The night was heavy with silence before it broke.
Drums—low, steady, unyielding—rolled across the wasteland. Each beat seemed to strike against the marrow of the forsaken prince, echoing the thrum of his own pulse. Around him, the camp stirred restlessly. Exiles who had once known only chains now gripped weapons scavenged from corpses, their eyes darting toward the horizon. Fear gnawed them, but fear was not new to them. It was loyalty, still raw and untested, that would decide whether they stood—or fled.
The prince stood tall at the edge of the firelight, horns casting cruel shadows across the ground. His gaze was fixed on the darkness beyond the camp walls.
"They come," he murmured.
The Codex pulsed, its voice a serpent's hiss in his ear:
> "Your siblings waste no time. They send stronger hounds. Elite. Hardened. Your blood's scent pulls them, as wolves to a wound. This will be the measure of you, vessel: lord… or carcass."
He drew in a slow breath. Once, the thought of assassins would have driven him to hide, to pray they overlooked him. Now, the thought burned like oil in his veins. This was not merely survival. This was dominion on trial.
The first shadow appeared atop the ridge. Then another. And another.
They moved with the grace of predators, cloaked in silks darker than midnight, blades glinting faintly with runes. These were not the rabble he had fought before. These were handpicked hunters, trained to kill princes.
One of them called out, his voice sharp as steel. "Forsaken one. Still breathing, I see. The empire must have grown careless to let its trash crawl so far."
Laughter echoed from the assassins. It was not the laughter of amusement, but of certainty—the sound of executioners mocking a condemned man.
The prince's claws flexed, black fire licking at his fingertips. Yet he did not rush. He stood, letting their words coil in the air.
"Do you hear them?" he said, turning his head slightly toward the exiles behind him. His voice carried like a blade through stillness. "They mock me, as my siblings always have. They call me trash. But do you not hear? They mock you as well. For to them, you are nothing—dogs, refuse, carrion for the crows."
Murmurs stirred through the camp. Faces hardened. Fear shifted, reshaped into anger.
"Fight with me," the prince said, raising his voice, fire wreathing his claws, "and prove them wrong. Let the empire choke on the strength it cast aside."
The Codex purred:
> "Good. Feed them fire. Let rage chain them to you. Rage binds tighter than hope."
The assassins descended the ridge, their steps silent, formation sharp. Their leader, taller than the rest, bore twin crescent blades etched with crimson light. His eyes glowed faintly, demon blood burning in his veins.
"The crown prince sends his regards," the man said coldly. "He told us not to kill you quickly. He wants your screams carried on the wind."
The forsaken prince bared his fangs in a humorless smile. "Then he will wait forever."
The clash came sudden and brutal.
The assassins struck like lightning—blades flashing, shadows twisting. The exiles roared, surging to meet them, ragged weapons clashing against steel. Men and women who had lived as prey all their lives fought now not for survival alone, but for the promise of something more.
The prince threw himself into the storm. His wolf-blood senses caught the hiss of a blade behind him, his body twisting as claws met steel. Sparks flew. Black fire coiled, searing flesh, and his opponent crumpled, essence torn away in a rush of ash.
But there was no time to savor victory. The assassins were coordinated, relentless. They struck not only at him but at the exiles, carving through the weaker ones with brutal precision. Cries of pain filled the camp.
"Prince!" Lira's voice rang sharp, steady, as she dragged a wounded exile away from a killing stroke. "They're trying to break us—force the others to scatter!"
He saw it—clear as blood on snow. This was not a battle of blades alone. This was a war of loyalty. If his army crumbled, he would stand alone. And alone, he could not win.
The Codex screamed in his mind:
> "Then feed them! Show them what it means to kneel to you! Burn the enemy, devour their captain, and let your strength roar! Only then will their knees stay bent!"
The prince roared, the sound shaking the camp. His claws lengthened, nether flame bursting from his chest. He charged straight for the assassin captain.
Their blades met with a thunderclap. Crescent steel against claw and flame. The air itself warped under the force.
"You are nothing," the captain snarled, pressing forward with inhuman speed. "You were born weak. You will die weak."
The prince's arms trembled against the force. But he did not yield. "Weakness," he hissed, fire crawling up his horns, "is a cage you placed me in. But cages break."
He let the berserker rage consume him. Strength exploded through his veins, bones cracking, muscles swelling. His claws ripped free of the captain's guard, black fire engulfing the assassin in a storm of screaming shadow.
The captain staggered, his runed armor melting, his blades faltering. The prince struck again—claws through chest, devouring essence, drinking deep of the assassin's life.
When it was done, nothing remained but ash.
