The forest along the Blackwater River did not care who ruled the continent. It had stood for a thousand years before the first Grimhart set foot on Veldara soil, and it would stand a thousand more after the last emperor's bones turned to dust. Tonight it drank deep.
Steel rang against steel. Twenty fully armored knights of House Veyron, black surcoats embroidered with the silver falcon of their rebellious banner pressed their attack in a loose crescent along the muddy riverbank. Their horses had been slain minutes earlier, the beasts lay in steaming heaps, throats slit by a youth who fought like a demon given mortal flesh.
That youth was alone.
His armor was old, dented, patched with mismatched plates scavenged from half a dozen battlefields. Blood stained that armor, some his but mostly theirs painted the steel in slick crimson streaks.
The pauldron on his left shoulder hung by a single rivet. A deep gouge across his breastplate leaked red where a lance had punched through. Yet he moved as if the wounds were suggestions, not commands.
He was beautiful in the way only Edenian blood could make a man beautiful....too beautiful for war.
Sharp, aristocratic features carved by the same divine hand that had once shaped angels. Curly black hair matted with sweat and gore clung to his forehead. Grey eyes, the color of storm that held no fear, only a cold, patient fury. Tanned skin spoke of years spent under every sky Veldara could offer. He looked young and beautiful. An angel of war some men called.
Prince Jared Grimhart, second son of Emperor Ezra Grimhart, third in line to the Throne, had no intention of dying here.
The first knight lunged, a heavy two-handed sword swinging in a killing arc meant to split him from shoulder to hip. Jared stepped inside the blow—too close, too fast—drove the pommel of his battered longsword into the man's visor with a wet crunch of breaking bone. The knight staggered. Jared reversed his grip and rammed the blade up under the gorget, through the soft flesh beneath the jaw. Blood sprayed in a hot arc as he twisted and ripped the sword free.
"Falcon or not," he snarled, voice low and hoarse, "you all bleed the same."
Three more came at once, disciplined, shields locked.
The river mist curled around their greaves. One thrust a spear low, aiming for the gap in Jared's cuisses. Jared pivoted, caught the shaft on his gauntlet, and used the knight's own momentum to yank him forward. The spearman stumbled into the path of his comrade's downward chop. Steel bit deep into the man's shoulder instead. The scream was short. Jared's sword followed, opening the second knight's belly from navel to sternum. Intestines spilled in a glistening rope across the mud.
The third knight roared and brought a mace down. Jared took the hit on his already ruined pauldron. Bone cracked—his or the armor's, he didn't care. Pain was just another voice in the choir.
He answered it with his blade, slashing across the knight's sword arm at the elbow. The limb came away still gripping the mace. The man stared at the stump for half a heartbeat before Jared drove the point through his eye-slit.
Fifteen left.
They circled wider now, wary. One barked orders, voice muffled by his helm. "He's bleeding! Wear him down! The Emperor's whelp dies tonight!"
Jared laughed once, a sound like cracking ice. "Whelp? My father still has three other legitimate, if I die here you will go down with me."
A crossbow twanged from the treeline. The bolt punched into the meat of his left thigh, just above the knee. Jared grunted, ripped the quarrel free, and hurled it back. It struck the hidden shooter in the throat with enough force to pin him to a pine trunk. The man gurgled and slid down the bark.
Fourteen.
The knights charged in a ragged line, shields high, swords low. Jared met them like a storm meets a forest.
He ducked a sweeping blade, rose inside the swing, and drove his sword upward through the armpit of the nearest knight. The man dropped, screaming. Jared spun, using the falling body as a shield against two more strikes. Steel clanged off dead armor. He kicked the corpse forward, toppling one attacker, then stomped down on the man's throat with a crunch that echoed over the river.
Another knight grabbed him from behind, bear-hugging, trying to crush the life from him while a comrade raised a war-axe for the kill.
