Part 1: The Dreams of a Dead Man
The mud of the Copper Grove was cold, but the dreams were always warm.
In the hollowed-out root of the weeping willow, Alaric's body lay still, a rusted husk of a man. But behind the dark slit of his visor, his mind was drowning in the gold of a summer that no longer existed. In the realm of sleep, he was not the "Lap Dog." He was not a creature of blackened iron and congealed gore. He was simply Alaric, a boy who believed that the sun was a shield and the King was his brother.
In the dream, he was twelve again.
The training grounds of the Gaan Capital were a sprawling expanse of white sand and scorched grass, smelling of honeysuckle and the sharp, clean scent of oiled wood. He stood opposite Leonus, both of them gripping practice swords with white-knuckled intensity. Leonus, the Crown Prince, was already tall, possessing an effortless, regal grace even in his youth. His golden hair shimmered like the coins in the royal vault, and his eyes—the piercing, sapphire blue of the Gaan bloodline—sparkled with a competitive fire.
Alaric was the son of a disgraced knight, brought to the palace not as a peer, but as a "companion"—a polite word for a living shield. His father had died in a border skirmish that the history books called a victory but the survivors called a slaughter. Leonus had been the one to reach out his hand when Alaric first arrived, a silent boy with a bruised heart.
"Again, Alaric!" Leonus laughed, wiping sweat from his brow. He lunged, a flurry of strikes that tested Alaric's reflexes. "If you can't parry a boy, how will you protect a kingdom?"
Alaric caught the wooden blade on his hilt, twisting and pivoting with a speed that caught the Prince off guard. He swept Leonus's legs out from under him, and they both tumbled into the sand, gasping for air, their laughter echoing off the high stone walls.
"I'm not trying to protect the kingdom, Leo," Alaric had replied, his chest heaving. "I'm protecting you."
Leonus had looked at him then, his smile fading into something more profound. He reached out and gripped Alaric's forearm. "Then we are one blade, Alaric. One heart. I swear it. When I am King, you will be my right hand. We will be the ones to finally fix this world."
They had stayed there until the sky turned the color of a peach, making vows that only children have the courage to believe in. They didn't know then that the "Owners" were watching. They didn't know that the very ground they sat upon was property they were only allowed to occupy so long as the Gods were entertained.
The dream shifted, the years blurring together in a montage of shared victories and growing shadows. He saw Leonus's coronation—the day the crown of Gaan, heavy and jagged, was placed upon a head that had grown weary too soon. He saw himself kneeling, the first to swear fealty, feeling the weight of the "Iron Pillar" title being placed upon his shoulders.
But then, the golden light of the dream softened, turning into the warm, flickering glow of a thousand beeswax candles. It was the night of the Royal Ball, celebrating the end of a harvest that had been surprisingly bountiful.
It was the night he realized he loved Elara.
She was the King's younger sister, the "Flower of Gaan." While Leonus was the sun—bright, blinding, and often scorching—Elara was the moon. She had a quiet, observant wisdom and eyes that seemed to see through the armor Alaric wore. She had approached him on the terrace, away from the music and the wine.
"You look like you're bracing for an attack, Commander," she had said, her voice a soft melody against the night air.
"It is my job to be ready, Princess," he had replied, his voice stiff with duty.
"Is it your job to be alone, too?" She stepped closer, the scent of jasmine and rain following her. She reached out, her fingers grazing the cold steel of his gauntlet. "My brother calls you his pillar. But even pillars need a foundation, Alaric. They need something to hold onto when the earth shakes."
In that moment, the "Iron Pillar" had crumbled. He had looked at her and seen not a princess, but a sanctuary. He had seen a reason to live that went beyond the King's commands or the defense of the walls.
The dream reached its zenith: the wedding.
The Cathedral of Dawn was filled with the heavy, sweet scent of incense and the low, rhythmic chanting of the clergy. Alaric stood at the altar, his silver armor polished to a mirror finish, reflecting the stained-glass depictions of the Gods' mercy—a mercy he now knew was a lie.
Elara walked down the aisle, her bridal silks flowing behind her like a river of moonlight. She was fragile, yet she moved with an unshakeable grace. When she reached him, she didn't wait for the priest. She took his hands in hers, her skin warm against his calloused palms.
Leonus stood behind them on the dais. His face was a mask of royal decorum, but Alaric could see the cracks. The King's eyes were bloodshot, his gaze fixed on the high rafters where the shadows seemed to pulse. He looked like a man who was already counting the cost of a debt he couldn't pay.
"I, Alaric, take you, Elara, to be my soul and my shield," Alaric whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "I swear to be the wall between you and the dark. I swear that my life is your property, and my heart is your home."
Elara looked into his eyes, her expression one of fierce, desperate love. "I, Elara, take you, Alaric. I do not ask for a wall. I ask for a partner. I swear that as long as my blood flows, it flows for you. Through the curse and the light, until the sun fails."
They exchanged the rings—simple bands of gold etched with the royal lion and the pillar. As they kissed, the Cathedral erupted in cheers. It was a moment of pure, blinding hope. For a second, Alaric believed that love was stronger than the "Owners." He believed that he had finally found a piece of the world that the Gods couldn't touch.
