Chapter 1
The Boy Who Survived the Flames
The day Arlen Vaelor's world ended began like charcoall .
The wind carried the smell of wheat and woodsmoke over the countryside of Barivein as he ran barefoot between the houses, laughing, chasing after other children. Chickens scattered in his path, an old dog barked lazily from the shade, and somewhere his mother was shouting his name because dinner was getting cold.
To seven–year–old Arlen, the world was small and safe. The village was the whole of existence; the rest of the continent of Camberien was nothing but stories told by tired men around dying fires.
That illusion shattered before sunset.
At first it was only a vibration in the ground, a distant trembling that made the cups on the table rattle. Then came the muffled thunder of hooves, growing louder and louder until even the animals began to panic. Doors opened, heads appeared at windows, conversations stopped mid–sentence.
"Riders?" someone muttered. "Merchants?"
Arlen stepped out into the road and squinted toward the far end of the village, shading his eyes with one small hand. He saw dust, shapes, the gleam of metal.
What reached them was not trade.
It was fire and steel.
The bandits poured into the village like a wave—men with scarred faces and wild eyes, carrying torches and curved blades. The first scream split the air. Then another. Farmers ran for their homes, mothers grabbed their children, doors slammed, but it was too late. The raiders were already among them.
"Arlen!" his mother shouted, appearing from nowhere, grabbing his arm so hard it hurt. "Inside, now!"
He stumbled as she pulled him into their small house. The wooden walls shook with the noise outside—shouting, crying, the crash of something heavy being overturned. She pushed him behind a crate of grain and knelt in front of him, hands on his shoulders, eyes wide and fierce.
"Listen to me," she said. "You stay here. You stay quiet. No matter what happens, do you understand?"
He nodded, but his lip trembled. "Mama, what's happening? Who are they?"
Her gaze flicked toward the door as someone ran past outside. The shadows moved like knives.
"They are bad men," she said. "That's all you need to know. You stay hidden. Don't move. Don't make a sound."
She cupped his face for a heartbeat, kissed his forehead, then stood and turned toward the door.
He never got to answer.
The door burst inward with a crash and a spray of splinters. A tall man stepped through, torch in one hand, blade in the other, his face wrapped in a filthy cloth. His eyes swept the room and locked onto Arlen's mother.
She grabbed the nearest thing—an old wooden stool—and swung it with a cry. It shattered against his arm. The blow barely slowed him. He snarled, shoved her hard enough to send her sprawling, and kicked the crate aside, revealing Arlen's hiding place.
A hand like iron clamped in his hair and yanked him out. Arlen screamed as the man lifted him easily off the floor.
"Stop!" his mother shouted, lunging at the bandit, clawing at his arm, hitting him, biting. "Not my son! Take me instead!"
The bandit's answer was a flash of steel.
For the rest of his life, Arlen would never be sure if he saw the blade before or after it sank into her chest. He only remembered the way her eyes widened, the way her mouth opened without sound, the way her fingers slid from his arm as she collapsed to the floor.
The scream that tore out of him felt like it might rip his throat apart. The bandit only laughed, slung him over his shoulder like a sack of grain, and walked out into the burning light.
The village was an inferno. Houses blazed, roofs collapsing, smoke rolling into the evening sky. Men lay broken in the dirt. Women were dragged toward wagons, tied and thrown in like bundles. Children cried until their voices cracked.
Arlen was thrown into a cart with half a dozen other children. The wheels rattled, the horses strained, and slowly the village of his childhood began to shrink behind him, swallowed by smoke and rising embers.
He watched until he couldn't see it anymore.
In that moment he learned the first rule of life in Camberien:
The weak were not allowed to scream.
They traveled for days. The bandits barely fed them, stopping only when the horses needed water. Some children cried until they had no tears left. Others stared blankly ahead. Arlen sat in the corner of the wagon, knees hugged to his chest, eyes burned dry, her last look burned into his memory.
They crossed rivers and hills, left Barivein behind, passed through lands he didn't know. Names like Groniy and Liovia had been stories to him once; now they were horizons he was dragged across as property.
