The sun, a great golden coin pressed against the vast blue parchment of the sky, hung directly overhead. Its light fell upon the village of Emberwood not as a harsh judge, but as a warm, benevolent blanket. It baked the rich, dark earth of the tilled fields, releasing a scent that was the very essence of life itself—a perfume of loam, green growing things, and distant rain. This was Kael's world. The only world he had known for five decades.
His hands, clasped around the worn wooden handle of his hoe, were a map of his new life. Calluses had long since replaced the sword-blisters of his youth, the skin tough and leathery, etched with lines of soil that no amount of washing could entirely erase. He drove the blade into the earth with a practiced, rhythmic motion, a soft thunk that was a prayer of its own. This was his liturgy now. This was his penance.
A bead of sweat traced a path through the dust on his temple, and he paused, straightening his back. The quiet groan of his spine was a familiar sound, a reminder of years that should have bent him double, yet had not. His body aged with a frustrating, reluctant slowness, a lingering echo of a power that had abandoned him. At a glance, he might have been a man in his prime, perhaps forty years. Only his eyes, the colour of a winter sky and holding a depth of sorrow that no young man could possess, betrayed the truth.
He looked out over his small plot of land. Rows of vibrant green shoots stood in militant lines, promising a future harvest. Beyond his fence, the thatched roofs of Emberwood smoked lazily. He could hear the distant clang of Master Holden's hammer at the smithy, the laughter of children playing near the stream, and the gentle lowing of Old Man Hemming's cows. It was a symphony of peace. A peace he had killed for. A peace he had fallen for.
The memory was always there, a dormant serpent coiled in the shadows of his mind. The brilliance of golden light, the weight of platinum armour, the fervent prayers to a god of compassion. The name Kaelen spoken with reverence. And then, the crushing silence that followed. The severance. It had felt like a limb being torn away, a light inside him snuffed out, leaving only a cold, hollow void. The clergy had come, their faces masks of pity, speaking of Rites of Atonement, of a path back into Lysander's warm, golden light.
He had sent them away. Every time. Atonement implied a wrong to be righted. And he had never believed, not in the deepest marrow of his bones, that his act was wrong. Necessary? Yes. Horrific? Undeniably. But wrong? The world lived because of his sin. He would wear his fall as his only badge of honor.
"Your potatoes are looking better than mine, Kael. I swear, you've got a magic touch with the earth."
Kael turned, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. It was Elara, the miller's daughter, a basket of wild herbs hooked over her arm. Her cheeks were flushed from the sun, and her smile was an uncomplicated thing of pure joy.
"No magic, Elara," Kael's voice was a low rumble, used sparingly. "Just patience and good compost. Yours are planted in heavier clay. They'll catch up."
"I hope so. Father says if we get a good yield, we might be able to afford a new grinding stone before winter." She leaned on the fence, her eyes curious. "You're training the youngsters again tomorrow? Liam hasn't stopped talking about the new parry you showed him. Drives his mother mad, practicing with a broomstick in the kitchen."
Kael nodded. "Sunrise. Tell him to leave the broomstick be. I've plenty of practice staves."
It was his one concession to his past. He could not bury the knowledge in his muscles, the strategies in his mind. So, he taught the village children—not to be soldiers, but to be able to defend their homes. To protect this peace. It was a quiet, continuous atonement for a sin he would not name.
He spent the next hour weeding, the sun tracing its slow arc. He traded a few words with Hemming, who was checking his fences, and accepted a fresh loaf of bread from Brenna, the baker's wife, whose son was one of his most eager students. These small, quiet interactions were the threads from which his life was now woven. A life of simple, profound meaning.
The sound that shattered the tranquility was not a scream at first. It was a single, sharp cry, cut off with a wet, final gurgle.
Then the bell began to toll.
It wasn't the steady, measured call to meeting or feast. It was a frantic, panicked clanging, a scream of iron that ripped through the afternoon calm. Clang-clang-clang-CLANGGG!
Kael froze, his hoe half-buried in the soil. Every muscle in his body, from his shoulders to his calves, went wire-tight. Fifty years fell away in a heartbeat. That sound was the same. The sound of a world ending.
From the watchtower at the village edge, a plume of black smoke began to curl into the sky.
"Goblins!" The shout was taken up, a ripple of terror spreading through Emberwood. "Goblins from the Murkwood!"
Chaos erupted. The children's laughter turned to shrieks. Hemming was suddenly herding his cows with frantic shouts. Brenna dropped her basket, loaves tumbling into the dirt.
Kael did not run. He moved.
His jog was not that of a panicked farmer, but of a soldier advancing toward the sound of battle. His mind, once a swirling storm of memory, became a cold, clear pool. Assessment. Threat. Response. His home, his small, sturdy cabin of stone and timber, was his first objective. He dropped the hoe without a second glance.
He burst through his door, the dim interior smelling of dried herbs, woodsmoke, and his own solitary existence. His eyes went immediately to the large, iron-bound chest at the foot of his bed. For fifty years, it had been a coffin. Now, it was a reliquary. He threw back the lid. Inside, nestled on a bed of faded wool, lay the scabbard. It was plain, unadorned leather, worn smooth in places by a grip that was now just a ghost in his palm. And within it, the shape of the thing he had sworn never to touch again.
His sword.
His hand hovered over the hilt. The air in the room grew thick, charged with the silence of five decades. He could almost hear the echoes—the ring of steel on steel, the battle-chants, the whispered prayers, the final, condemning voice of a god. The leather of the hilt seemed to beckon, not with promise, but with a grim, undeniable fate. This was the instrument of his salvation and his damnation. This was the line he had crossed.
From outside, a woman's scream, sharp and laced with pure terror, pierced the cabin walls.
The moment shattered.
His fingers, calloused and strong, closed around the grip. It was not a reunion. It was a seizure. The familiar weight was a cold stone in his soul. He buckled the sword-belt over his simple tunic, the leather settling against his hip with a weight that felt more profound than any physical mass.
As he turned to leave, his eyes fell on a pitchfork leaning by the door. A farmer's tool. A simple, honest thing. In a single, fluid motion, he snatched it up. It was a gesture of the man he was now, reaching for the weapon of the man he had been.
He ran back into the light, a phantom returned to the world of the living, the sword a dead weight at his side and a desperate, burning purpose in his winter-blue eyes. The symphony of peace was over. The drums of war had begun.