The sky above the Citadel of Hurbala was no longer the vibrant blue of a prosperous empire. It was bruised—a sickening mix of charcoal grey and a deep, bleeding orange. This was the "Bloody Sunset," the kind of evening the old poets used to write about as an omen of doom. But tonight, there were no poets left to write. There were only the screams of the dying and the rhythmic, bone-shaking thud of the Yilmaz battering rams against the Great Golden Gate.
Inside the throne room, the air was thick with the scent of ozone and expensive cedarwood incense, now mixing with the acrid stench of smoke seeping through the vents.
King Hudal stood before the massive stained-glass window that overlooked the harbor. His golden armor, once polished to a mirror sheen, was dented and smeared with soot. He looked less like a god and more like a man who had simply run out of time.
"They are in the lower wards, aren't they?" Hudal asked. His voice was steady, but there was a tremor of exhaustion beneath the surface.
Behind him, a towering figure shifted. Hujeena, known throughout the five realms as "The Shield Wall," stood with her feet planted wide. Her armor was heavy, thick plates of dark iron that looked like they had been forged from the heart of a mountain. She didn't carry a sword; she carried a shield the size of a door, its edges notched from a thousand impacts.
"The gates are failing, Sire," Hujeena replied. Her voice was like grinding stones. "The Yilmaz have brought their naval infantry ashore. Queen Hasha is already... she is being moved toward the docks."
Hudal closed his eyes. The mention of his wife's name was a blow more painful than any mace. He turned, his gaze falling on the small, trembling figure standing by the throne.
Prince Basyar was only a boy, his royal robes far too large for his shaking frame. His eyes were wide, reflecting the flickering orange light of the fires outside. He gripped a small silken pouch as if it were the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
"Basyar," the King whispered, stepping forward.
"Father, we have to go! The secret passages—" Basyar's voice cracked. He reached out, his small hand catching the cold metal of his father's gauntlet. "Mother is at the docks! We can save her!"
Hudal knelt, placing a heavy hand on his son's shoulder. "Your mother is a Queen of Hurbala. She will endure. But the Empire... the Empire is more than walls and gold. It is a promise. A promise that is being broken tonight."
Suddenly, the great doors of the throne room groaned. A massive boom echoed through the chamber. Dust rained from the vaulted ceiling. The Yilmaz had breached the inner sanctum.
Hudal reached up and unclasped the Golden Crown of Hurbala. It was a masterpiece of craftsmanship—five distinct arcs of gold representing the unity of the five nations. With a sudden, violent motion, Hudal slammed the crown against the edge of the marble dais.
A sharp crack rang out. A jagged shard of gold broke away, spinning across the floor.
Basyar gasped. To break the crown was to invite the end of the world.
Hudal picked up the shard. It was sharp, the edges raw and unfinished. He pressed it into Basyar's palm and forced the boy's fingers shut around it. "Take this. Do not lose it. This is the heart of what we were. One day, you will find the other pieces. One day, you will make the world whole again."
"Sire!" Hujeena barked. The doors were beginning to splinter. "We must go. Now."
"Go, Hujeena," Hudal commanded, standing tall and drawing his sword—a blade that had tasted the blood of a dozen wars. "Take the King. Protect the Shard. I will give you the minutes you need."
"Father, no!" Basyar shrieked as Hujeena's massive hand clamped onto his collar.
Hujeena didn't hesitate. She was a soldier of duty, and her duty was the future, not the present. She tucked Basyar under one arm as if he were a sack of grain, her other hand hoisting her massive shield.
"Forgive me, Little King," she grunted.
As she sprinted toward the tapestry behind the throne, Basyar looked back over her shoulder. He saw the doors explode inward. A tide of soldiers in crimson and gold armor—the Yilmaz Elite—poured into the room.
He saw his father, the Great King Hudal, let out a roar that drowned out the chaos. He saw the King charge into the sea of red, his sword a flash of lightning in the gloom.
Then, the tapestry fell, and the world went black.
The Tunnel of Echoes
The secret passage was narrow, damp, and smelled of ancient earth and stagnant water. Hujeena moved with surprising silence for a woman of her size, her heavy boots clicking rhythmically against the stone.