At the border of the Empire of Loronoce, the bandits smiled wider. Empire land meant markets. Markets meant buyers. Buyers meant money.
The slave market was a chaos of voices and colors—stone walls stained with age, wooden platforms, lines of chained humans. Arlen was shoved up among other children, ordered to stand straight, to open his mouth so they could see his teeth, to turn around so men with cold eyes could judge his price.
He didn't understand the words they used, but he understood being held like an animal.
A noble family from Loronoce bought him, almost as an afterthought. They were known as House Elevar, and even among the empire they had a reputation for cruelty. To them, slaves were tools, and tools were used until they broke.
Arlen's life narrowed to work.
He scrubbed floors until his hands bled and the stone shone beneath his rags. He carried loads too heavy for his small frame, staggered under buckets of water up long flights of stairs, washed dishes in water so cold his fingers went numb. A mistake meant a beating. Slipping, dropping something, moving too slowly—that was enough for lashes.
Sometimes he fainted. Sometimes he woke with water splashing his face and a voice shouting at him to stand, to move, to work.
At seven, he should have been learning to read, to write, to dream.
Instead, he learned to endure.
He learned to keep his head down and his eyes open. He learned how far each overseer would go, which ones liked to hurt, which ones just wanted the job done. He learned how long a man could work without collapsing. He learned how it felt to sleep on cold stone and wake with every muscle aching.
And he learned to hate the empire.
After two years, House Elevar decided he was no longer useful inside the estate. He was growing, still thin but tougher, less likely to collapse on a long march. They sold him again, this time to a different kind of master.
The Loronocean Military Slave Program did not want servants. It wanted bodies.
They chained him with others—boys his age, boys older, boys who shook with fear and boys who stared with empty eyes—and marched them to a training camp far from the city. With every step, Arlen felt the weight of the chains between his wrists, the metal biting into skin already scarred.
The training officers didn't care about names. They cared about obedience. Wooden spears were thrown at them, barked commands followed, and anyone who hesitated felt the crack of a whip.
"Forward!" "Strike!" "Block!" "Again!" "Again!"
Blisters burst and bled. Arms shook. Some boys collapsed and did not get up again.
Arlen pushed through the pain. He had no choice. But every movement he learned, every stance, every formation, every rhythm of march—he memorized it not as a slave, but as a student.
Not because he wanted to serve Loronoce. Because one day, the empire would pay.
They fed them just enough to keep them alive, never enough to make them strong. Sleep came in short, cold hours. The officers called them dogs, tools, meat for the empire's wars.
At ten years old, Arlen was given a real spear and pushed into formation with other slave soldiers. They were marched toward the border—the border of his homeland, the kingdom of Barivein.
The officer walking past the column laughed.
"You fight today, little rats. You die for the empire. That is your honor."
Honor, Arlen thought, staring at the man's back, is not killing your own people.
The clash with Barivein soldiers came at dawn. Mist clung to the ground as the two forces faced each other across a field scarred by previous battles. Trumpets sounded, banners snapped in the cold wind, steel flashed.
The slaves were thrown to the front.
"Advance!" a Loronocean commander roared.
Arlen marched with the others, spear shaking in his hands, heart pounding so hard it hurt. Ahead, he could see the enemy line—armor dull, shields worn. Barivein's army was poorer, smaller, less organized.
But it was his.
When the first arrows fell, boys screamed and dropped around him, some clutching shattered legs, others falling without a sound. Shouts turned into chaos. Men pushed, fell, tripped. The formation broke.
And in that chaos, Arlen saw a chance.
He deliberately swung his spear wide, missing his mark, stumbled as if struck, and let the press of bodies push him sideways. He ducked under a wild blow, dropped his weapon, and ran.
He didn't run toward the enemy or back toward his own lines. He ran sideways, toward the trees at the edge of the battlefield. Shouts rose behind him, but arrows were aimed at soldiers, not at one small boy disappearing into the mist.
Branches whipped his face as he crashed into the forest. He ran until his lungs burned, until his legs felt like they would snap, until the sound of battle was distant thunder.
Finally, he collapsed behind a fallen log, gasping for breath, clutching the dirt with shaking hands.
