Blackridge Fortress lay in ruins behind him.
Smoke curled into the storm-thick air, rising like the last breath of a dying giant. The thunder had quieted, as if the heavens themselves were holding their breath. Varik strode through the broken gate, boots crunching over shattered shields and fallen spears.
The rain washed the blood down the stone steps in long crimson streams.
He didn't look back.
He didn't slow.
He didn't mourn.
The king was dead.
The throne was empty.
And the night was far from done.
Varik's pulse rumbled with the faint aftershocks of the Blood-Mark. It simmered beneath his skin like cooling magma—always hungry, always waiting, always whispering the same promise:
More.
He forced it down.
The Blood-Mark was a tool.
Not a master.
He would not let it take him again.
The fortress gates swung wider as a surviving squad of soldiers stumbled after him, weapons drawn. They hesitated the instant they realized who they were approaching.
Captain Varik Thorne.
The kingdom's greatest warhound.
The king's executioner—and now his killer.
One soldier managed a shaky shout.
"S–Stop right there!"
Varik didn't stop walking.
The young man flinched as Varik approached, soaked in rain and blood, eyes sharp enough to peel a soul apart. Another soldier whispered:
"He… he killed the knights. He killed the king. What do we do against a monster—"
Varik turned his head. Just enough to look at them.
The soldiers froze as if his gaze had turned them to stone.
Varik didn't threaten.
Didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
Something about him—his stillness, his precision, the cold in his eyes—made them all step aside instinctively, as though instinct knew better than courage.
Varik passed through them like a silent stormfront.
"Captain…" one of them whispered, voice breaking.
"Where… where will you go now?"
Varik paused for the first time since leaving the dais.
He didn't turn around.
He didn't answer immediately.
The rain filled the silence.
Finally, he said:
"Forward."
And he walked on.
The Road of Dissolution
The world outside Blackridge was a wasteland of mud, shattered banners, and old battlefields swallowed by weeds. Years of conflict had scarred the land long before tonight's bloodshed.
Varik moved along the worn road, large and silent as a wolf pacing through the dark.
A flash of lightning illuminated the treeline ahead.
He wasn't alone.
From between the trees, a dark shape stepped out—broad-shouldered, armored in blackened steel, a great war-axe slung over his back. His eyes glinted amber beneath a hood of wet fur.
Varik recognized the stance before he recognized the man.
Only one warrior in all the kingdom stood like that—feet planted like roots, shoulders loose, ready to kill or die in a heartbeat.
Kael Vorrick.
Varik stopped.
Kael stopped.
Neither moved.
Rain dripped between them as the two former captains of the Oathguard measured each other without a word.
Kael's voice was a low rumble.
"You killed the king."
"I killed a coward," Varik corrected calmly.
Kael snorted once. "Semantics."
His tone held no fear, no judgment. Just the same iron grit that had once made him Varik's right hand in war.
He took a step closer.
"I saw the flames from Blackridge. Then the screams." He paused. "Did the Blood-Mark flare?"
Varik didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
Kael exhaled slowly. "You swore you'd never use that damn curse again."
"I also swore to uphold the crown," Varik said quietly, "and look where that got me."
Kael's jaw tightened. "We need kings, Varik."
"We need justice," Varik replied.
Another tense silence stretched between them—old brotherhood clashing with new rage.
Finally Kael asked the question that mattered:
"What now?"
Varik stepped past him and continued down the road.
Kael fell into step beside him without hesitation.
Varik spoke as they walked.
"Rivenhart wasn't alone. The rot goes deeper. If one lord sold our defenses to the Dominion, others will follow."
"And you want to root them out?" Kael asked.
"I want to burn them out."
Kael gave a humorless huff. "You always did think too small. Why not burn the whole kingdom while you're at it?"
Varik glanced sideways at him.
"That's the plan."
Kael blinked. "You're serious."
Varik didn't break stride. "Deadly."
Kael rubbed his chin. "Well… fuck."
He grinned.
"I'm in."
Varik didn't smile, but something in his shoulders eased fractionally.
Kael Vorrick.
His right hand.
His closest ally.
His last surviving brother-from-war.
If Kael followed him, he would follow to the end.
"Good," Varik said.
They moved together into the storm-slick wilderness.
The Deadwood Ambush
Night deepened.
Fog rolled across the forest floor like ghostly fingers.
Crickets fell silent, replaced by the occasional groan of old branches bending under the weight of rain.
