This chapter marks the crossing of paths with the hidden stars of the tale—those warriors who do not always dwell in the light of prophecy, yet shape the fate of realms. Enjoy...
As the last light of the dying sun bled into the sky, it bathed the frozen ridges of the Kharvald mountains in molten gold. The cold, jagged spires softened briefly, as if the sun mourned what was to come. Down below, where ancient battles had once painted the earth red, a wide green plain awaited the clash of fate again. The soil remembered blood. It had never forgotten.
There stood the Never-Slayers of Kharvald, silent but unyielding, blades glinting in the last amber rays, their breath rising like mist in the twilight air. They were no mere warriors. They were chosen. Trained to stand against the Never-Weres—twisted fiends born of both light and shadow, neither wholly day nor night, but cursed in-between.
At their helm stood Lior Ren, the woman whom even enemies dared not name lightly. Her presence was like moonlight upon still waters—calm, elegant, yet impossibly deadly. A long white gown clung to her lithe frame, fluttering like a ghost's whisper in the wind. Her hair, black as ravens lost to twilight, flowed behind her as she raised her silver spear—a divine weapon forged in secret fires to pierce the marrow of even the most ancient Never-Were. Her eyes, quiet and knowing, held no fear. Only purpose.
Behind her, a tide of steel and fury. Over three hundred strong, the army of Kharvald stood, ranks glimmering in the dusk, led by The Three Commissioners—each a legend in their own right, high-ranking Never-Slayers forged in the heat of a thousand battles. They moved like shadows and struck like thunder. And tonight, they were poised to reclaim what the darkness had stolen.
At their centre, burning like a star fallen to war, stood Rex-Maul. Though still young, there was nothing innocent about him. His hair was jagged obsidian, and across his cheek ran a scar—old, brutal—left by a Never-Were that had crawled from the night. He bore it like a crown. In his hand was a blade of nightmares, forged from the fossilised bones of Never-Weres slain under dual suns and twin moons. It whispered to him. Hungered with him.
And in his eyes—a glint of red, faint but unholy—was said to dwell the mark of the Never-Curse, a malignant bond between man and monster that fed on the soul. Yet Rex-Maul did not wither. He thrived. The curse did not consume him. He devoured it.
At his flank, her bow already drawn, stood Aeravelle Syndira, mistress of the wind-paths. No target escaped her gaze. Her arrows danced like whispers, curving through the air with impossible grace, always finding the heart of the beast. She claimed Rex as kin, called him little brother—not by blood, but by a bond forged in shared wars and near-deaths. Rex, for his part, remained cool, distant. Bonds were weaknesses in his eyes... yet hers was the only voice he never silenced.
Then came a tremor in the earth.
And with it, Myrrakain stepped forward.
A colossus in both beauty and brutality, she towered over all. Titan-blood surged through her veins—blood old enough to remember the First Wars. With muscles carved from granite and eyes that shimmered with unspoken truths, she bore her war hammer, a behemoth of cold steel said to have shattered mountains in the Old World. Each swing was a hymn of ruin. Each breath, a warning. Though her spirit was kind and her heart open, she kept secrets locked beneath her skin—secrets that could unmake kings.
And now, beneath the golden hush of dusk, these legends stood together—warriors carved from myth, shadows clad in steel. Their eyes faced the darkness gathering before them.
For the Never-Weres had come.
And the ground would soon drink blood once more.