The battlefield froze. The outcasts stared, bloodied and trembling, but victorious. The remaining assassins faltered, rage breaking against fear. Then, one by one, they turned and fled into the night.
The camp erupted in cries—not of fear, but of triumph.
The forsaken prince stood in the firelight, chest heaving, eyes glowing crimson. In his hand, he held the severed head of the assassin captain.
He raised it high. "This," he thundered, "is my answer to the empire!"
The exiles roared as one, a cry that carried into the wastelands like a storm breaking chains.
The Codex pulsed in dark delight.
> "Yes. You feed them victory, and in return they feed you loyalty. One day, vessel, they will follow you into the abyss itself."
But the prince's gaze was cold, his mind already sharpening with resolve. This was not victory enough. This was a message.
And messages must be delivered.
That night, under the blaze of the campfires, the prince sent the assassin captain's head back toward the empire—a silent declaration. The forsaken prince lives. And he is coming.
The camp did not sleep that night.
How could it? Blood still stained the earth, the stench of burnt flesh still clung to the air. Torches blazed, pushing back the darkness as outcasts gathered in a wide circle around their prince. They were no longer slaves hiding behind scraps of iron—they were blooded warriors who had stood against the empire's chosen killers and lived.
But victory was not without its cost.
Bodies of the fallen were laid out in silence, the flicker of firelight tracing their broken forms. For the first time in their lives, many of these exiles felt the weight of brotherhood; comrades had died for them, beside them, and something primal bound the survivors together.
The prince stood at the center, the assassin captain's head dangling from his claw. His horns glowed faintly with residual fire, his chest still heaving with the echoes of berserker rage. He looked not at his followers, but at the severed head—the mocking eyes now lifeless, the mouth forever frozen mid-sneer.
Lira stepped closer, her hands trembling but her voice steady.
"What… what will you do with it?"
The Codex answered before he could.
> "Send it back. Let the empire see. Let your siblings choke on their arrogance. Fear is a sharper blade than any claw, vessel. Wound them with it before you ever strike."
The prince turned, lifting the head higher so that all could see. His voice cut across the night, heavy with promise:
"This man came to end me. To prove me weak. But here he lies—his life devoured, his essence ash. And tomorrow, his head will ride back to the empire as my answer."
A hush swept the camp, broken only when a wounded exile—scarred, trembling—forced himself to his knees. "We follow you… because you are no one's prey. Because you make us no one's prey."
Others knelt, one by one, until the circle of torchlight was a sea of bent backs and bowed heads.
The Codex pulsed with glee.
> "Do you see? Fear binds. Loyalty binds. But victory—victory enslaves. Their chains are no longer the empire's. They are yours."
The prince's jaw tightened. He knew the Codex spoke truth, but he also knew its hunger. It sought not loyalty, but domination. Still… he could not deny the power of the moment.
He ordered the exiles to burn their dead with honor. Not as refuse, not as slaves cast aside, but as warriors. Flames leapt high into the night, carrying smoke into the heavens. Some wept. Some roared. And in that fire, the exiles felt—for the first time—that their lives meant something more than survival.
When dawn came, the forsaken prince chose one of the fastest survivors, a lean scout whose eyes still burned with vengeance. He placed the assassin's head into his hands, wrapped in black cloth.
"Ride for the empire's border," the prince commanded. "Drop it where their patrols will find it. Do not linger, do not speak, and do not look back."
The scout bowed low, clutching the grisly burden like a sacred relic. "As you command, my lord."
The Codex whispered as the rider vanished into the horizon:
> "Now the game begins. The empire will see. They will tremble. And they will answer. With fire. With armies. With blood. You have thrown your gauntlet at the feet of kings. Do not think they will ignore it."
The prince said nothing. His claws flexed at his sides. He knew the Codex was right. This was no longer about survival. He had declared war with a single act of defiance.
As the camp settled into an uneasy quiet, Lira approached him, her jade token glinting faintly in the morning light.
"You've marked yourself," she said softly. "The empire will not forgive. They will come with more than assassins next time."
His eyes, glowing faintly with nether flame, turned toward the distant mountains—the empire's heart beyond them.
"Let them come," he said. "I will devour them all."
The Codex purred in dark satisfaction, its voice wrapping around his thoughts like velvet chains:
> "Yes… and when you do, you will not only be prince of exiles. You will be lord of the abyss itself."
Cliffhanger Far beyond the wastelands, in the imperial capital, a messenger kneels before the Crown Prince—presenting a cloth bundle dripping with blood. The hall falls silent as the head of the empire's assassin captain rolls onto marble floors. The Crown Prince does not speak. He only smiles.