Kael cracked his neck. "Too quiet."
"Mm."
Varik had noticed too.
Then—
A twig snapped.
Not naturally.
Not wind.
A light footstep.
Varik's hand drifted to the hilt of his stolen sword.
Kael slowly reached for his war-axe.
Shadows shifted between the dead trees.
Varik murmured, "Bandits?"
"Not with that formation," Kael whispered back.
Five—no, seven—figures emerged from the fog, clad in dark cloaks, faces masked with bone-white paint. Each held a curved blade forged from black steel.
Kael growled. "Shadeborn."
Varik's eyes narrowed.
Shadeborn were assassins.
They didn't hunt bandits.
They hunted threats to powerful men.
Which meant—
"They're here for us," Varik said.
The leader stepped forward.
A woman's voice, sharp and cold:
"Varik Thorne. Kael Vorrick. By decree of the High Council, you are condemned for regicide and treason. Your lives end tonight."
Kael spat. "Regicide? Treason? That was fast."
"They knew he'd resist," Varik said.
The Shadeborn leader tilted her head. "Kneel. Don't resist. Your deaths can be painless."
Kael looked at Varik.
Varik looked at the Shadeborn.
Then Varik said:
"No."
And the forest exploded into motion.
Blood in the Fog
Three assassins rushed Varik at once, blades whispering through the air in perfect synchrony. Their footwork was flawless, their coordination lethal—
Varik was faster.
He ducked under one blade, twisted his body, and ripped the first assassin's throat open with a swift slash. Before the second could recover, Varik seized him by the collar and used him as a shield against the third's strike.
Steel punched through ribs.
The assassin screamed.
Varik kicked him off the blade and split the third man's skull with a downward slash.
Kael fought like a wild avalanche beside him—smashing men into trees, splitting torsos with his war-axe, roaring curses every time he missed an artery.
The Shadeborn leader moved like smoke, weaving through the fog with grace unnatural for a human. Her dagger sliced across Varik's arm—
Just a graze.
But she moved with intent.
She was testing him.
Varik feinted left—she dodged easily.
He struck right—she twisted aside.
Fast.
Too fast.
A veteran.
Trained.
Deadly.
Varik's eyes sharpened.
Not a threat.
A challenge.
"Come then," he murmured.
The leader lunged.
Varik stepped into her attack—not away, into—and caught her wrist. She tried to twist free, but he wrenched her arm behind her back, forcing a strangled gasp from her lips.
She retaliated with a hidden blade from her sleeve.
Varik caught her other wrist.
She drove a knee toward his ribs.
Varik blocked with his thigh.
Lightning flashed behind them as the two struggled in the mud—her speed and skill against his raw strength and cold precision.
"You… monster!" she hissed.
"Not yet," Varik said.
He slammed her face-first into a tree trunk. Bone cracked. Her mask shattered. She slid down, coughing blood.
Still alive.
He respected her for that.
But he had no mercy left.
He seized her by the throat and lifted her off the ground. Her feet kicked helplessly.
"Who sent you?" Varik asked.
She snarled, blood dripping from her lips. "You think I'll talk?"
"No," Varik said simply.
He tightened his grip.
"But your silence speaks louder."
Her eyes widened.
Varik dropped her—dead.
Behind him, Kael wiped his axe on a corpse. "That all of them?"
"For now."
Kael spat into the mud. "Shadeborn don't come cheap. Whoever hired them must be sweating hard."
Varik stared into the fog where the assassins came from.
"They will send more."
"And the next wave will be worse," Kael agreed.
Varik nodded once.
"Good."
Kael grinned. "Gods, I missed this."
Varik sheathed his blade and began walking deeper into the forest.
Kael jogged to catch up. "Where now?"
"North," Varik said.
"Why north?"
"Because that's where the next traitor lives."
Kael raised a brow. "You sure about that?"
Varik's voice dropped to a low, rumbling certainty.
"I saw the correspondence on Rivenhart's desk before I cut him down."
Kael's grin twisted. "You planning on killing them too?"
Varik's eyes were cold enough to freeze the rain midair.
"One by one," he said.
"Until the kingdom remembers what loyalty looks like."
Kael thumped his axe against his shoulder.
"Then we hunt."
Varik nodded.
Tonight, he had begun his vengeance.
Tomorrow, he would carve his path in blood.
And soon…
The entire kingdom would kneel.
Not to a king.
But to the warlord rising from the ashes.