The news from the Blackmoor Fens arrived like a death knell, carried by the sole survivor of Tristan's doomed expedition – a knight who stumbled back to Castle Valerius, half-mad with terror, recounting a tale of shadows, traps, and a silent, merciless hunter. Tristan's body, retrieved days later, was a gruesome testament to Kaelen's meticulous savagery, mirroring the fates of Dagran and Gareth.
Lord Valerius, when confronted with the reality of his second son's demise, broke. The roar that tore from his throat was less a sound of human rage and more the primal shriek of a wounded, cornered beast. His face, already gaunt and shadowed, contorted into a mask of pure madness. He smashed everything within reach, sending goblets, plates, and maps crashing to the floor.
"He's a demon!" Valerius shrieked, his eyes wide and bloodshot, fixed on nothing. "He's not a man! He's a curse! A plague sent to devour my house!"
Rowan, the last remaining son, watched his father's descent into lunacy with a chilling dread. His own fear was a constant, icy companion, but now it was compounded by the terrifying realization that he was truly alone. His father, once a formidable, if cruel, presence, was crumbling. Gareth, his boisterous older brother, was dead. Tristan, his pragmatic, if sometimes reckless, twin, was dead. And both had died agonizing deaths at Kaelen's hands.
Valerius began to issue increasingly deranged orders. He commanded all wells outside the castle walls to be poisoned, all livestock to be slaughtered to deny Kaelen sustenance, and demanded daily reports of every shadow, every strange sound. He saw Kaelen in every flickering torchlight, every gust of wind. His paranoia infected the entire castle, turning loyal servants into suspects, and brave knights into terrified, demoralized shells.
The people of the Valerius lands, already suffering under the harsh taxes and brutal enforcement of Valerius's rule, now faced starvation and rampant fear. Desertions from the castle guard became commonplace, men risking Valerius's wrath for a chance at freedom from the suffocating terror. Whispers of "The Ash Shadow" became legends, some seeing him as a monstrous avenger, others as a dark savior.
Rowan, witnessing the unraveling of everything his family had built, knew he had to act. He was the only one left. He locked himself in his chambers, poring over ancient texts on siegecraft and defenses, searching for a weakness, a strategy, anything that could stop an enemy who defied all logic. He found none. Kaelen wasn't an army to be met on a field, nor a spy to be rooted out by conventional means. He was a force of nature, born of their own cruelty.
Days turned into a blur of restless nights and waking nightmares for Rowan. He saw his brothers' mutilated faces in the flickering firelight, heard their muffled screams in the howling wind. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that he was next. Kaelen was closing in, stripping them away one by one, leaving Valerius utterly alone before his own inevitable end.
In his desperation, Rowan began to think of escape. But escape where? Valerius's lands were vast, but Kaelen seemed to be everywhere. The only safe haven was the distant capital, Lord Regent Theron's seat of power. But the road there was long and dangerous, especially now, with Kaelen loose and the countryside wary of anything bearing the Valerius sigil.
Kaelen, meanwhile, watched from his concealed perch in the hills, observing the castle's slow decay. He saw the ragged patrols, the infrequent movements, the overall air of despair. He saw Valerius, a pathetic figure, occasionally visible on the parapets, shouting at the empty sky. He had stripped them bare, one by one. Now only the father and the last son remained.
His focus narrowed to Rowan. The youngest, the least experienced in direct combat, but perhaps the cleverest. Rowan wouldn't be as easily lured out as Tristan. Kaelen watched Rowan's chamber for days, noting his habits. He saw the way Rowan clung to the castle, rarely venturing even into the courtyard without a full escort.
Kaelen knew he had to find a way to isolate Rowan, to force him into a position of vulnerability that even the castle walls couldn't protect. He recalled a minor, often-overlooked detail from his years of observing Valerius's household: a hidden passageway. It was rumored to lead from Rowan's private study, deep within the castle, to an old, abandoned watchtower on the very edge of the castle grounds, once used as a clandestine meeting point for lovers or spies. It was old, forgotten, probably overgrown and disused, but if it existed…
This was his final chess move before facing the Mad King. He would use Valerius's own fear against him, and Rowan's desperation to escape, to draw the last son into his net. Kaelen prepared himself, sharpening his blades, gathering his tools. The storm that had raged over the lands was beginning to clear, leaving behind a stark, cold clarity. The time for whispers and indirect terror was almost over. The final confrontation was at hand.