The news of Ser Kaelen Blackwood's gruesome death at Fort Valerius arrived at the castle amidst a deepening sense of dread. The messenger, a young lieutenant, was pale and shaking, barely able to recount the horror of the headless body, the bloodied greatsword, and the chilling mark carved into the hearth. This wasn't just murder; it was an invasion, a violation of Valerius's very stronghold.
Lord Valerius listened, his face slowly turning a mottled red, then a deathly white. His eyes, usually fierce, now held a flicker of something new: fear. Not for himself, not yet, but for the unraveling of his power, the methodical dismantling of his house. Two of his trusted men, dispatched with horrifying precision. And the messages… so personal, so deliberate.
"He's inside the walls, Father!" Tristan cried, his voice high with panic. "He's breached Fort Valerius! No place is safe!"
Rowan, usually the quieter of the twins, gripped the hilt of his dagger, his knuckles white. "He's hunting us. He's making examples."
Valerius roared, a sound of raw, unadulterated fury and frustration. "Silence! He will not break us! I will not allow it!" But even as he spoke the words, they rang hollow. His once unshakeable confidence was fracturing. The bounty on Kaelen's head was doubled again, the patrols quadrupled, and a grim order was given: any and all suspicious individuals found near the castle were to be summarily executed. The castle itself became a fortress of paranoia. Drawbridges were kept raised, portcullises lowered, and every shadow seemed to hold a threat.
Kaelen, hidden in the bitter cold of the surrounding woods, observed the chaos he had wrought. He saw the heightened patrols, the frantic movements within the castle walls, the smoke rising from distant villages as Valerius's men punished innocents for Kaelen's crimes. It fueled him, hardening his resolve even further. Let them spread terror. It only made his target's fear that much sweeter.
He knew direct assault on Castle Valerius was suicide. Not yet. His goal now was psychological warfare, to whittle away at Valerius's sanity, to isolate Tristan and Rowan, making them vulnerable. He began a new campaign, one of calculated terror.
He targeted Valerius's outriders, the men who ventured beyond the immediate castle grounds to deliver messages or gather intelligence. Kaelen would pick them off one by one, swiftly and silently, leaving their bodies in grotesque tableaux for their comrades to find. A rider found hanging from a tree, stripped of his armor, with a broken lion crudely carved into his chest. Another discovered impaled on a fence post outside a loyal village, his eyes staring sightlessly towards the castle. Each body was a new declaration, a grim whisper of Kaelen's presence.
The Valerius brothers began to crack under the strain. Tristan grew jumpy, constantly checking shadows, unable to sleep without the guards posted directly outside his door. Rowan, usually more composed, became withdrawn, his face pale and drawn. They squabbled constantly, each blaming the other, their once-solid fraternal bond fraying under the relentless pressure. Valerius watched them, his own grief and fury turning into a cold, hard resentment. His sons were failing him, crumbling before a single, relentless foe.
Kaelen also started leaving "gifts" closer to the castle. A freshly killed stag, its throat torn out, left on the outer ramparts, its antlers adorned with a scrap of blood-soaked cloth from one of Valerius's fallen knights. A dead crow, nailed to the castle gate with a small, sharpened bone, its wings spread like a macabre omen. These acts were designed not to kill, but to terrify, to remind them that he was always near, always watching.
The paranoia within the castle swelled. Knights began to distrust each other, whispers of a phantom killer, a demon born of ash, spreading through the ranks. Desertions, though few, began to occur. Lord Valerius, once a figure of absolute authority, now raged against invisible enemies, his commands growing increasingly erratic and cruel. His vassals, once loyal, began to question his grip on power. This sustained, insidious assault was far more damaging than any open siege.
One night, under the cover of a freezing fog that rolled in from the river, Kaelen made his most audacious move yet. He approached the castle from the south, where a less-used servants' entrance provided a subtle weakness. This door led into the sprawling kitchens and pantries, a constant hub of activity during the day, but quiet and vulnerable at night.
He bypassed the single, sleepy guard, a quick, merciful death. Kaelen didn't linger in the kitchens. His target was the main hall, where the Valerius family would break their fast each morning. He moved like a specter through the dark corridors, the familiar scent of woodsmoke and stale food filling his nostrils.
He found the great hall empty, shrouded in oppressive silence. Kaelen walked to the large, oak dining table where Valerius and his sons ate. He retrieved a small, intricately carved wooden bird, a tiny wren, from his pouch. It was a toy, made by his father, a gift for his sister Elara, who had loved the wrens that nested near their home. He had salvaged it from the ashes of Elara's Point.
With deliberate care, he placed the small, wooden wren on Lord Valerius's intricately carved chair, right where the Lord would sit. Then, using a piece of charred wood he'd collected from his own ruined home, Kaelen scrawled a single, chilling word on the tabletop, directly in front of the chair:
REMEMBER.
He faded back into the shadows, leaving the tiny, innocent toy and the stark warning to be discovered with the morning light. The cold, crushing grip of his revenge was tightening. Soon, Valerius and his sons would have nowhere left to hide.