He had escaped the empire. He had escaped death.
But freedom didn't last long.
A crack of a branch made him freeze. He turned his head slowly and saw boots—worn leather, splattered with mud. He looked up.
A group of Barivein soldiers stood over him, spears lowered, eyes narrowed. They saw only a boy in Loronocean colors, filthy and exhausted, alone in the woods.
One of them grabbed him by the arm and hauled him upright.
"Got another one," he called over his shoulder. "A child soldier."
They bound his wrists and marched him back toward their camp like any other prisoner.
For the first time in years, Arlen walked on Barivein soil. He could smell the smoke of their fires, hear the accent he remembered from his mother's voice. It should have felt like coming home.
It didn't. Not yet.
That night, they kept him with the other prisoners behind a rough wooden fence. The moon hung low and pale above the camp. The Barivein soldiers laughed and argued around their fires, the lines between victory and survival blurred as always in war.
A tall man with a scar running from his left eyebrow down to his cheek approached the prisoners. His armor was old but well kept, his eyes as sharp as knives. He stopped when he saw Arlen.
"You," he said. "Look at me."
Arlen lifted his head slowly.
"What's your name?"
"Arlen," he whispered, his voice dry.
"Why is a child fighting for Loronoce, Arlen?"
The boy swallowed. He could have lied, but he was too tired for lies. So he told the truth.
He told the man about the night the bandits came. About his mother on the floor, about the wagon, about the market where children were sold like animals. About House Elevar and the work that broke bones and never hearts. About the military camp, the endless drills, the first battle, the forest, the run.
He spoke in short sentences, stumbling sometimes, his voice thick. The man listened without interrupting once.
When Arlen finished, silence stretched between them.
At last, the soldier sighed.
"My name is Verin," he said. "I've fought the empire for more than twenty years. I've seen what they do to our people. The fact that you're still alive after all that…" He shook his head slowly. "It's a miracle, boy."
He reached for his belt, drew out a small dagger, and for a terrifying second Arlen thought he had misjudged everything.
Instead, Verin knelt and cut the rope around his wrists.
"For the first time in a long time," he said calmly, "you are no one's slave."
Arlen stared at his freed hands, flexing his fingers slowly, feeling the rough skin, the old scars. The weight of the rope had been there so long it felt strange without it.
Verin's eyes hardened.
"But freedom isn't just the absence of chains. It's what you choose to do with it. Barivein failed you when we couldn't protect your village. I failed you without even knowing your name. Let me ask you this: if what you say is true… will you fight for your birth country?"
The answer rose from somewhere deep inside Arlen, from the night of fire, from the stone floors of House Elevar, from every blow struck in training.
"Yes," he said. "Gladly."
Verin nodded once.
"Then stand up, Arlen Vaelor of Barivein. From this day, you are one of our soldiers."
Years passed.
Arlen grew from a thin, breakable boy into a lean, hardened youth. He trained with real weapons this time, under real commanders who shouted not because they hated him but because they needed him to survive. He learned the drills of Barivein's army, learned how to march in their slower, steadier formations, learned to fight as part of a unit instead of as a disposable tool.
But he also learned something else: his kingdom was weak.
Barivein struggled on all sides. To the east, the Empire of Loronoce pushed their borders, probing for weakness, always hungry for land and resources. To the west, the Kingdom of Groniy tested the frontiers whenever it pleased them, their cavalry dangerous and fast. To the north, Liovia played its own subtle games, trading knowledge for influence.
Barivein had poor soil in many regions, little trade, and a noble class more interested in protecting their own comfort than protecting their people. Its army was underfunded, its armor patched and thin, its weapons reused too many times.
One cold evening, sitting on a low stone wall near the training yard, Arlen watched the sun sink behind the mountains. His hands rested on his knees, scarred knuckles white.
He thought of the empire's discipline, their brutal efficiency. He thought of Barivein's worn shields and tired eyes. He thought of villages like his own, still unprotected, still vulnerable.
The thought came quietly at first, like a whisper he almost didn't notice.
What if I were king?
He almost laughed when it formed.
