Darius was the kingdom’s sharpest sword. A general with an army at his back, a wife waiting at home, and a daughter who still believed her father could frighten monsters away. Then the throne fell. By morning, his name was treason, his own soldiers were hunting him, and his family was dead.
- ◈ The Fire They should have finished the job.
Darius was the kingdom’s sharpest sword. A general with an army at his back, a wife waiting at home, and a daughter who still believed her father could frighten monsters away. Then the throne fell. By morning, his name was treason, his own soldiers were hunting him, and his family was dead.
- ◈ The Exile A blade for hire. A man already dead.
Hunted across the kingdoms, he survives as a sword for whoever pays. Grief drowned in violence and shadow. The general is gone. What remains is a man waiting for the world to finish what it started.
- ◈ The Serpent A dead serpent on the door.
Two years later, at the frozen edge of Aelysia, someone nails a dead serpent to his door. The trail leads underground, to a half-starved girl in chains. Her name is Lyra. And the men hunting her answer to the same shadow that swallowed his family.
- ◈ The Council A hand at the back of the throne.
Behind the crown, something older moves. A hidden council of blood and whispers. Priests with holy symbols and innocent blood on their hands. Mercenaries who fight not for gold, but for ruin.
- ◈ The Choice Not for mercy. For leverage.
So he takes her. Every mile south, the hunters close in. The land itself is beginning to answer Lyra. And the girl he took for leverage is becoming the one thing he never intended to have again. Someone to lose.
