whispers spread of dark things moving in the deep. General Valen received reports of disappearances in the eastern wilds — whole villages swallowed by shadows.
And all the while, the Wyrdborne remained chained.
One night, as storm clouds coiled above, Kellen found the man shivering. Not from cold, but from pain. Blood leaked from the edges of the collar. The runes were burning hotter.
"They're killing you," Kellen whispered.
The man's eyes opened. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I know something they don't want spoken."
"What?"
"The truth of the gods."
Kellen felt the air shift. Magic stirred like breath in the cathedral.
"The gods we pray to," the prisoner whispered, "are not what they seem. They were never saviors. They were captors. And one of them… has awakened."
That night, Kellen stole a key.
He didn't plan to. He didn't understand why. But something in him — old as bone, fierce as fire — told him this man was not his enemy.
So, he unlocked the collar.
He expected rage. Revenge. Power unleashed.
Instead, the man simply exhaled.
And smiled.
"Thank you."
But the storm outside didn't wait.
It broke.
And with it, so did everything Kellen thought he knew.