He was a foot soldier, barely more than a boy. He had no family, no noble blood, no land, no name that anyone important would recognize. He slept in barracks, ate thin stew, and was given orders, not choices.
And yet, the thought didn't leave.
If I were king… I would never let what happened to my village happen again. I would never send children into battle as slaves. I would never turn away from the suffering of my people.
He closed his eyes.
Can someone like me become king?
The question burned. It scared him. But it also woke something inside him that nothing had managed to kill—not the bandits, not the whips, not the battles.
Alone, under a sky growing dark, Arlen Vaelor made a silent promise.
One day, I will stand above all of this. Not to rule for myself, but to change everything.
That was the night the Solo King was born—not in power, but in ambition.
When he turned fourteen, he requested permission to leave active service for a short time and return to his homeland village. Commander Verin, who had become something like the father he never had, frowned at him across the map table.
"You're sure?" Verin asked. "You know Barivein, boy. Sooner or later there will be another war. If it comes, we'll call you back."
Arlen nodded. "If war comes, I will return."
Verin studied him for a moment longer, then sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You've earned that visit. But remember—this land may still need you."
"I won't forget," Arlen said.
The journey back to his village felt longer than the one that had stolen him away. The roads were rough, the inns poor, and the farmers weary. Along the way, he saw the face of Barivein's struggle in every crooked fence and patched roof.
In one busy market town, his steps slowed.
A crowd had gathered around a platform where a slaver was shouting above the murmur of voices.
"Two gold coins for the boy! Strong enough to work, cheap enough not to cry about it!"
Arlen felt his stomach twist. On the platform, a boy about his age stood with his hands bound, bare feet dusty, eyes wide with familiar fear. He was too thin, but there was something solid in the way he stood, something that reminded Arlen of himself years ago.
The slaver saw him looking.
"You, soldier," he called. "Need a servant? Two gold. He eats little, works hard."
Arlen reached slowly into his belt pouch. The coins he pulled out were heavy for him, light for the world.
He stepped forward and held them up. "Untie him."
The slaver's eyes lit up with greed. The rope was cut casually, like removing packaging from a purchased object. The boy staggered as the tension around his wrists released.
Arlen stepped closer.
"You're free," he said simply.
The boy stared at him as if he hadn't understood the words.
"Free?" he whispered. "You… you could have bought me and used me as your slave. Why?"
Arlen's throat tightened. For a second, he saw himself again, on that platform in the empire, when no one had stepped forward.
"Because being a slave isn't living," Arlen said. "Be humble. Be free."
The boy's eyes filled with tears. He slowly sank to his knees on the dusty ground.
"I have no name," he said. "The man who sold me only called me 'boy.' If you give me a name… I will dedicate my life to serving you, my lord. Not as a slave. As a follower."
Something new stirred inside Arlen then—something that felt almost like the first stone of a foundation being laid.
"Stand up," he said quietly. "I'm no lord." He hesitated, then nodded to himself. "Your name is Cerian."
"Cerian," the boy repeated, as if tasting the sound. "I like it."
Arlen extended a hand. Cerian took it and stood.
"Can you use a sword?" Arlen asked.
The boy shook his head. "No. I've never held one."
"Try," Arlen said.
He bought a cheap practice sword from a nearby stall and handed it to him. Cerian gripped it cautiously, then swung once, almost shyly. The blade cut through the air with surprising force. There was strength in his arms despite the thinness, a natural balance in his stance.
Arlen's eyes narrowed.
You have power, he thought. Not like magic. Like steel hidden under cloth.
"Would you like to become my sword, Cerian?" he asked.
A slow, bright smile spread across the boy's face, transforming him.
"Gladly, my lord," Cerian said. "I will become your sword."
By the time Arlen finally walked the familiar path toward his old village, he was not alone. Cerian walked a step behind him, still getting used to freedom, still touching the hilt of the borrowed sword at his side as if to confirm it was real.
The village hadn't burned down this time. It had simply faded.
Houses were standing but patchwork. Fields were planted but thin. Children worked in the fields instead of playing. Old men stood guard with rusted spears because there were no soldiers to send.
