The road to Arathor stretched like a serpent across the rolling hills, winding through forest, stream, and meadow before climbing into the heart of the kingdom. For most nobles, the journey was weeks of cautious travel, accompanied by household guards and servants.
But Adrian had insisted on riding alone.
His father had protested at first, citing bandits and the dangers of the open road. But Adrian had argued that arriving at the Trials with an entourage would mark him as soft, sheltered—a noble who couldn't survive without his family's protection. Dorian had seen the logic in it, though Elara's worried eyes had followed Adrian until Northwatch's walls disappeared behind him.
The air felt different beyond the fortress's shadow. Freer. The weight of watchful eyes had fallen away with the ancient stones of his home, and for the first time since his rebirth, he could simply... be.
The black stallion beneath him, a gift from his father, carried him swiftly across the dirt road. The emerald and gold crest of Blackthorn gleamed on his travel cloak, pinned over his heart, earning respectful nods from farmers and wary glances from roadside travelers. But Adrian cared little for their attention. His gray eyes swept the horizon, sharp and restless, cataloging every stand of trees, every curve in the road.
Old instincts, honed across lifetimes of warfare, never truly slept.
So this is what it means to be untethered, he thought as his stallion crested another hill. No guards to report my movements. No mother's gentle questions. No father's measuring gaze. Just me, the road, and the fire that burns within.
The fire that longed, always, to be unleashed.
It was on the third day, as the sun dipped low behind a wall of trees and shadows stretched long across the road, that the trap was sprung.
The stallion's ears flicked back a heartbeat before the whistle of an arrow cut through the air. Adrian shifted in the saddle—not quite dodging, but allowing the shaft to miss by calculated inches. It thudded into the dirt behind him with a meaty thunk.
Shadows emerged from the treeline. A dozen men, rough-clad in mismatched leather and rusted mail, their weapons showing the wear of hard use. Bandits who made their living preying on the unwary travelers this road carried toward the capital.
"Pretty horse," one of them called out, stepping forward with a notched axe in hand. His voice carried the casual cruelty of a man who had done this many times before. "Pretty crest, too. Must be a noble's whelp." His grin split wide, revealing broken teeth. "Drop the coin and the sword, boy, and maybe we'll let you crawl home to your daddy's castle."
His companions laughed, spreading out to encircle Adrian's position. They moved with the practiced coordination of men who knew their business.
Adrian's stallion shifted nervously beneath him, but its rider sat perfectly still. His gray eyes swept across the bandits with the cold assessment of a general surveying a battlefield.
Twelve men. Three with bows, already nocking fresh arrows. Nine with blades or clubs. The leader wore a chainmail shirt—likely stripped from a previous victim. They had chosen their ambush point well, where the road narrowed between two stands of thick forest.
Professional. Experienced. Confident.
Doomed.
"You've chosen poorly," Adrian said, his voice carrying across the clearing with quiet certainty.
The bandits laughed harder. "Listen to him! Barely grown and already thinks he's a lordling. Come on, boys—let's teach this lamb what the road does to pretty nobles who ride without guards."
The leader raised his hand. Three rushed forward while the archers drew their strings taut.
Adrian dismounted in one fluid motion, his boots touching dirt as his hand found the hilt of his sword—the plain steel blade his father had given him years ago. The weapon was unremarkable, well-maintained but showing the wear of constant training.
It would serve.
The first bandit lunged, his sword raised high for a brutal downward chop. Adrian stepped inside his guard, his blade catching the descending weapon and redirecting it harmlessly aside. His riposte took the man through the throat—quick, clean, efficient.
The second bandit checked his rush, eyes widening as his companion collapsed. Too slow. Adrian's blade caught him across the hamstring, dropping him to the ground, then ended his cries with a precise thrust.
The third managed to swing his club before Adrian's boot caught him in the chest, sending him staggering back into his companions. The sword followed, crimson flame beginning to lick along its edge as Adrian's careful control slipped by the smallest margin.
