The land grew stranger the farther Adrian rode from Northwatch. The roads widened, patrolled more heavily by kingdom soldiers in the king's colors, yet the faces he passed grew less familiar. The people did not bow as he rode by. Some stared at the Blackthorn crest on his cloak with respect, others with suspicion, and some with complete indifference. For the first time, Adrian felt what it was to be a noble outside his fief: a name carried on a crest, but not yet proven in the wider world.
He pressed on through rolling farmland and shadowed woods, the black stallion carrying him steadily beneath the rising sun.
By the sixth day, the quiet broke.
Screams ripped through the trees ahead, sharp and desperate. The scent of smoke and iron hung thick on the wind. Adrian's hand moved to his sword hilt on instinct as he spurred his horse toward the noise. The forest path opened to a clearing where chaos reigned.
A carriage, gilt-trimmed and bearing the weight of obvious wealth, had been forced to a halt across the road. Its matched gray horses reared in panic, their traces tangled, as goblins swarmed from the treeline. Small, twisted bodies with greenish skin lunged with crude blades and clubs, tearing at the wooden panels and clawing at the doors. The escort—a dozen men in chainmail and leather bearing a silver stag on blue field—struggled to form a defensive line, their blades already stained with green-black ichor.
But they were losing ground.
Adrian's eyes narrowed as he assessed the situation. Goblin skirmishes were common enough wherever large forests grew—the creatures bred in the dark places between the trees, preying on unwary travelers and isolated farmsteads. Any caravan master worth his salt knew to hire extra guards when passing through wooded regions.
These guards, however, had underestimated their enemy.
Either way, the goblins would die here.
Adrian dismounted before his stallion had fully stopped, his boots hitting the dirt as his blade sang free of its sheath. He didn't announce himself, didn't call out a warning. He simply moved.
The first goblin never saw him. One clean stroke separated its head from its shoulders, crimson flame flickering along the blade's edge as Adrian flowed past the corpse. A second goblin turned, shrieking alarm, only for Adrian's boot to crush its throat before his sword opened its chest.
Where the escorts faltered and struggled, Adrian advanced like a scythe through wheat. His blade moved with the precision of someone who had fought thousands of battles, each strike finding the killing blow—throat, heart, the soft spot behind the jaw. The crimson flame along his sword's edge burned without smoke, cauterizing wounds and turning what should have been sprays of ichor into clean executions.
The goblins screeched in disarray, their crude pack tactics crumbling under his relentless assault. But then the air shifted. A deeper growl rolled from the treeline, and the smaller goblins suddenly fell back, creating space.
The carriage escort captain's weathered face drained of color. "Gods preserve us—a general!"
The forest shadows disgorged a creature that made the other goblins look like children. It stood nearly as tall as a man, its body corded with unnatural muscle, its armor pieced together from scavenged steel and leather. In one massive fist it carried a jagged sword that looked like it had been forged from broken blades and hatred. Two of the carriage guards lay crushed and broken at its feet, their armor caved in, their final screams still echoing in the air.
A goblin general. Rare anywhere. Dangerous everywhere.
The creature's yellow eyes fixed on Adrian, and something like intelligence flickered in their depths. It recognized a threat when it saw one.
Adrian stepped forward, his crimson flame burning brighter along his blade. "Come on, then."
The general bared fangs like daggers and charged with surprising speed for something its size. Its jagged sword swung in a brutal arc meant to split Adrian from shoulder to hip. Adrian met it head-on, their blades clashing in an explosion of sparks and force that sent dirt flying.
The impact would have driven a normal man to his knees. Adrian's boots slid back an inch, then held firm.
The goblin general's eyes widened—just a fraction—before Adrian's crimson flame surged. The fire ate through the crude steel of the general's weapon like acid through parchment, weakening it, making it brittle.
The general roared and swung again, putting its full strength behind the blow. Adrian didn't try to block this time. He flowed aside like water, letting the massive sword pass so close it stirred his hair, then his blade came up in a ruthless diagonal arc.
Crimson fire trailing behind it, Adrian's sword carved through the general's neck. The creature's head separated from its shoulders with almost surgical precision, the wound cauterized instantly by the flame. The massive body stood for one heartbeat longer, then toppled like a felled tree, black-green blood pooling beneath it.
Silence crashed over the clearing—a silence broken only by the labored breaths of the surviving escorts and the panicked whinnying of the carriage horses.
Adrian stood among the goblin corpses, his breathing steady, his blade still wreathed in fading crimson light. He began to clean his sword on the general's tattered cloak, his expression calm, his movements practiced.
That calm shattered as steel rasped all around him.
"Hold!" one of the escorts barked, his sword rising to point at Adrian. The others followed suit, forming a rough circle around him, their blades trembling—not from exhaustion, but from fear.
