To the people of Rethmere, Doren was just a man of the soil.
He rose before the sun, wore boots caked in mud, and had hands like tree roots—calloused, cracked, but always gentle when holding a seed or a newborn lamb. He laughed little, spoke less, and loved his family with a quiet, immovable kind of strength.
But no one in the village knew the truth.
They didn't know that before he became a farmer, Doren had a name that struck fear across kingdoms.
He had once been called: Doren Valek, the Ash Wolf.
Before Rethmere – The Ghost of War
Long ago—before I was even born—Doren had been a weapon of the Crown. Not a knight. Not a commander. Something worse.
He was part of a hidden order known only in whispers as the Grey Circle—an elite unit of assassins, battlecasters, and monster hunters. They were ghosts bred for war, sent to places where diplomacy failed and mercy was too expensive.
At the peak of his power, Doren had faced entire battalions alone.
It's said he once walked through fire after slaying a dragon-kin general with nothing but a twin-bladed glaive. Another rumor claimed he killed a sorcerer-lord in the middle of a crowded royal court without spilling a drop of wine.
But the most terrifying legend was from the Siege of Aros—where an entire fortress collapsed in one night, its garrison mysteriously slaughtered. No survivors. No witnesses. Just one thing left behind in the ash:
A silver wolf sigil, scorched into stone.
That was the night Doren became the Ash Wolf.
And then… he disappeared.
The Farmer Who Shouldn't Be
He vanished from the world of blades, spells, and smoke—without warning, without a trace.
When he appeared years later in Rethmere, no one recognized him. He wore no armor. His hair had grayed. His eyes had dulled. He called himself Doren Rell—a simple name for a simple man.
But some things couldn't be hidden.
I remember watching him one day when I was six. A wild boar had broken into our fields, charging at me with bloodlust in its eyes. I froze. Screamed.
In a blur, Doren appeared between me and the beast.
He didn't move like a man. He moved like death.
With nothing but a rusted shovel, he struck the boar once—cleanly, behind the ear. It dropped, stone dead. He said nothing, just carried it over his shoulder like a sack of wheat.
I didn't speak for hours.
He never explained. Never scolded me. Just patted my head and went back to planting onions.
His Silence, My Burden
Growing up, I never understood why someone so powerful chose to live like this—scraping by, hiding his strength, pretending to be weak.
Sometimes I saw it in his eyes. That haunted look when a thunderstorm rolled in. Or how he always sat with his back to a wall, even in our own kitchen. He had scars—too many for a farmer. And tattoos in old runes I still don't understand.
I once asked him, "Father… why do you work so hard when you could live like a king?"
He didn't look at me.
"I once had power," he said. "It was never mine. Only borrowed from death. And death always comes to collect."
Then he walked away.
A Father's Warning
On the night after I found the strange mark in the woods, I woke up to find Doren sitting beside my bed. In his lap was a box I had never seen before—black iron, sealed with strange wax symbols.
He didn't open it. Just stared at it for a while.
"I know that look in your eyes," he said without turning. "You've touched something you shouldn't have."
I said nothing.
He sighed.
"If the world comes knocking, asking for the boy named Argon," he said, his voice low and heavy, "I want you to run. Run, and do not look back. Because if I unsheathe what I buried… I don't know if I'll ever be able to bury it again."
He left the box on the sh
elf above my bed.
He never told me what was inside.
To Be Continued...