Dawn crept slow and cold over the pine-crusted ridges. The world was quiet—too quiet for a forest at first light. No birdsong. No rustling. Only the shallow breaths of men crouched behind stone and root, waiting.
Kaelen adjusted his grip on the spear. Its haft still bore splinters from yesterday's drill—split and crude. He'd wrapped it in leather and reinforced it with a sliver of iron pried from a wagon's axle. It would hold. He'd make sure of it.
Beside him, the old man crouched low, eyes scanning the slope below.
"There," the elder rasped, pointing with a dirt-stained hand.
At the treeline, a figure broke from the foliage—a man, wild-eyed and staggering, robes torn and sodden with mud. He limped, cradling something close to his chest. Behind him, black-armored soldiers surged forward with grim precision, their boots cracking frost on the grass.
Kaelen's gaze narrowed. The armor was unmistakable—blackened sigilplate, serpent-patterned, with a silver-crowned serpent coiled across each cuirass.
Velmireth Hold.
He remembered the old man's voice, two nights past:
"That noble dominion festers north of the trade road. They breed cruelty like hounds breed teeth".
Velmireth Hold wasn't just a dominion—it was a prison forged from fear and ruthless ambition. Nestled in the jagged northern foothills, its blackened stone towers clawed at the sky like the talons of some ancient beast. Its people wore the scars of a brutal hierarchy, ruled not by law or honor, but by the iron will of the Velmireth family—a lineage known across the northern borders for breeding cruelty like war dogs breed teeth.
Where most realms prized skill or bloodline, Velmireth carved obedience into flesh itself. Their sigilcrafters—twisted artisans of pain—marked prisoners and dissidents with runes that burned like fire beneath the skin, branding them as property, as warnings. The flesh glyphs were both prison and whip, binding soul and body to the will of their lords. Torture was routine, a language spoken in every hall and courtyard.
Velmireth soldiers marched beneath blackened sigilplate etched with a silver serpent crowned in coils, a symbol whispered among nearby lands as a harbinger of despair. The serpent crowned with silver was no myth but a chilling promise: they would hunt you, strike with venom, and leave no mercy.
Those who dared to teach forbidden arts—sigilcraft to the unbound, knowledge stolen from the strict caste of Velmireth—were hunted with the ferocity of starving wolves. Captured, they were broken, branded, and forced to forget or die screaming in the dungeons carved beneath the hold's granite foundations. Some said the Hold's dungeons were filled with the echoes of those who resisted, voices caught in endless torment, and that the cold stone itself seemed to drink despair.
Kaelen's scouts had whispered tales of forced conscription, families torn apart to fuel endless wars, and blood rituals performed to bind soldiers to their commanders with twisted magic. Velmireth's cruelty was methodical, cold, and unyielding—an institution built on fear and total control.
The fleeing man they'd saved, Taren, bore these marks not only on his skin but etched deep in his soul. The jagged glyph branded onto his arm was not just a punishment—it was a brand of ownership and a tool for domination. It was a cruel warning to anyone who might dream of freedom or justice outside Velmireth's grasp.
But in sparing this man, in embracing his knowledge, Kaelen was lighting a spark in the darkness. A spark that Velmireth feared more than any sword or siege—because knowledge and defiance could not be chained, and a branded man could still rise in rebellion.
Kaelen raised a hand. His scouts froze.
Sera lay prone atop the ridge, bowstring taut. Her eyes shifted between Kaelen and the clearing. No signal needed. She was ready—waiting for the trap to spring.
The soldiers closed in.
The fleeing man fell to one knee, hand pressed against the earth. For a breathless moment, nothing moved.
Then light flared.
A ripple of force surged outward from his palm, flinging leaves and frost in a spiraling burst. Two soldiers stumbled back, their footing shattered.
Sigils.
"Now," Kaelen barked.
From the shadows, his fighters struck. Spears bit into flanks. Arrows whispered from above. Sera's first shaft buried itself in a man's throat. Another soldier screamed as a blade caught him behind the knee.