"Who are you?" another demanded, his voice tight. "What manner of knight bears crimson flame? That's not white, not green—"
"It burns like demon fire," a third interrupted, his knuckles white on his sword hilt. "Black flame turned red. Maybe he's one of them, wearing human skin—"
Adrian didn't move, his gray eyes sweeping across the circle of frightened men. He understood their fear—crimson was unknown, unprecedented. To soldiers who had fought demons bearing black flame, any deviation from the familiar colors of sword spirit would seem suspicious.
Slowly, deliberately, he sheathed his blade. The crimson fire died, leaving only steel behind.
Then he reached for his travel cloak, his movements careful and visible. The escorts tensed, but Adrian simply unfastened the emblem pinned over his heart and held it aloft where all could see.
The crest gleamed in the afternoon light—a shield of emerald enamel crossed with a single golden thorn.
The Blackthorn crest.
The air shifted at once. Blades wavered. Uncertainty cracked through the wall of fear like lightning through stone. Every man there knew that mark. It was not simply a noble's sigil—it was the promise of the border, the name that had kept demon hordes from flooding into the heartland for four centuries. The Wall of the North made manifest in green and gold.
"Blackthorn," one of the escorts breathed, lowering his sword slightly. "The border house."
From the carriage, the door swung open with a creak. A young man about Adrian's age stepped down carefully, his fine clothes torn and dust-streaked but still marked with the silver stag on blue field. His face was pale, his hands trembling slightly, but his voice carried the authority of someone born to command.
"Lower your blades," the noble commanded, his eyes fixed on Adrian. "I would hear his name from his own lips."
The escorts hesitated, caught between fear of the crimson flame and respect for both crests now on display. Slowly, reluctantly, their weapons lowered.
Adrian met the noble's gaze steadily, pinning the crest back over his heart before speaking.
"My name is Adrian Blackthorn, second son of Baron Dorian Blackthorn, Lord of Northwatch and Warden of the Northern Border."
Murmurs rippled among the escorts. The young noble studied Adrian with an intensity that spoke of someone trying to reconcile what he'd just witnessed with what he knew of the world.
"A Blackthorn," the noble said softly, stepping closer despite the nervous protests of his guards. "The border's blood." His eyes traveled from Adrian's face to the sword at his hip, then back. "You saved my life and the lives of my men. For that, House Halborne owes you a debt."
He placed a hand over his own crest—the silver stag. "I am Edric Halborne, heir to House Halborne. My family has fed the kingdom's armies for generations." His voice carried pride despite the circumstances. "But crimson flame... I have studied the histories, the colors of sword spirit. Crimson is not in any text, any teaching. What you bear is..."
"Unknown," Adrian finished for him, his tone even. "But no less real. No less effective against those who would prey on travelers in the king's lands."
Edric's expression flickered between relief and wariness. "Effective, yes. But unsettling to those who have only ever known white foundations, green protections, blue swiftness. You must understand—to men who fight demons bearing black flame, crimson appears..."
"Dangerous," Adrian supplied. "I understand. But I am Blackthorn. My house has stood against the darkness for four hundred years. If my flame is strange, perhaps it is because strange times require strange weapons."
The logic was sound, but Adrian could see doubt still lingering in Edric's eyes, in the posture of the escorts. He had revealed too much, perhaps. But leaving them to die had never been an option—not because of nobility or honor, but because letting a carriage full of witnesses perish to goblins would have raised questions when their bodies were found.
Better to be mysterious than to be hunted.
"You travel alone to the capital?" Edric asked after a moment. "For the Knight Trials?"
"I do."
"Then permit us to ride together the rest of the way. The roads grow safer near Arathor's heart, but..." He gestured at the goblin corpses. "Clearly not safe enough. And it will give me time to thank you properly, and to understand..." He paused. "To understand what I witnessed here."
It wasn't quite a request, and it wasn't quite a demand. Adrian recognized it for what it was—an attempt to keep him close, to observe him, to determine if the crimson flame represented a threat or an ally.
Adrian allowed himself the faintest of smiles. "As you wish, Lord Halborne. Though I warn you—I am poor company for those who prefer their mysteries neatly solved."
Edric barked a surprised laugh, some of the tension breaking. "Then we shall be poor company together. The capital has enough mysteries as it is."
As the escorts began dragging goblin corpses off the road and tending to their wounded, Adrian remounted his stallion. The Blackthorn crest gleamed on his cloak, catching the light as clouds parted overhead.
He had saved lives today. He had revealed his power. And he had made his first connection among the nobility beyond his father's lands.
Whether that would prove advantage or liability, only time would tell.
But as they prepared to ride on toward Arathor's capital, Adrian felt the familiar weight of masks settling back into place. The demon prince who had slaughtered bandits alone on the road now played the role of noble savior, mysterious but ultimately loyal.
The Trials awaited. And with them, hundreds of eyes that would watch his every move.
He would need to be careful.
Very careful indeed.