The screams had stopped hours ago. What remained was worse—the terrible silence of a battlefield after the fighting ends, broken only by the crackle of dying fires and the distant cries of carrion birds already scenting death on the wind.
Kael Arcturus dragged himself through the rubble, his shattered armor scraping against broken stone. Blood—both his and others'—made the ground slick beneath him. His gauntleted fingers dug grooves in the earth as he pulled himself forward, inch by agonizing inch toward the ruined cathedral steps.
"You're still alive?" The voice came from above, dripping with amusement. "I must be slipping."
Kael looked up through blood-crusted lashes. Lord Malrik the Benevolent—the architect of this massacre—stood atop the steps, his pristine white robes untouched by the devastation surrounding them. Behind him, twelve figures in silver masks stood vigil.
"You slaughtered... everyone," Kael managed through broken teeth.
"Slaughtered?" Malrik tapped a finger against his chin. "What a crude word for necessary pruning. My Empire requires purity—your little rebellion was simply an impurity to be burned away."
Kael's remaining eye fixed on the silver medallion around Malrik's neck—the Amanthian Seal. The artifact rumored to grant its wearer dominion over time itself.
Malrik noticed the gaze and chuckled. "Ah, I see you've heard the legends. Would you like a demonstration?" He crouched, bringing his face level with Kael's. "Watch closely—this is how you end a dynasty."
The medallion glowed with unholy light. The world twisted. Kael saw—
His mother's face in the seconds before the executioner's blade fell. He saw his father's library burning. He saw every moment of betrayal and blood that had led to this ruinous night.
Malrik laughed—a sound like shattering glass. "Look at them all! Your precious ancestors, so proud of their lineage. Soon they'll be forgotten footnotes to my glorious ascension."
The vision shifted again, showing Kael something impossible—his own corpse rotting in an unmarked grave as Malrik's empire stretched unbroken across centuries.
The pain of it—knowing not just his death but complete erasure from history—drove Kael to action. With the last of his strength, he lunged, his broken fingers closing around the medallion.
Malrik's amusement turned to shock. "What—"
The world exploded backward.
Kael awoke in fire.
Searing agony coursed through every nerve as he tumbled from his bed—his childhood bed. The familiar tapestry of House Arcturus fluttered above him as he gasped for air.
A voice from the doorway: "Kael? Are you ill?"
He knew that voice before he turned. Martha—his nurse who had died protecting him during Malrik's first purge. Dead ten years in his time. Alive now.
"I'm fine," he rasped. His adult voice sounded strange in his adolescent throat. "Just... a nightmare."
Because this couldn't be real. Couldn't be his twelve-year-old body intact, his scars erased, his missing eye restored. Couldn't be the Amanthian Seal burned into his palm like a brand.
Martha studied him, unconvinced. "You've been screaming half the night. Your father says you're to—"
"What year is it?" Kael interrupted.
"By the gods, boy, have you fever?" She pressed a hand to his forehead. "Year 724 of the Veridian Calendar, as it was yesterday."
Kael's breath caught. Fifteen years before Malrik's betrayal. Ten before his own military training began. A lifetime before the massacre.
The significance settled over him like armor. This was no dream—he'd been given the ultimate weapon. Not just a second chance, but foreknowledge.
The ghastly visions replayed in his mind—every betrayal, every death. His fingers traced the invisible lines of future scars.
Martha fussed with his blankets. "Back to bed with you—you're white as death incarnate."
Kael almost laughed. Death incarnate. Yes, that's exactly what he would become—not Malrik's pawn this time, nor the honored knight he'd once been.
He would become something else entirely—the vengeance waiting in time's dark corners. The shadow behind the throne's gilded facade.
Tonight, the Reckoning had begun.