The Iron Prince stood at the edge of his citadel's highest rampart, the horizon a sea of smoke and steel.
Below him, the Legions of the Forged assembled. Rows upon rows of soldiers born not from wombs but from the crucible , flesh bound to iron, hearts replaced by cores that pulsed with pale lightning. The sound of their march wasn't footsteps. It was thunder disguised as rhythm.
The city , Vharan , was alive. Every spire was a conduit, every bridge a vein. Energy moved through it like blood through a god that had forgotten how to die.
Varok did not blink as the storms turned above him. He had called them , enslaved them. The sky here did not move on its own.
His lieutenant, a towering figure in armor black as wet stone, approached and bowed. "My lord. The scouts confirm it , the one from the west awakened something in the Pale Expanse."
Varok's eyes , molten iron in a man's face , shifted slightly. "Describe it."
"They say the air rippled. Lightning took form. It became… construct."
"Construct." He tasted the word as if it were old wine. "So he has reached the Forge."
The lieutenant hesitated. "Is that what it was called? In the records of the Old Cycle?"
Varok smiled, faintly. It wasn't warmth. It was memory cutting through bone. "No. In the Old Cycle, it was called the Breath of the First Storm. The Forge was only what men called it when they tried to control it."
He turned from the balcony and began to descend the spiral of steel steps that led into the heart of the citadel. As he walked, the walls lit , reacting to his presence. The metal remembered him.
"The boy," Varok said as they moved through the corridors, "has no idea what he carries. That storm inside him is not a gift. It is an inheritance. One that burned worlds before this one learned to crawl."
"Should I send the Vanguard?" the lieutenant asked.
"Not yet."
Varok stopped before a great iron gate carved with symbols older than language , circles, lines, patterns like fractured lightning. He pressed a palm to it, and the metal moved, flowing open like water solidified.
Beyond it lay the Vault of Echoes.
The air shimmered with imprisoned storms , fragments of raw weather, trapped inside spheres of glass and bronze. Each pulsed to a rhythm that could drive a mortal mad.
"This is where I first learned the storm's language," Varok said quietly. "Before I wore a crown. Before I shed flesh. I begged the skies for power, and it answered , not with mercy, but with memory."
He looked over his shoulder. "Tell me, Commander, do you know why lightning remembers?"
The armored man shook his head.
"Because it records. Every strike writes itself into the fabric of the world , a flash of perfect truth that cannot lie. That is why he feels it. That is why he hears me when I do not speak."
Varok moved to one of the spheres, resting his hand on the glass. A vision rippled within , a battlefield made of ash and thunder, and a figure standing amidst it. Kaelion Stormborn, his eyes bright with unshaped light.
Varok studied the image like a scholar facing a familiar riddle.
"Eryndor," he said softly. "So the storm remembers you too."
The commander shifted uneasily. "That name again. Who was he?"
"The first stormbearer," Varok said. "The one who almost broke the gods before the world ended the last time. He wielded the Forge before it had a name."
He stepped back from the sphere, the reflection of Kael fading into shadow.
"Send word to the Forgewrights. Begin activation of the March Engines. If the storm has awakened in the west, we will answer with iron from the east."
The commander nodded, saluted, and left with the sound of boots striking metal like war drums.
Varok remained.
He closed his eyes, reaching through the link that pulsed faintly in his chest , the same pulse that once tied him to divinity before it was torn away.
And through that pulse, he felt it , Kael's heartbeat, steady and wild, resonating through the storm like a mirror.
You forge it like a child shapes fire, Varok thought. But fire has always belonged to gods, boy.
He descended deeper into the citadel, into the Anvil Halls. Here, the air shimmered with heat, and the clang of hammers echoed from unseen depths. Giants of metal worked ceaselessly, pounding molten steel into weapons that breathed faint sparks.
They were not alive. But they dreamed.
He approached a dais where a massive structure rested , an engine shaped like a ribcage forged from the bones of a fallen god. Lightning pulsed through it like trapped veins.
The Forgemasters bowed as he arrived. "The March Engine awaits command, my prince."
Varok raised a hand, tracing a slow circle in the air. The lightning obeyed, coiling like a serpent before sinking into the machine.
The ground trembled.
From the city's lower tiers, a roar rose , not of beasts, but of machines waking from slumber.
The Iron March had begun.
He watched as massive constructs unfolded their limbs , warforms the size of towers, their spines lined with glowing conduits. They moved in unison, each footfall syncing with the rhythm of thunder.
Above, the enslaved storms swirled tighter, drawn toward the call.
Varok turned to his aide. "Every army believes itself chosen. But the storm never chooses sides , only shapes. Tell them to remember that when they march."
"Yes, my lord."
As the aide left, Varok stood alone again, surrounded by the hum of power. He tilted his head slightly, listening.
The storm beyond the horizon had shifted again. He could feel it , Kael's pulse flaring brighter, shaping, adapting. The storm was beginning to think for itself.
He almost smiled.
"Good," he said softly. "You're learning. The storm doesn't serve you , it tests you. Survive it, and you might just become what the gods feared."
He turned and began to walk toward the outer gates as the Iron March thundered to life.
The great engines screamed as they tore through the valley, leaving molten trails behind. Lightning crawled across their armor like veins of living light.
And above it all, Varok's voice rose through the comm-net, carried by the resonance of storm itself , cold, certain, and commanding.
"Legions of the Forged. The sky itself has woken a pretender. We march to remind it who holds dominion. When thunder speaks, let it speak our name."
The roar that answered wasn't human. It was metal given purpose.
Varok stepped into the storm as it opened around him, a vast aurora of light and violence. The winds bent at his passing. The lightning curved to his will.
But beneath that composure, a sliver of memory stirred , a time when he, too, had been mortal. When he had knelt before a god made of light and asked for power to save his people.
The god had refused.
So he killed it.
Now, the echo of that day burned in his veins, whispering the truth that Kael had yet to learn:
Power that remembers never forgives.
Varok lifted his hand, and the horizon bled gold.
The storm howled back, and the march began.