The wind cut sharper the morning we left. Not with hatred—no, not the kind that bites out of anger. This was something older. Something heavier. The kind of wind that carried the weight of unspoken goodbyes and the silence of futures already carved in stone.
General Crane didn't speak as he saddled the horses. He rarely did. His silence was its own kind of speech—louder than shouts, more punishing than words. Every glance from him was a command. Every pause, a judgment.
I tightened the buckles on my saddle, fingers moving through the rhythm I'd repeated a thousand times before. My blade—blackened steel with crimson grooves—rested against my hip like it belonged there. It had no name. Like me, it wasn't given one. We both existed outside the stories that children whispered around hearth fires. We didn't belong in songs.
Before mounting, I crouched beside my mother's bedside and pressed the rim of a wooden cup to her lips. Her mouth was barely parted, breath soft and slow, like a dying wind.
"Drink," I whispered.
She didn't respond. She hadn't in years. Since the day I was born, she had remained locked in that sleep. Her face had not aged the way it should have—she was like something suspended in time, waiting to be pulled back by a miracle that never came.
I wiped her lips clean, brushing a strand of silver-white hair from her cheek. It shimmered faintly in the morning light—same shade as mine, though hers looked thinner now. Fragile. Like frost ready to melt at the touch.
"I'll come back for you," I told her. "And when I do, we won't be ghosts anymore."
She said nothing.
But I swear I felt her breathe just a little deeper.
Maybe that was enough.
---
We rode out before the sun finished rising. Crane led, as always. His broad back straight, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his massive blade. The horse beneath him moved with the confidence of a creature that had seen too many battles to fear another.
Mine was younger, black-coated and restless, eager beneath me. I gripped the reins tight and glanced back at the cabin—the only home I'd ever known.
It wasn't much to look at. A squat stone house perched high on the mountain's edge, where snow never fully melted and wolves howled like old gods in mourning. There were no carved pillars, no painted doors, no tapestries of old battles hanging on the walls. Just wood, stone, smoke, and blood. The kind of place you survive in, not live.
Still… it had kept me alive.
It had kept her alive.
I turned away.
We rode south. Down the jagged trails of the Frostpass Ridge, through narrow paths thick with pine and ice. We avoided the roads. Crane said it was the King's order. "let the wolves move before the sheepknow they're missing. " His words were always like that—carved from stone, heavy and sharp.
We passed no travelers. No wagons. No guards. Just endless wind and silence that seeped into your bones.
Each night we camped, I trained.
No matter how long we rode, no matter how raw my legs felt, I rose and drew steel. Crane never told me to. He didn't need to. The only warmth I knew came from the fire in my muscles and the blade in my hand.
While others learned to dance, I learned to bleed.
While they sipped wine and whispered promises in candlelight, I learned to kill in the dark.
---
On the seventh morning, we saw the spires of Delyra.
It rose from the earth like a wound of black stone and golden flame. The capital was nothing like I remembered—because I remembered nothing. My mother was sent into exile the night I was born. And me… I wasn't supposed to live long enough to see this place again.
But something inside me remembered.
The city was steeped in the scent of burning myrrh and steel. Walls high and crowned with golden spears.Banners bearing the crest of my father, King Dematricus, fluttered above arched gates—midnight blue stitched with a silver wolf and crimson flame.
Crane rode through like he'd never left. The guards barely glanced at him before opening the gates.
One of them looked at me. Just for a moment.
He didn't recognize me.
Good.
Let them keep their peace.
Let them believe I never existed.
---
The city of Delyra was noise, heat, stone. Horses clattered through cobbled streets. Merchants barked out prices. Guards patrolled in shining armor. Children chased each other through alleys, laughing like the world wasn't cracked in half.
But when I passed, voices died.
People stepped back. A mother pulled her child away by the arm. A man dropped his sack of apples without noticing.
They didn't know who I was.
But something in them did.
My white hair. My pale, pupil-less eyes. The way my blade didn't rattle, didn't shift, like it had fused to my body. I didn't walk like a woman. I didn't move like prey.
I moved like the storm.
We dismounted at the palace stairs. Thirty black-stone steps carved with the stories of old wars—battles I had never been allowed to hear about. I could feel them beneath my boots as I climbed, every etched sword and shield a reminder of victories I'd never been meant to share.
At the top, I turned to Crane.
He nodded.
"You walk alone from here."
I expected that.
This was never meant to be a reunion.
This was a test.
A spectacle.
A warning.
---
The palace doors opened into silence.
The throne room of Delyra was a thing carved from wealth and shadow. Pillars rose like tree trunks toward a ceiling I couldn't see. Braziers burned with blue fire. The walls shimmered with threads of gold sewn into night-black velvet.
And at the end of it all, seated on a throne of obsidian and wolfbone… was my father.
King Dematricus.
He looked like a statue carved from war. Broad, unyielding, robed in black armor lined with crimson. His beard had gone silver at the chin, but there was no weakness in him. His eyes were still sharp enough to cut stone.
And cold enough to never have known love.
The nobles beside him fell silent as I entered. Their whispers stopped. Their breath stopped. I didn't look at them.
I looked only at him.
I did not bow.
I did not speak.
He studied me.
And then, after a long silence, he leaned forward.
"You've grown."
I said nothing.
"You were born with no name," he continued. "No title. No place. The people feared you. The gods cursed you. And yet… here you are. Standing where no cursed thing should stand."
I met his gaze.
"You summoned a monster, Father. And the monster came."
His lip curled slightly. Whether it was amusement or disgust, I couldn't tell.
"You'll lead the Second Army," he said. "At dawn. Take Sevila. And perhaps Delyra will remember your name."
I turned to leave.
But just before I reached the doors, I looked back.
My voice was quiet, but it carried.
"They won't just remember me."