Chapter Six: The Exile's Choice
The sun hung low over the horizon, casting the outer fields of Ravannon in a hazy orange light. Dust danced on the wind. The once-green farmland was cracked and dry from overuse and neglect. No banners flew here. No soldiers patrolled.
Only taxmen.
A mother knelt in the dirt beside a crooked wooden fence, clutching her two small children. Her face was worn, skin rough from years beneath the sun. Her hands bled from labor. Her lips quivered not from fear—but from helpless rage.
Before her stood three armored tax officers, led by a man with a golden ring set into his brow.
"I told you," the officer barked. "This land now belongs to the Crown. You failed to pay the harvest tithe. It's written."
"We had no harvest!" the mother cried. "The blight took our crop. We barely survived winter!"
The officer sneered. "Not my concern. The law is the law. Move aside or be moved."
The children clung to their mother, crying.
One officer raised a baton.
---
That's when a voice cut through the air like steel.
"Lower your hand."
The taxmen turned.
A tall man stood at the edge of the field, dust swirling around his boots. He wore a dark cloak, the hood pulled low over his brow. But the golden light caught the edge of his blade—the hilt worn from use, the steel clean and deadly.
Kael stepped forward, eyes cold.
The lead officer squinted. "Who in damnation are you?"
Kael didn't answer.
Instead, he moved between the mother and the soldiers, drawing his sword slowly—not in threat, but in promise.
"I'll only say this once," he said, voice low. "Leave. Now."
The officer laughed. "You've got a death wish, old dog."
Kael removed his hood.
The laughter died.
They recognized him.
The scar over his eye. The mark on his neck—the sigil of the king's former elite guard. The soldier who vanished after the Red Rebellion. The man who once led armies.
Kael. The Exile of Dreadfall.
The officers exchanged glances.
The lead one spat on the ground. "This isn't over."
"No," Kael said. "It's just beginning."
They left.
---
Kael turned to the mother and dropped a pouch of silver into her calloused hands.
"Buy tools. Grain. And leave this place. The kingdom no longer protects its people."
She stared up at him, stunned. "Why would you help us?"
He looked toward the distant spires of the capital, his face unreadable. "Because I was once like them. And I can't be anymore."
---
That night, Kael sat alone near a campfire in the woods beyond the fields. The flames cracked quietly, casting shadows on the nearby trees.
He pulled out a worn letter from his coat—creased and faded.
It was from a friend long dead.
A soldier.
A brother.
A whisper had reached me in my final dream, Kael… five lights in the dark. If they do not unite, the world will burn.
Kael stared into the fire.
He hadn't believed in prophecy. He barely believed in redemption.
But something had stirred inside him today.
And he knew—his path was no longer aimless.
---
Far away, Lyra paused as she crossed a river.
She felt it—one of the five had moved.
The threads were tightening.
And the gods were watching.
---
Blades and Fire....
Kael moved silently along a ridge path, thick with mist and ash from a recent forest fire. The trees were charred to blackened skeletons, the air thick with smoke and grief. He could feel it—death had passed through here recently.
And not all of it was natural.
He stepped over a shattered wagon, its contents scattered—charred books, broken tools, a doll's head.
Then he heard movement.
Soft. Swift.
He turned too late.
A dagger pressed against his throat.
"Who sent you?"
The voice was sharp. Female. Close.
Kael's gaze slid downward. The blade was steady—held with the confidence of someone who'd used it before. A young woman stood before him, hood drawn back, eyes blazing like coals.
"I don't want to hurt you," Kael said calmly.
"Too bad," she snapped. "I do."
---
Asha had been tracking the soldiers who burned this village. She thought Kael was one of them.
His armor. His sword. His calm.
He looked too much like a warhound of the crown.
"Turn around. Slowly," she ordered.
Kael moved as instructed, but with practiced stillness. "I'm not with them."
"Liar," she hissed.
"I just chased off three taxmen from a starving mother and her children."
Asha hesitated.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I don't care what you believe."
Wrong words.
She shoved him forward, blade drawing a line of blood.
Kael stepped into a twist, knocked her arm wide, and the fight began.
---
They clashed—sword vs. dagger, grace vs. fury.
Kael fought defensively, impressed and slightly alarmed by her speed. Asha was fast, reckless, and deadly—like fire given flesh.
But she fought with pain, not purpose.
And that left openings.
He disarmed her—barely—and pushed her back, panting.
"Enough!" he shouted. "I'm not your enemy!"
Asha wiped blood from her lip, eyes narrow. "Then who are you?"
Kael slowly dropped his sword.
"I was a soldier. Once. Until I saw what I had become."
He stepped back, letting his arms fall to his sides.
"I don't hurt the innocent anymore."
Asha stared at him. The tension in her shoulders slowly eased. Her knife dropped.
"…Damn it," she muttered. "I thought—"
"You had every reason to."
---
They sat in silence among the burnt trees, watching smoke drift.
Asha spoke first. "The king's men came through here last night. They called it a 'raid.' Said the village was harboring rebels. They slaughtered everyone. Even the kids."
Kael closed his eyes.
This was the kingdom he once served.
She glanced at him. "So what now, soldier?"
"I'm no soldier."
She studied him for a long moment.
"Then maybe we both need a new purpose."
---
That night, the stars above them shifted slightly—one thread crossing another.
In the high mountains, Lyra smiled faintly in her sleep.
Two of the five had found each other.
And the world trembled, just a little less.