The rain did not fall in Hurbala anymore; it wept.
Three days had passed since the Great Spire collapsed into the sea. Three days of walking through the tangled undergrowth of the borderlands, avoiding the main roads where Yilmaz cavalry patrols rode with torches and bloodstained lances. Basyar's royal boots, made of the finest calfskin, were now ruined—caked in a thick, grey mud that seemed to want to swallow him whole.
Hujeena marched ahead of him, her massive shield slung over her back like the shell of an iron beetle. She didn't complain about the weight, nor did she speak of the wound on her shoulder where a Yilmaz bolt had grazed her during the escape. She simply moved, a silent mountain of a woman, clearing branches and scanning the horizon with eyes that never seemed to blink.
"How much further?" Basyar whispered. His voice was raspy, his throat felt like it had been scraped with sandpaper.
"Fort Iron-Root is just over this ridge," Hujeena replied without turning. "It was a supply depot once. If the gods are kind, Juhada made it there before the Yilmaz blocked the mountain passes."
Basyar clutched the silk pouch in his pocket. Inside, the jagged shard of the crown felt heavy, its sharp edges pressing against his thigh. It was a constant reminder of the "Bloody Sunset"—of his father's roar and his mother's silent scream as the ships carried her away. Every step he took felt like he was walking further away from his life and deeper into a nightmare.
As they reached the crest of the hill, the ruins of Fort Iron-Root came into view. It wasn't much to look at. A crumbling stone tower stood like a broken tooth against the grey sky, surrounded by a jagged perimeter of wooden stakes. It had been abandoned for years, a relic of a time when the Hurbala Empire feared the mountain tribes of Asvalte. Now, it was the only home Basyar had left.
Suddenly, Hujeena stopped. Her hand went to the grip of the short sword at her waist. "Wait."
Basyar froze. The forest, which had been filled with the rhythmic patter of rain, was suddenly, terrifyingly silent. Not a bird chirped. Not a squirrel moved.
Thwip.
A black-feathered arrow hissed through the air, burying itself three inches deep into the tree trunk exactly two inches from Hujeena's ear.
"One more step, and the next one finds the gap in your gorget, 'Shield Wall,'" a feminine voice rang out from the canopy above.
Hujeena didn't flinch. In fact, a small, rare smirk touched her lips. "Your aim is getting sloppy, Marissa. You missed by two inches."
A figure dropped from a high branch, landing as silently as a cat in the mud. She was lean, dressed in mottled green and brown leathers that made her almost invisible against the forest floor. A longbow, carved from dark yew, was held with practiced ease. This was Marissa, the finest scout in the King's Rangers.
"I didn't miss," Marissa said, her eyes—sharp and amber like a hawk's—darting to Basyar. She immediately dropped to one knee, her bow lowered. "My Prince."
"Marissa," Basyar breathed, a sudden surge of hope warming his chest. "You're alive."
"I am, Your Grace. Though the world is much smaller than when we last spoke," she stood up, her expression grim. "Juhada is inside. She has been counting the shadows."
The Strategy of Despair
Inside the tower, a single fire flickered in a rusted iron brazier. The room smelled of wet wool, old parchment, and the metallic tang of blood. A woman sat at a makeshift table made of an old door propped up by barrels. She was leaning over a map, her fingers tracing lines with obsessive precision.
Juhada, the Grand Strategist, looked like she hadn't slept since the beginning of time. Her black hair was pulled back into a tight, severe knot, and her eyes were sunken, rimmed with red. When she saw Basyar, she didn't cry. She didn't offer a hug. She stood up and bowed, her movements stiff.
"Prince Basyar," she said. Her voice was cool, clinical. "The reports are... unfavorable."
"Tell me," Basyar said, trying to mimic his father's commanding tone. He failed, his voice wavering.
Juhada gestured to the map. "The Hurbala Empire no longer exists as a political entity. Shadowhold has closed its borders and declared King Zin Baraji the 'Sovereign of the Woods.' Zuelda has fortified the marshes; King Vectlar is already taxing the trade routes we once protected. And Asvalte... King Inferaq has moved his war elephants to the passes. They are waiting to see who wins the scrap for the remains."
"And the Yilmaz?" Basyar asked.
