The Violet Breach
The Far March had always believed the sky to be honest.
Storms announced themselves. Snow fell when winter came. Even drought carried warning in the wind and soil. The heavens did not lie—not until the day they tore open without permission.
The first rupture appeared above a wheat field at the eastern edge of the realm.
It did not explode.It peeled.
The sky stretched thin, colour draining from blue to bruised violet, then split as if something beneath it had clawed upward. Air rushed inward with a shrill, breathless scream that bent grass flat and sent livestock collapsing in panic.
Farmers ran.
They did not make it far.
From the wound in the world poured creatures that did not belong to any natural order. They crawled, fell, slithered, and leapt free, their bodies wrong in ways the mind resisted understanding—too many joints, mouths opening where eyes should be, flesh slick with black secretion that smoked when it touched soil.
Miasma followed them like breath.
By the time the watchtowers sounded the alarm, the fields were already lost.
By the time the bells rang from the capital, smoke rose in three columns.
And by dawn, Princess Elowen Caelrith stood armoured at the city gates.
She did not wear a crown.
Her Armor was functional steel, scarred from previous engagements, fitted for movement rather than ceremony. Plates overlapped cleanly at the joints, darkened by ash and blood that had not yet been scrubbed away. Her cloak—deep blue, marked with the silver sigil of her house—hung heavy with dew and soot.
Her hair was braided tightly down her back, bound with leather cord.
In her hands rested a sword that should not have been there.
The great sword stood taller than her shoulder when its tip touched the ground. Its blade was wide, forged thick for war rather than elegance, the metal shot through with pale veins that glimmered faintly like trapped moonlight. Old runes—family marks predating the kingdom itself—ran along the fuller.
Caelrith's Legacy.
The sword of the first king.
Many had tried to lift it.
Most failed.
Those who succeeded never held it long.
Elowen lifted it with both hands and rested its weight across her shoulder as if it were nothing more than habit.
Behind her, the Far March army assembled.
Five thousand infantry formed tight ranks. Pike walls locked together. Shield bearers braced. Archers strung bows, fingers trembling not from fear alone but from the tension of waiting. Mage circles murmured low chants, carving sigils into the air to stabilize their minds against corruption.
They were afraid.
But they were still there.
Elowen turned her head slightly, listening as a mounted captain rode up beside her.
"Princess," he said, voice tight. "Scouts confirm three active portals. Violet, red, and black. Movement is heavy—larger forms emerging."
Elowen nodded once.
"How far have they spread?"
"Eastern farmlands are lost. Villages evacuated or overrun. The beasts are moving inward."
"Then we stop them here," she said.
No speech.No flourish.
She raised her sword.
"Horn."
The call rolled out over the field.
The gates opened.
Hell met steel.
The first wave hit like an avalanche of flesh.
Elowen advanced at the center of the formation, her great sword already in motion. She stepped into the charge, using the blade's mass to carry momentum through her body. The first creature—a horned thing with bone plating and six limbs—died in a single swing, its torso torn apart by sheer force.
She didn't slow.
She pivoted, brought the sword down again, crushed another monster's skull into the dirt. The ground shook with every impact.
Her soldiers followed.
Pikes drove forward, impaling beasts before they could close. Shields locked, absorbing blows that would have shattered bone. Archers loosed volley after volley, arrows disappearing into writhing masses.
Magic burned.
Fire washed across the portal mouths, incinerating creatures mid-emergence. Lightning split the sky, tearing winged horrors apart before they could take flight.
Elowen moved constantly.
She did not waste motion.
Each swing of her sword served a purpose—clearing space, breaking momentum, creating openings for her troops. When a beast lunged for her flank, she reversed her grip, slammed the blade's flat into its chest, and crushed it into the ground before finishing it with a downward strike.
Blood soaked the earth.
Hours passed.
Sweat blurred vision. Arms burned. Breathing grew ragged.
Then the air changed.
The miasma thickened.
It crept low, hugging the ground, clinging to Armor and skin like damp rot. At first, it merely stung the eyes and throat.
Then the whispers began.
A spearman froze mid-thrust, staring at nothing, lips moving as if answering a voice only he could hear. An archer screamed and dropped his bow, clutching his head as shadows crawled across his vision.
"Elowen!" a knight shouted. "The mages—some of them are down!"
She felt it too.
A pressure behind the eyes. A crawling sensation in the mind. For a heartbeat, she thought she heard her mother calling her name from behind the ranks.
She bit down hard enough to draw blood.
"Fall back!" she commanded. "Orderly retreat! Shields up—don't break formation!"
The beasts sensed weakness.
They surged harder, claws raking shields, bodies piling forward in reckless hunger. Elowen moved to the rear, her sword a wall of steel as she cut down anything that tried to overtake her soldiers.
A massive creature—twice the height of a man—charged her, its body plated in chitin.
She planted her feet.
The great sword came down in a two-handed strike that split the monster from collar to spine. The impact rattled her arms to the bone.
But even she could feel it now.
The hallucinations sharpened.
Dead soldiers rose in her peripheral vision. Familiar faces twisted into accusing masks. The battlefield warped, sound echoing unnaturally.
The retreat horn sounded from the walls.
Elowen gave the order she had sworn never to give.
"Close the gates!"
Steel doors slammed shut behind them.
The army staggered inside, wounded, broken, alive.
Beyond the walls, the portals still burned.
Elowen stood in the gatehouse long after the last soldier passed, her sword resting tip-down on the stone.
For the first time since she had taken command—
She felt defeat settle into her bones.