Jared slammed his helmeted head backward—once, twice. The nose guard shattered cartilage. He twisted, drove an elbow into the attacker's jaw, felt teeth spray. The bear-hug loosened. Jared reversed his sword over his shoulder and stabbed blind. The blade found the gap between helm and gorget. Hot blood flooded down his back.
Twelve.
The axe-man swung. Jared caught the haft mid-strike with his off-hand, ignored the way the edge bit into his gauntlet and drew blood. He yanked the man off balance and head-butted him so hard the visor caved inward. Then he ripped the axe free and buried it in the knight's skull with a wet thunk.
Eleven.
They were breaking now. Fear smelled sharper than blood. One tried to flee toward the trees. Jared hurled the axe. It spun end over end and took the runner between the shoulder blades. The man pitched forward into the shallows. The river turned pink around him.
Ten.
Jared waded after the rest. His left leg dragged, but the Edenian blood in his veins burned hotter than pain. He had inherited more than a handsome face and a long life from Moses Grimhart's line. The Mark on his forearm—hidden beneath dented steel—flared with every kill, feeding him strength that should have failed hours ago.
He killed the next three in a single, fluid dance: parry, riposte, throat-cut; duck, slash hamstrings, finish with a downward thrust through the spine; sidestep, seize a shield, ram its edge into a face until the helm crumpled like tin.
Seven.
The remaining knights formed a desperate knot around their commander—a tall man whose falcon crest was picked out in gold. "For Veyron!" the commander bellowed. "For the free lords!"
Jared answered by charging straight into them.
Steel sang. Blood flew. He took a sword across the ribs—shallow, but it burned. He answered by opening the commander's thigh to the bone. The man fell to one knee. Jared kicked him onto his back and drove his sword through the heart with both hands. The blade scraped against the inside of the breastplate as he pulled it free.
Six left. Then four. Then two.
The last knight dropped his sword and tried to surrender, hands raised, voice cracking behind the visor. "Mercy, my prince! We were ordered—"
Jared's sword took his head off before the plea finished. The final knight turned to run. Jared caught him by the cloak, yanked him back, and rammed the blade up under the ribs until the point punched out the other side. He held the man upright for a moment, watching the light leave his eyes, then let the body slide off the steel into the mud.
Silence fell, broken only by the river's lazy murmur and the soft drip of blood from Jared's sword.
Twenty knights of House Veyron lay dead or dying around the young prince. Not one had landed a blow that would kill a lesser man. Jared stood among the corpses like a statue carved from war itself, chest heaving, grey eyes empty.
He reached up, unbuckled the ruined helm, and pulled it off. Curly black hair spilled free, damp and wild. The face beneath was almost obscene in its perfection—high cheekbones, full lips, a jaw that could have belonged to a god rather than a killer. Blood streaked one temple. A shallow cut across his cheek wept red. He looked seventeen. He felt every one of his twenty-three years and the weight of four hundred years of empire behind them.
Four hundred years of undisputed rule had made the Grimharts stronger than ever. From Moses the Old, who had carved an empire from nothing with nothing but comets that he took as a sign and an unbreakable will, to Abel the Just, who had written the Codex of Veldara in the blood of rebels. From Empress Eliana Grimhart the Delight, whose smile had brought petty kings in submission and whose mercy had spared none, to the current Emperor Ezra, who sat the Black Throne like a man born to cages of gold and knives in the dark. The family thrived. Yet threats were everywhere—rebellious houses like Veyron, monster waves growing bolder each season, dungeons vomiting horrors into the heartland, and whispers in the court that the old Edenian blood was thinning.
Jared spat blood into the river. "Threats," he muttered. "Always threats."
He limped to the water's edge, unbuckled the ruined armor piece by piece. Breastplate, pauldrons, greaves, gauntlets—each fell with a wet clank into the shallows. Underneath he wore only a blood-soaked linen tunic and breeches. He stripped those too, wading naked into the Blackwater until it reached his waist. The cold shocked the wounds, but he welcomed it. He scrubbed gore from his skin with handfuls of river sand, watching pink clouds swirl downstream. The Mark on his left forearm—three interlocking crescents—glowed faintly beneath the water, a reminder that he was more than a man.