Eight years had passed, and nothing had truly changed except that the people were more tired.
Arlen stood at the edge of what had once been his home and felt something tighten in his chest.
One day, he thought, I will make sure no village in Barivein looks like this. Not mine. Not anyone's.
But how?
Kings were born, everyone said, not made. To sit on a throne, you needed bloodlines, lineage, noble papers with fancy seals. He had none of that. He was a soldier and an ex–slave. He had scars instead of documents.
Maybe, he thought slowly, staring at the road leading away from the village, you don't start as a king. Maybe you climb.
If I become a noble… if I rise through the ranks… then no law can deny me.
The idea grew roots inside him.
A king is nothing alone. A king is the people he gathers.
If he truly wanted to change Barivein, he needed more than dreams. He needed allies. Not high nobles who already had power, but people like him—lost, overlooked, underestimated. People with sharp minds and strong hearts who had never been given a chance.
So he left the village again, this time with purpose, Cerian at his side.
They walked for days, following roads that wound through forest and hill until the trees grew thicker and the air colder. On one of those roads, they found a young man lying beside a fallen log, thin and pale, staring blankly at the sky.
Arlen approached carefully.
"Are you alive?" he asked.
The man's eyes shifted to him. They were clever eyes, sharp despite the hunger. Arlen offered him some of their bread and water. He took it with trembling hands, ate slowly, as if he'd forgotten how.
"What's your name?" Arlen asked.
The man gave a bitter little smile.
"I used to be called many things," he said. "Now I am just… Liovia."
Arlen raised an eyebrow. "Like the kingdom?"
"I was named after it," the man replied. "My family was noble. My father wanted me to follow his path—wasteful parties, shallow politics, nothing of value. I wanted to study finance, to strengthen our failing lands, to plan for something better." He shrugged. "We argued. He exiled me. A noble without a house is just a beggar with better manners."
There was pain in the joke, and intelligence behind it. Arlen listened.
"I want to rebuild Barivein," Arlen said at last. "Not just its armies, but its strength. For that, I will need someone who understands money. Trade. Resources. The language nobles use when they pretend they're not talking about power."
Liovia studied him.
"You're a soldier," he said. "Young. Poor. Alone. Yet you speak like someone whose dream stretches beyond his own life." He let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "Your ambition is greater than that of any noble I have ever met."
"Will you join me?" Arlen asked simply.
"If I do," Liovia replied slowly, "I won't go back to my family. I will commit fully. I want to be the one who builds your kingdom's backbone—its finances, its stability, its future. That's what I was born for, even if my father refused to see it."
"Then walk with me," Arlen said. "For now, work and learn. When I become a noble, you'll be the mind behind our strength."
Liovia looked at his hand for a long moment, then took it.
Five days later they reached the city of Liora, a small but busy center of trade. Stalls lined the streets, and merchants shouted over one another, each swearing their goods were better, cheaper, stronger, rarer.
Among them, one young trader caught Arlen's eye.
The man was selling simple materials—cloth, tools, basic supplies—but the way he organized his stall, the way he called to customers, the way he stacked cheaper items beside more valuable ones so that people instinctively bought more… it was strategy, not luck.
"Watch him," Arlen murmured to Liovia.
They watched for an hour. The young merchant sold more than men with twice his stock.
Finally, Arlen approached.
"You understand people," Arlen said. "And profit."
The merchant looked up, wary. "I understand survival," he said. "What do you want?"
"I'm building something," Arlen said. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But one day. When I become a noble, I'll need someone to handle trade, expansion, supply lines. Someone whose talent isn't appreciated yet."
The merchant snorted. "You? A noble?"
Arlen didn't flinch. "Yes. Me."
There was something in his eyes that made the other man stop laughing.
"What's in it for me?" the merchant asked.
"You become the wings of an economy," Arlen said, the phrase forming as he spoke. "Not just a stall in one city. A network. Influence. Power."
Silence stretched. Then the merchant smiled slowly.
"Name's Liowoler," he said. "And if you're mad enough to try this, I'm mad enough to go along. I'll work here for now, build skill, build contacts. When you call for me as a noble… I'll be ready."
