Chapter 103 — The Reckoner's Path
They emerged from the Old Vault just as the last bell of Ardwyn fell silent. The toll echoed across the bloodied skies, a somber dirge that marked the city's final surrender to fire and ruin.
Above them, the skyline was a jagged silhouette of flame and ruin. Skeletal remains of once-mighty towers clawed upward, as if desperate to grasp some mercy from the blood-washed sky. The horizon was painted in shades of smoldering red and angry black smoke, each wisp a testament to lives lost and legacies broken.
But Caedren no longer looked outward. His eyes were turned inward, dark with the weight of revelations buried beneath stone and silence. His mind raced, turning over the truths Ivan had sealed away. The Reckoner's Path was not merely a tactic for battle, nor a simple weapon to wield against Galen's advancing shadow. It was something deeper, something that demanded not only sacrifice of flesh and blood but sacrifice of belief itself—of what was known, trusted, and held sacred.
Lysa fell into step beside him as they mounted their weary steeds, their armor scarred, their faces streaked with ash and sweat. Her voice was quiet, yet strained, carrying the brittle edge of exhaustion and resolve.
"That wasn't just a mirror," she said softly. "That was a test."
Caedren nodded without turning. "Ivan never trusted his disciples with power. Only with purpose. Power without purpose is a blade that cuts its wielder first."
The horses moved forward, their hooves stirring dust and fallen leaves along the cracked stone path leading away from the ruined city. They rode hard into the broken hills beyond Ardwyn, where the remnants of their loyal scouts waited—silent sentinels amid the desolation.
The land here was scarred, torn by war and neglect. Jagged rocks jutted from cracked earth, thornbrush clawed at worn leather and tired boots. Yet amid the shattered landscape, tattered banners of the old Kingdom still fluttered stubbornly in the cold wind—frayed and faded, but defiant.
Around Caedren gathered the remnants of his forces. Bloodied, battered, but unbroken. The men and women who remained carried in their eyes the quiet fire of determination—the last flames flickering on the edge of extinction, clinging to hope like embers waiting to ignite.
At their head, old Marshal Tren stepped forward, his once-proud bearing weathered but unyielding. His gray-streaked beard bristled as he hailed Caedren.
"We've lost two-thirds of our numbers," Tren said, voice roughened by battle and grief, "but what remains is steel. Steel sharpened by fire and sharpened by loss. We can still make a stand."
Caedren dismounted slowly, muscles aching, yet his gaze was sharp as flint. He looked across the gathered faces—faces marked by fatigue, fear, and unspoken questions.
"We won't stand," Caedren said quietly.
A murmur ran through the soldiers. Some exchanged wary glances, others clenched their fists, unsure.
"We move," Caedren continued, voice gathering strength, "into the Red Expanse. Into the places Galen thinks unworthy of conquest."
The Red Expanse: a vast, desolate wasteland beyond the borders of the known Kingdom. A place whispered about in fear, said to be littered with ruins and shadows. A land that Galen had dismissed, thinking it void of value.
"That's where we'll raise a fire he cannot see coming."
Tren frowned, doubt clouding his eyes. "There's nothing in the Expanse but ruins and ghosts. No men, no hope."
Caedren's gaze hardened. "Then let him chase ghosts."
Beside him, Lysa stepped forward, her voice steady and clear. "You want to build a new resistance."
"No," Caedren replied, shaking his head. "I want to rebuild the world Galen thinks he's inherited."
He paused, lifting the sigil of the Charter—worn, weathered, but still gleaming faintly in the fading light. It was the last surviving crest of the Age of Unity, a symbol of ideals long forgotten.
He drove it into the earth with a purposeful thrust.
Around it, the soldiers began to kneel. One by one.
Not to a crown.
Not to a name.
But to a stand.
Far across the ruined lands, in the blackened heart of the south, Galen stood atop the high altar of the Forsaken Temple. The temple was a monument to forgotten gods, carved from obsidian and bone, towering and dreadful against the night.
In his hands, Galen held a dark flame that writhed and pulsed within an ancient brazier—the very flame Ivan had once sealed away beneath the earth. But now, it flickered strangely, as if disturbed by some unseen force.
The black flame twisted and danced with unnatural life, casting ominous shadows that clawed along the altar walls.
He turned slowly to face his acolytes—masked priests who knelt silently around him, their faces hidden beneath shadowed hoods.
"He's found it," Galen said, voice low and hard.
One of the masked priests hissed, "The Reckoner's Path?"
"No," Galen corrected, eyes burning like coals. "He's walking it."
He clenched his fist tightly, and the black flame coiled tighter, as if writhing in response to his fury.
"Then we must break him," Galen said coldly, "before he understands what it makes him."
Darkness.
Fire.
Destiny.
The Reckoner's Path had begun.