The fight was short—and brutal. These soldiers hadn't come for a battle. Kaelen's group, once a rabble, now moved with trained silence and hardened intent. No mercy. No hesitation.
By the time the last man fell, the hunted stranger had collapsed against a tree, blood streaking his chin.
Kaelen knelt beside him. The man clutched a bronze disc, cracked down the center, inscribed with broken sigils. His fingers trembled but still traced lines across the metal.
The old man leaned in. "Crafted, not cast," he muttered. "This one wasn't born into Noctus. He learned it. Studied it."
The stranger's eyes flickered open. "You're... not them?"
Kaelen shook his head. "You're safe. For now."
The man exhaled, tension leaving him like a dying fire. "Taren. My name is Taren."
Sera dropped into a crouch beside Kaelen, eyes scanning Taren's wounds. "He was bleeding before the fight. They weren't chasing him—they were finishing something."
"They branded me," Taren whispered. He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a jagged glyph carved into his flesh—part ritual, part torture. "They said I betrayed Velmireth… for teaching sigilcraft to the unbound."
Kaelen stared at the mark. They carve obedience into flesh. Then we will carve defiance into steel.
He nodded. "Then you'll fit right in."
They brought him back under pine and snowfall, avoiding the path the soldiers came from. Sentries moved quietly, steady hands now guiding the wounded. They knew their roles. They moved with drills in their bones—Kaelen's fingerprints in every step.
No one spoke over the fire that night. They listened.
Taren, swaddled in cloaks and clutching his cracked sigil disc, spoke between shallow breaths. "The Dominion hoards knowledge... restricts craft to bloodlines. I stole fragments. I tried to vanish into merchant roads. But they found me."
Kaelen gestured to the salvaged gear—blades etched with glyphs, bracers that shimmered faintly in firelight.
"You know how to make these work?"
Taren nodded. "More than that—I can teach it."
The old man grunted. "And we can guard it."
Kaelen crouched beside the fire, drawing shapes in the dirt with a charred stick. A boot. A sigil beside it. "We start with scouts. Terrain advantage. Then spears."
Taren studied the markings. "That's... almost right. Here—adjust the balance glyph. Like this." His fingers, still trembling, moved over the dirt, adding a flourish Kaelen hadn't seen before.
A whisper rose from the dark.
"The Scarred Sigil."
Taren blinked. "What?"
The old man smiled dryly. "They're calling you that now. Folk love names. Especially ones that bleed."
Laughter flickered. Not loud. Not long. But real.
At sunrise, drills resumed.
Spears struck cleaner. Shields braced stronger. Boots moved faster.
Their weapons whispered with new strength.
Kaelen stood at the camp's edge that night, watching firelight flicker across bark and frost.
Sera approached, quiet as breath. "I saw you speak with him."
Kaelen didn't turn. "And?"
"It's strange, how fast people change. Survivors into fighters. A fugitive into a teacher."
He didn't look at her. "People become what no one stops them from becoming."
She was silent for a moment. "What are you becoming?"
Kaelen didn't answer.
Later, he knelt beside Taren again. The man's body was broken—burns, lashes, half-healed wounds. Yet his fingers still gripped a half-drawn sigil carved into a belt buckle. A glyph of shielding, incomplete.
Even dying, he'd tried to finish his work.
Kaelen looked to his people. "He's not just surviving. He's unfinished fire. And someone tried to drown the spark."
The old man crouched beside him. "That brand… it's no outlaw's mark. He ran from something high."
Sera approached from the ridge. Her face was tight, voice low. "He wasn't running to live. He turned to fight—even wounded."
Kaelen nodded. "He fought like a man who didn't expect to survive."
"Now he has us," she said.
The moment lingered.
Kaelen rose. "We salvage what we can—armor, sigils, anything marked. Tonight, we learn what they tried to bury."
They had drawn blood. Not in escape. Not in desperation.
In defiance.
And war had finally begun.