Basyar was no longer screaming. He was in shock. His hand was clamped so tightly around the crown shard that the jagged gold was slicing into his skin, but he didn't feel the pain. He only felt the cold.
"Keep your head down, Basyar," Hujeena whispered. "The air is thin here. Breathe through your nose."
"Is he... is he dead?" Basyar asked. His voice was a hollow shell.
Hujeena didn't answer immediately. She stopped for a moment, listening to the vibrations in the walls. Above them, the city was screaming. She could hear the muffled thuds of collapsing buildings and the distant, haunting blare of Yilmaz war horns.
"Your father is a lion," she said finally. "And lions do not die easily. But tonight, we do not look back. We only look forward."
They continued deeper into the bowels of the Citadel. The tunnel sloped downward, leading them toward the sea-cliffs far beyond the city walls. Every few hundred yards, Hujeena would pause, her shield raised, her eyes scanning the darkness. She wasn't just a guard; she was a predator in the dark, her senses tuned to the slightest shift in the air.
"Hujeena?"
"Yes, Boy?"
"Why did they do it? Shadowhold... Zuelda... they were our friends. Why did they let the Yilmaz in?"
Hujeena's grip on her shield tightened. "Greed is a poison, Basyar. It starts small, like a rot in a tree. Then the wind blows, and the tree falls. They didn't see an empire; they saw pieces they could grab for themselves. They forgot that when the Great Tree falls, the whole forest loses its shade."
They reached a heavy iron grate. Hujeena braced her shoulder against it and heaved. With a scream of rusted metal, the grate swung open, revealing a ledge high above the crashing waves of the Eastern Sea.
The salt spray hit Basyar's face, shocking him back to reality. He looked out and gasped.
The harbor was a graveyard of burning ships. The Hurbala fleet, once the pride of the world, was being systematically hunted down by the massive, multi-decked galleons of the Yilmaz. In the center of the chaos, a single ship stood out—the Golden Sultan, King Manuel's flagship.
On its deck, illuminated by the fires of the city, a woman stood in white robes.
"Mother!" Basyar lunged toward the edge of the cliff.
Hujeena caught him by the back of his shirt, pulling him back into the shadows. "Look, Basyar. Look closely. Remember this feeling."
Queen Hasha was being led across the deck in chains. Even from this distance, her posture was regal, her head held high. She didn't look like a prisoner; she looked like a goddess in exile. She looked toward the cliffs, almost as if she knew her son was watching.
Then, the Golden Sultan turned, its crimson sails catching the wind, and began to head out into the open sea, leading a procession of captured treasures and weeping slaves.
Basyar watched until the ship was nothing more than a speck of light on a dark horizon. He looked down at his hand. The blood from his palm had stained the gold shard a dark, iron red.
"They took everything," Basyar whispered.
"No," Hujeena said, her voice softer than he had ever heard it. She knelt in the dirt beside him, her massive shadow towering over him. "They took the gold. They took the stone. But they didn't take you. And they didn't take the Shard."
She pointed toward the north, where the dark silhouette of the Shadowhold forest met the sky. "There is a small outpost three days from here. Juhada will be waiting. Marissa will be scouting the roads. We are not an army yet, Basyar. We are a spark. And sparks are what start forest fires."
Basyar looked back at the burning Citadel. The Great Spire, the symbol of Hurbala's reach, was slowly leaning, eventually collapsing into the sea with a roar that shook the very cliff they stood on.
The boy who had entered the tunnel was gone. In his place stood a young king with eyes as hard as the gold in his hand.
"Hujeena?"
"Yes, My King?"
"Teach me how to fight. Not like a prince. Like a man who has nothing left to lose."
Hujeena smiled—a grim, terrifying expression. She stood up and adjusted her shield. "The first lesson is simple, Basyar. A king doesn't fight for himself. He fights so that no one else has to feel the way you do right now."
They turned away from the burning ruins of their home and disappeared into the treeline. The Bloody Sunset had ended, and a long, dark night had begun.