"They hold the capital. They hold the sea," Juhada said simply. "They are currently hunting for you. They know that as long as a Hudal lives, the crown can be reforged."
Basyar felt a cold weight in his stomach. "How many do we have? How many of my father's soldiers made it here?"
Juhada looked at Marissa, then back at Basyar. She picked up a piece of charcoal and wrote a number on the corner of the map.
50.
Basyar stared at the number. "Fifty? Fifty thousand?"
"Fifty men and women, Basyar," Marissa said softly from the doorway. "Including the three of us. A few archers, a handful of infantry, two siege engineers who lost their tools, and a dozen stable hands who picked up spears because they had nowhere else to go."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Basyar looked at his hands. He had expected an army. He had expected thousands of loyalists waiting to march back and tear down the Yilmaz banners. Instead, he had enough people to fill a small tavern.
"You want me to reclaim an empire with fifty people?" Basyar's voice rose, bordering on hysteria. "The Yilmaz have twenty thousand in the capital alone! King Manuel has a fleet that covers the horizon! This isn't a war! It's a suicide!"
Hujeena stepped forward, her heavy footsteps vibrating through the floorboards. "It is a war if you say it is, Basyar."
"No!" Basyar shouted, his grief finally breaking through. "I'm just a boy! I was supposed to be studying poetry and history! My father is dead! My mother is a prisoner! I have a piece of gold in my pocket and fifty people hiding in a ruin! I am not a king!"
Juhada walked around the table. She didn't flinch at his outburst. She reached out and grabbed his hand—the one clutching the pocket with the shard—and forced him to look at her.
"You are exactly right," Juhada said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You are not the King of Hurbala. That kingdom is ash. You are not the King of the Sunspire or the Golden Fields. Those are gone."
She turned and looked out the narrow arrow-slit toward the dark forest.
"But you are the King of those fifty people out there. You are the King of every refugee hiding in a ditch tonight. You are the King of the Exile Roads. And if you give up, then those fifty people die. And if they die, the memory of your father dies with them."
Basyar's breath hitched. He looked at the three women—the Shield, the Scout, and the Brain. They were all looking at him, not with pity, but with a terrifying, absolute expectation.
The Coronation of Shadows
The "coronation" took place an hour later, under the dripping eaves of the tower. The fifty survivors stood in a ragged circle. They were covered in mud, their bandages were grey with dirt, and their eyes were hollow. But when Basyar stepped out onto the crumbling stone dais, they all stood a little straighter.
There was no golden crown. There were no priests or trumpets.
Basyar took the jagged shard from his pocket. It felt warm now. He held it up so the grey light could catch its edges.
"My father told me that the Empire was a promise," Basyar said. His voice was small at first, but it grew as he spoke. "He said it was a promise that was broken. I look at you, and I see the cost of that break. We have lost our homes. We have lost our families. We have lost our names."
He looked at an old infantryman in the front row, a man whose arm was in a sling.
"But we have not lost our shadows," Basyar continued. "And as long as we have a shadow, we have a body to fight with. I cannot promise you a throne. I cannot promise you gold. I can only promise you that I will not stop until the people who did this to us are made to answer for it."
Juhada stepped forward. She didn't have a crown of gold, so she had woven a simple circlet out of the dark, thorny briars that grew around the fort.
"The world thinks we are dead," Juhada announced, her voice carrying across the clearing. "Let them think it. Let them grow fat on their stolen gold. We will be the ghost in their hallways. We will be the salt in their wells."
She placed the crown of thorns on Basyar's head. The sharp points pricked his brow, and a single drop of blood ran down his forehead, mirroring the shard in his hand.
"Hail, Basyar," Hujeena roared, slamming her fist against her shield. The sound was like a thunderclap. BOOM.
"Hail, Basyar!" the fifty survivors shouted back. It wasn't the roar of a grand army, but it was a sharp, hungry sound.
"The King of the Exile Roads!" Marissa added, her voice ringing clear.
Basyar looked at his "army." Fifty broken souls. Fifty shadows. It was the smallest kingdom in the history of the world, but as he looked at Juhada's map in his mind, he didn't see the borders of the old empires anymore.
He saw a blank canvas. And he was going to paint it in the colors of his enemies.