📖 POV – Soren Vask
The war table burned with red markers. Kalvoria's borders. The convoy route. The enemy's stronghold.
All of it traced before my eyes.
I had sent many men into fire. Watched them rise. Watched them burn.
But today… it was different.
Today, it was the boy. Daniel.
The son of a man who despised our ranks, yet the boy himself chose to bleed for us.
Reports came in, messengers storming the chamber.
"Convoy made it past the first ambush."
"Enemy outpost under heavy assault."
"Commander 347 holds the line."
Commander. Not boy. Not son of a minister.
No—today, the battlefield would carve his title deeper than ink.
I leaned over the map, my fist clenched.
If he failed, I would bear it. If he triumphed, I would push him higher, no matter who cursed me for it.
Chris trusted me. Forever faithful, I swore. That oath chained me tighter than blood.
And because of that oath, I saw something in Daniel that others didn't: the spark. The same cold fire I once saw in Chris when he rose.
The chamber doors opened—Amara's envoy, quick, sharp-eyed.
"The Queen asks if the boy will survive Kalvoria."
I gave no hesitation.
"He will not just survive. He will break them."
But when I looked down at the map again, my hand stayed still on Kalvoria's mark.
Because even as I said it, I knew… the boy's trial had only begun.
The roar of Blackwood was about to shake another land.
And I, Soren Vask, would make sure the king heard every echo of it.
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