What followed was not the desperate struggle of a frightened youth defending himself. It was the methodical dismantling of inferior opponents by someone who had commanded armies, who had studied warfare as both art and science, who had danced in blood across battlefields these bandits couldn't imagine.
Adrian moved through them like death incarnate. His blade found throats, hearts, arteries—always the killing blow, never wasted motion. The crimson flame along his sword's edge burned without smoke, cauterizing as it cut, turning what should have been a spray of blood into clean execution.
An arrow sang past his head. Adrian didn't flinch, his attention already cataloging the archer's position. The bandit beside him fell as Adrian's blade opened his chest. Two steps forward, a pivot, and his sword left his hand—a throw he had practiced ten thousand times in another life. It took the archer through the heart.
He retrieved a fallen bandit's blade without breaking stride.
The clearing fell silent but for the crackle of crimson flame along Adrian's borrowed sword and the panicked breathing of the few bandits still standing. Bodies lay scattered across the road, their blood dark in the fading sunlight.
Adrian stood among them, his breathing steady, his gray eyes cold. For twelve years he had controlled himself, measured every action, hidden his true nature behind the mask of a noble's son. But here, alone on the road with no witnesses save those who would not survive to speak of it, something had slipped free.
And it felt... natural. Right. Like finally removing armor that had grown too tight.
The bandit leader's face had drained of all color. His axe hung forgotten in nerveless fingers. "M-monster..."
Adrian tilted his head, studying the man with something like curiosity. The word should have stung. Should have reminded him of what he was trying to leave behind. Instead, it felt almost... honest.
"No," Adrian said quietly, closing the distance between them with measured steps. "I'm just something you were never equipped to fight."
He saw the moment the bandit decided to run. Saw the muscles tense, the eyes flick toward the trees. Adrian's blade was already moving, taking him through the heart before his feet could carry him more than a step.
The remaining bandits broke, scattering into the forest with the panic of prey who had finally recognized their predator. Adrian let them go. Word would spread of the noble boy who killed a dozen bandits alone, but it would be dismissed as exaggeration, tavern talk.
No one would believe the truth anyway.
Adrian cleaned his borrowed blade on the leader's cloak, dropped it beside the corpse, and retrieved his own sword from where it still transfixed the archer. The crimson flame had faded, leaving only steel behind.
He mounted his stallion smoothly, the Blackthorn crest still gleaming at his heart, unstained by the violence that had painted the road behind him.
As his horse carried him onward toward the capital, Adrian allowed himself to examine what he felt. Not guilt—these men had chosen to prey on travelers, had killed before and would have killed again. Not pleasure, exactly, though he couldn't deny the satisfaction of finally moving without restraint, of testing skills too long held in check.
No, what he felt was... relief. Like a pressure that had built for twelve years had finally found release.
For days he had carried himself as the dutiful son, the promising heir, the noble boy bound by expectations and watchful eyes. But here, on this nameless stretch of road, the mask had slipped. The prince he had been in his first life had stretched his limbs, tested his reflexes against real opponents rather than training partners who pulled their strikes.
And it had been effortless.
The realization settled over him like a cloak. Arathor's knights would test him soon at the Trials. They would see his skills, marvel at his crimson flame, judge him by their mortal standards of excellence.
But they would never truly understand what they were testing.
They would see a Blackthorn heir, gifted and skilled beyond his years.
They would never know they stood before a demon prince, reborn in human flesh and learning to wear it like armor.
The capital rose on the horizon as the sun set behind him, its towers catching the last light like spears thrust toward heaven. Somewhere within those walls, his brother Lucien had trained and bled and forged himself into a legend. Somewhere within those walls, the academies awaited—Ironfang, Dawnspire, Stormwatch, and the rest.
Adrian Blackthorn rode toward his future, the blood of bandits drying on the road behind him, and allowed himself the smallest of smiles.