How does it feel to see your god bleed?
It feels like the end of the world.
The fear was a living thing.
It coiled in Adrian's stomach, cold and heavy. His father's command, hard as iron, rooted him to the spot just inside the doorway.
Outside, the world was white and silent. A beautiful lie.
Inside, the world was tense and gray. A terrible truth.
His mother, Elara, moved with a frantic, desperate energy he had never seen.
Her hands, usually so calm and steady, were trembling as she pulled at the heavy bearskin rug in the center of the room.
"Kazimir, no," she pleaded, her voice a strained whisper. "We can still run. The passage to the eastern caves…"
"There is no running," Kazimir's voice cut through her words like a blade. "Not anymore. They would hunt us to the ends of the earth. The stand is here. The stand is now."
He was no longer Adrian's father.
He was a general preparing for his final battle.
He strode to a large, wooden chest that had sat untouched in the corner for as long as Adrian could remember. He kicked it open.
Inside was not blankets or books.
Inside was death.
Black, hardened leather armor. Steel gauntlets. A dark, horned helmet that looked like it had been forged in a nightmare.
The armor of the Ashen Wolf.
As Kazimir began to strap on the pieces of his old life, Elara finally tore the rug away, revealing a dark, iron ring set in a heavy wooden trapdoor. The door to their escape. The door to the dark, damp earth.
She tugged at it, her face pale with exertion and terror.
"Adrian, help me!" she cried, her voice cracking.
But Adrian could not move. He was mesmerized by the transformation happening before him.
His father was disappearing, piece by piece, replaced by a dark, terrifying stranger.
Then, the sound came.
It started as a low, rhythmic thudding that vibrated through the floorboards.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound of a giant, approaching heartbeat.
It was the sound of marching feet. Heavy, armored feet, crunching through the pure, white snow.
And with it, a new sound. The jingle of steel. The creak of leather.
The sounds of an army.
The thudding stopped. The silence that followed was worse.
It was the silence of a predator that has found its prey.
Then, a voice boomed through the valley. It was not a normal voice. It was amplified by magic, a monstrous, echoing sound that shook the very logs of the cottage.
"KAZIMIR VOLKOV!"
The name was a curse, a judgment thrown down from a wrathful god.
"BY THE AUTHORITY OF GRANDMASTER VALERIUS AND THE ADAMANTINE ORDER, YOU ARE CONDEMNED! TRAITOR! CONSORT OF BEASTS!"
"SURRENDER YOURSELF AND THE BEAST-CHILD, AND YOUR DEATHS WILL BE SWIFT!"
Beast-child? The word hit Adrian like a stone. They mean me.
Elara gasped, her eyes flying to Adrian.
But Kazimir… Kazimir laughed.
It was not the warm, rumbling laugh Adrian knew. It was a low, harsh, mirthless sound. The laugh of a wolf cornered by dogs.
He finished strapping on his last gauntlet. He picked up the horned helmet.
He did not put it on. He held it in the crook of his arm.
He hefted the greatsword from its place by the hearth. The weapon, a monstrous thing of dark iron, looked like a natural extension of his arm.
"They sent knights," he growled, more to himself than to anyone. "Fools. They should have sent an army."
He strode to the door.
"Kazimir, wait!" Elara cried, finally getting the heavy trapdoor open. A gust of cold, earthy air rose from the darkness below.
"Your promise!" she pleaded. "You promised to live! For him!"
Kazimir paused at the door, his back to them.
"I will keep my promise," he said, his voice strangely soft. "I will live. But first… I must teach them why the world gave me my name."
And with that, he kicked the door open before they could break it down.
He stepped out into the swirling snow.
What happened next was a blur of violence that burned itself into Adrian's memory.
It was a butcher's ballet.
From the doorway, Adrian saw them. At least twenty of them. Knights in the polished steel armor of the Order, their swords and shields raised. Mages stood behind them, their hands already glowing with arcane energy.
They were a wall of steel and death.
And his father charged them. Alone.
He did not move like a man. He moved like a storm. A force of nature.
He was a whirlwind of gray steel and righteous fury. His greatsword was not a blade; it was a blur, a silver arc of death that seemed to be everywhere at once.
The first knight, confident in his shield and armor, met the charge. Kazimir's sword shattered the shield, clove through the man's helmet, and continued down. The knight fell in two neat, steaming halves.
Blood, shockingly red against the pure white snow, sprayed the air.
The wall of steel broke.
Elara was pulling at him, trying to drag him toward the open cellar door.
"Adrian, we have to go! Now! This is what he wants!"
But Adrian was frozen. His mind could not process what he was seeing.
This was his father. The man who taught him to carve wood. The man who held his hand.
And he was a monster. A beautiful, terrible, avenging monster.
He watched as his father spun, his sword decapitating one knight and gutting another in a single, fluid motion. He watched as his father used the pommel of his sword to crush the face of a third.
The mages in the back began to chant, their voices a discordant chorus.
Bolts of arcane fire, crackling and orange, shot through the air. They hissed as they melted the snow around his father's feet.
One struck Kazimir in the shoulder.
The armor glowed red-hot. His father roared, a sound of pain and fury that shook the valley.
But he did not fall.
The roar turned into a charge. He ignored the knights closest to him and sprinted toward the mages. He was a charging bull, an unstoppable force. He cleaved through two more knights who tried to block his path.
He reached the mages. Their chanting turned to screams.
The screaming did not last long.
Elara had him now, her arms wrapped around his small chest, pulling him backward, away from the carnage, toward the darkness of the cellar.
"Don't look, my love, don't look!" she sobbed into his hair.
But he could not look away.
He was watching his god bleed.
And he was watching him win.
But there were too many of them.
For every knight that fell, another two seemed to take his place, their swords hacking and stabbing at the lone, dark figure.
His father was slowing down. The movements, once so fluid, were becoming heavier. His armor was dented and hacked. Blood, his blood, was now mixing with the blood of his enemies, turning the snow a dark, slushy crimson.
Then, a new figure stepped through the chaos.
He was not like the other knights. His armor was ornate, gilded with gold that gleamed even in the gray twilight. He held no sword.
His hands glowed with a sickly, corrupt purple light.
It was Grandmaster Valerius. The man whose name was a curse.
"Enough of this, beast-lover," Valerius sneered, his voice dripping with condescending power.
He thrust his hands forward.
Chains of purple energy, crackling and ethereal, shot out from his palms. They were not real chains, but they were more solid than any steel.
They wrapped around Kazimir, around his arms, his chest, his legs. They dug into his flesh, and where they touched, his armor sizzled and smoked.
Kazimir strained, the muscles in his back bulging, his teeth clenched in a terrible grimace.
But the chains held. The Ashen Wolf was trapped.
He was on his knees.
Elara screamed. A sound of pure, soul-shattering despair.
She let go of Adrian.
"NO!"
She ran out into the snow, into the heart of the battle, her hands glowing with the soft, green light of her healing magic.
She ran toward her husband, a dove flying into a pack of wolves.
"Leave him alone!" she cried, her voice a plea and a command.
Valerius merely glanced at her, a look of bored contempt on his face.
"The beast's pet. How quaint."
He made a small, dismissive flicking motion with his fingers.
One of the knights, freed from Kazimir's onslaught, turned.
He raised his sword.
And drove it through Elara's chest.
The world went silent.