Clean enough, he waded back to shore. The night air raised gooseflesh on his tanned, scarred body. Dozens of old wounds crisscrossed his chest and arms, each one a story the court bards would never sing. He found a relatively clean cloak among the dead, wrapped it around himself, then limped to the nearest corpse.
The knight still clutched a fine steel dagger. Jared pried it free, tested the edge, and sat on a fallen log. He drew his own battered longsword—the same blade that had served him since his first campaign at fourteen—and began to sharpen it with slow, deliberate strokes. The rhythmic scrape of steel on steel filled the clearing.
The forest held its breath.
"You can reveal yourself... Amon," Jared said without looking up.
In the space between one heartbeat and the next, the air grew warmer. A figure stepped from the shadows as if the night itself had peeled him free. Black armor chased with crimson: a blood-red helmet shaped like a snarling dragon, matching red pauldrons and knee guards, the rest matte black as midnight. The man's greatsword was already drawn—black blade etched with faintly glowing runes. Heat rolled off it in visible waves, making the mist dance.
Amon the Red plunged the sword point-first into the earth, dropped to one knee, and bowed his head until the wolf helm nearly touched the ground.
"My prince has eliminated his enemies flawlessly yet again," he intoned. The voice was deep, resonant, edged with the accent of the eastern Ironspike clans.
Jared raised an eyebrow, still dragging the dagger along his blade. "You sound disappointed."
"Not really, my prince."
"Then what are you doing so close? You are usually about farther from me when I'm on the battlefield."
Amon remained bowed. "Well, my prince, I have a message from the Emperor himself for you."
Jared's hand stilled mid-stroke. The dagger hovered. His grey eyes went cold as ice.
"What does he want."
Amon rose just enough to reach inside a pouch at his belt. He produced a sealed scroll—crimson wax stamped with the Grimhart sigil ,A skeleton of a buck's head and extended it without standing.
Jared took the letter with two fingers, as if it might bite. He broke the seal, unrolled the parchment, and read by the faint moonlight and the dying glow of Amon's blade.
The Emperor's hand was unmistakable—elegant, imperious.
Jared,
House Veyron's little rebellion has been noted and will be dealt with in due course. You were never meant to ride out alone to meet them. Return to camp at once and rest. The court requires your presence in the capital within the fortnight, several marriage proposals have come for you, notably with the daughter of Duke Haelys of the Glass Sea. The alliance will secure the western fleet against the coming monster wave and several others that could bring even more benefits to our house.*
Your father
Ezra Grimhart, Emperor of Veldara.
Jared read it twice. Then he crumpled the parchment and hurled it onto the pile of corpses.
"Let's return to camp," he said. The only words he spoke. After a beat he added, "Burn them."
"As my prince commands."
Amon rose, drew the black blade from the earth, and extended it toward the dead. The runes flared. A torrent of white-hot flame roared from the sword's tip—no mere fire, but something older, hungrier. The corpses ignited instantly. Armor blackened and melted. Flesh crisped. The Emperor's letter curled, blackened, and vanished in the blaze. In seconds twenty knights and their treachery were nothing but ash drifting on the river wind.
Amon turned, lowering the blade. The clearing was empty except for the dying flames and the soft lap of water.
Jared was already gone, limping barefoot into the trees, cloak trailing, sword still in hand.
The Red Knight sighed inside his helm. The sound echoed strangely.
"I hope he won't spend the rest of his time brooding," he muttered.
Then he sheathed the sword, the heat dying with a hiss, and broke into a run after his prince.
The forest swallowed them both. Somewhere far to the north, beyond the empire's glittering spires and the black Throne itself, the first distant rumble of a new monster wave rolled across the mountains.
The comets had not fallen in four hundred years.
But the empire remembered their meaning.