Arlen nodded. "Good. I'll hold you to that."
One more stone in the foundation.
There was one more person Arlen sought in Liora—a man Liowoler spoke of in a low voice, half–skeptical, half–admiring.
"They say there's a strategist here," Liowoler said one evening as they shared a thin stew. "Brilliant, but ignored. He speaks too directly, doesn't flatter nobles, doesn't belong to any house. Hard to talk to, impossible to control. So no one uses him."
"What's his name?" Arlen asked.
"Fironie," Liowoler said.
Arlen found him after three days of searching, in a cramped room above a small tavern, bent over a table covered in hand–drawn maps and notes. He looked up with irritation when the door opened.
"I told you," he snapped, "I don't do free work and I don't fix stupid mistakes made by arrogant—" He stopped when he saw that his visitor was a boy barely into manhood, wearing a soldier's worn cloak.
"What do you want?"
"I want to change Barivein," Arlen said simply. "Not alone. With people like you."
Fironie stared at him, then barked a short laugh.
"You're fourteen, at most. How old do you think I am? How old do you think this continent is? You want to change it? With what? Bare hands and pretty speeches?"
Arlen stepped forward and placed his hands on the table, on top of the nearest map.
"With planning," he said. "With patience. With war when needed. And with people who are being wasted in taverns and back rooms when they should be shaping history."
The room went quiet.
"How old are you?" Fironie asked again, but softer this time.
"Fourteen," Arlen said.
"And your rank?"
"Foot soldier," Arlen replied.
"Any land? Title? Noble blood?"
"No."
Fironie sat back, studying him as if he were a new kind of equation.
"You're insane," he said at last.
Arlen managed a small smile. "Maybe."
Fironie exhaled slowly through his nose. "Insane is good. The sane are the ones who made the mess we're in." He pushed his chair back and stood up. "Fine. When you earn a title, when you have land, when people have to listen to you—I'll be there. Until then, I'll sharpen my mind, not my tongue."
"I'll hold you to that," Arlen said again.
"I'd be offended if you didn't," Fironie replied.
A week later, everything changed.
News spread through the inns and markets first, carried by messengers with tired horses and anxious eyes.
Groniy had broken an agreement. Skirmishes at the border had turned bloody. Raids were growing bolder. Rumors of full war whispered from mouth to ear.
For Barivein, with its weak economy and tired armies, this was disaster.
The royal family, desperate, issued a decree. Every able–bodied man was to join the war effort as foot soldiers. Farmers, craftsmen, traders—if they could hold a weapon, they were to report.
The summons reached Arlen in a small inn at the edge of Liora.
He unfolded the parchment slowly, eyes tracing the familiar seal, the hurried handwriting. Cerian watched him from the corner of the room, already sensing the change in the air.
"It's war, isn't it?" Cerian asked quietly.
"Groniy has attacked," Arlen said. "The kingdom is calling everyone who can fight."
He looked up, past the walls, toward the invisible border where battles would be fought and lives lost. His heart was heavy, but beneath the weight there was something else—a steel line of resolve.
"This is where it starts," he said.
"Where what starts?" Cerian asked.
"My climb," Arlen answered. "Into the army. Into the ranks. Into nobility."
He folded the paper carefully and tucked it into his belt.
"I will go as a foot soldier," he said. "But I won't remain one forever."
He thought of Liovia with his sharp mind for numbers, of Liowoler with his grasp of trade, of Fironie with his maps and brutal honesty. He thought of Cerian, standing at his side like a sword waiting to be drawn.
"I will return to the army," Arlen said softly. "I will fight for Barivein. And step by step, battle by battle, I'll rise. Until the day comes when no one else decides our fate for us."
Cerian bowed his head.
"Then I will stand with you," he said. "As your sword."
Outside, the wind shifted, carrying with it the faint smell of distant smoke.
The continent of Camberien was stirring, its kingdoms and empires moving their pieces on a blood–stained board. Barivein, weak and cornered, braced itself.
And somewhere between the weight of chains and the echo of flames, a boy who had once been a slave took his first step on the path to a throne no one believed he could reach.
His name was Arlen Vaelor.