The march home was silent.
The wind had died. The sea no longer raged. But a different kind of storm had taken root in Althar's chest—one he couldn't name, one that pulsed behind his ribs like a wound he couldn't reach.
He had met her.
Kaelis.
A daughter he never knew, born from the sins of a past life, wielding power fit to shatter kingdoms. She didn't need him. She didn't want him. And yet, she bore his blood.
That meant she was a target.
Whether she stood beside him or against him, the Witch-Empress would never leave her alive.
They returned to Crimson Hollow by duskfall three days later. The fortress, carved into a dead mountain, had once been a rebel hold. Now it served as the Flameborn's temporary bastion—a city of stone and steel nestled in the bones of an older war.
Except something was wrong.
The gates were open. Unmanned.
No watch-fires burned.
No horns sounded.
Althar raised a fist. The column behind him halted instantly.
"Rorek. With me. Seris—cloak the flanks. Ariya, sweep the towers."
The old instincts returned like breath.
They moved.
Inside, the fortress was far too quiet.
The bodies started at the courtyard—two sentries slumped beside the forge, throats slit with surgical precision. There was no sign of struggle. No blood trail.
Just death.
Althar's eyes narrowed.
Not bandits. Not chaos. Assassins.
The kind sent by the Witch-Empress.
They advanced through the corridors—shadows drifting between pillars, blades drawn but unused.
The Flameborn had been slaughtered in their sleep.
By the time they reached the main hall, they had counted thirty-eight dead.
But it wasn't until they reached the war room that they found the first living survivor.
He was chained to the council table, stripped of armor and beaten nearly to death.
Commander Braeg.
One of the few veterans from the original resistance.
His one remaining eye opened weakly as Althar approached.
"...my king," he croaked.
Althar knelt beside him. "What happened?"
Braeg trembled, lips bloodied. "They came from the inside. Serpent cloaks. Mind-weavers. One of ours opened the gate. Said you were dead. Said it was over."
Ariya appeared beside him. "Who?"
Braeg swallowed. "It was… Sevan."
Althar's jaw clenched.
Sevan. A Flameborn commander. Charismatic, loyal—or so they thought.
He had defected.
And brought the enemy with him.
They found a sigil burned into the war room's wall—etched in blood and fire.
A spiral eye surrounded by nine dagger marks.
Seris sucked in a breath.
"That's the mark of the Veilborn Sect," she said grimly. "Empress Veyla's elite agents. They erase loyalty. Rewrite memory. Corrupt from within."
Althar stared at the mark.
It glowed faintly… as if watching him.
He raised a hand. Fire gathered at his fingertips, flickering with white-hot intensity.
Then, without a word, he burned the sigil off the wall.
That night, the fortress burned.
Not in destruction—but in purging.
Every room was searched. Every hidden channel flushed with fire and spelllight. The traitors had already fled, but their presence remained like poison in the stones.
Braeg did not survive the night.
They buried him beneath the forge he once guarded, his hammer placed beside him, wrapped in a flame-marked banner.
Althar stood over the grave as the others departed.
His hands were empty.
His heart was not.
Ariya approached quietly. "You can't carry it all."
"I have to," he replied.
"You've changed. You feel now. That's good."
"It's dangerous," he said. "Feelings make you hesitate."
"They make you human."
Althar looked at her.
And for once, didn't look away.
"I never wanted a kingdom. I wanted order. Control. But this… it's more fragile than any crown."
Ariya nodded slowly.
"Maybe that's what makes it worth fighting for."
Later, in the war chamber now dim and cold, Seris traced her fingers over the maps.
"The Empress is moving faster. She's using the sects now, not just armies. She's targeting your inner circle. If she can break the Flameborn…"
"She thinks we'll scatter," Althar finished.
Seris glanced up. "What do we do?"
Althar stared at the scorched sigil on the stone floor.
"We hunt the traitor. We bleed the cult. We take their tools."
He turned away, cloak trailing like the edge of dusk.
"And then we burn our way to the Empress herself."
But deep beneath the mountain—in catacombs forgotten by even the rebels—two veiled figures moved through shadow.
At their center, Sevan knelt before a pool of black glass, whispering to a reflection that wasn't his own.
A woman's voice answered, soft as silk and cruel as a dagger.
"He's adapting faster than we predicted."
Sevan bowed his head. "He still thinks he's in control."
A pause.
"Good. Let him believe it. Let him feel."
"Because when he finally breaks again…"
"It will destroy everything he's built."
The pool went dark.
And Sevan smiled.