He looked up at Leonus, expecting to see his brother's pride.
But Leonus wasn't looking at them. He was looking at the High Pope, who was nodding slowly, a predatory smile on his thin lips. The King's hand was trembling as he gripped the hilt of his ceremonial sword.
In the dream, Alaric tried to speak, to ask Leonus what was wrong. But his voice was gone. The warmth of Elara's lips turned cold. The golden candles flickered and died, replaced by a thick, choking mist. The scent of jasmine rotted into the smell of old copper.
The wedding rings began to heat up, glowing a violent, sickly red until they seared into his flesh.
Alaric's eyes snapped open within the darkness of his helmet.
The transition from the golden dream to the black reality was a physical blow. He wasn't in a cathedral. He was in a hole. He wasn't a husband. He was a beast. The warmth of the summer sun was gone, replaced by the freezing, insatiable thirst of the void.
He was the Lap Dog. And he had a long list of people to make bleed for the lie of that wedding day.
Part 2: The Nightmare of a Living Soul
The memory did not fade like the warmth of the sun; it curdled like milk in a wound. Even as Alaric stood in the black muck of the Copper Grove, the "Blood Heat" in his veins forced him to relive the day the world broke. It was the day the "Iron Pillar" realized he was standing on a foundation of sand.
It began with a silence that was louder than any scream.
The harvest had failed for the third year in a row. The rivers of Gaan had turned to a sluggish, rust-colored silt, and the cattle were dropping in the fields, their bodies bloating until they burst. King Leonus had called an emergency session of the Council of Elders in the High Cathedral of Dawn. He had walked into that room with the gait of a man carrying the weight of a collapsing mountain.
Alaric had walked three paces behind him, his hand never straying from the hilt of his sword. He remembered the air in the room—it was thick with the scent of expensive ambergris and the underlying stench of the starving city outside the stained-glass windows.
"The granaries are empty," Leonus had said, his voice flat, devoid of the melody it once held. "My people are eating the leather of their own boots. And yet, I see the Barons wearing new silks. I see the Church commissioning a new gold leaf for the altar."
The High Pope, a man whose skin looked like yellowed parchment stretched over a skull, had sipped from a chalice of dark wine. "The Festival of the Gods is upon us, Your Majesty. To divert the tithes now is to forfeit the protection of the Heavens. Would you have us save the body only to lose the soul?"
"The 'protection' of the Heavens?" Leonus's voice began to tremble. It was a low, vibrating sound—the growl of a lion pushed into a corner. "We have prayed! We have fasted! We have burned the gold of three generations! And in return, the Gods give us dust! They give us rot!"
"Mind your tongue, boy," a Baron from the South snickered, leaning back in his velvet chair. "The Gods do not negotiate with property. We pay the tax, and they allow the sun to rise. That is the Truce."
Property.
The word hit Leonus like a physical blow. Alaric saw the King's shoulders drop, then tighten. Something in Leonus's mind, something that had been fraying for years under the pressure of the crown, finally snapped.
"If we are property," Leonus whispered, a terrifyingly calm smile spreading across his face, "then the owners have failed to maintain their estate. And a failed shepherd does not deserve his sheep."
In a movement so fast it defied the eye, Leonus drew his blade.
The steel didn't sing; it roared. The King lunged across the council table, his sword bifurcating the South Baron before the man could even drop his wine. The room exploded into chaos. The High Guard—men Alaric had trained—looked at their Commander, waiting for an order.
But Alaric was frozen. He watched as his brother, his King, turned into a whirlwind of crimson steel. Leonus didn't just kill; he butchered. He hacked through the Clergy, his silks becoming soaked in the very blood he was supposed to protect. He was a man trying to kill the concept of fate with a piece of sharpened iron.
"Leonus, stop!" Alaric had screamed, finally finding his voice. He moved to grab the King's arm, but Leonus swung around, his eyes wide and glowing with a manic, shattered light.
"They want a show, Alaric!" Leonus screamed, kicking the Pope's gilded chair over. "They want blood? Let them taste the blood of their own priests! Let them see that the property can bite back!"
The massacre lasted only minutes, but it felt like an eternity. The white marble floor of the Cathedral was no longer visible; it was a lake of steaming, dark red. Leonus stood in the center of the carnage, heaving, his crown lopsided and dripping.
Then, the sky died.
The massive, domed roof of the Cathedral didn't break—it simply ceased to be. The clouds above Gaan swirled into a violent, bruised purple, and the air grew so cold that the blood on the floor began to frost.
A pillar of crystalline light slammed into the center of the room. It was so bright it felt like needles in the eyes. From the light, the Angel emerged. It did not have a face. It had a mask of polished silver with a thousand eyes that blinked in unison. Its wings were not feathers, but shards of singing glass.
"THE SHEPHERDS ARE SLAIN," the Angel spoke. The sound was the grinding of tectonic plates. "THE CONTRACT IS VOID. THE PROPERTY HAS DEFILED THE SANCTUARY."
Leonus looked up, his face defiant even as his nose began to bleed from the pressure. "Your 'contract' is a shackle! We are men, not cattle!"
"YOU ARE WHATEVER WE DEEM YOU TO BE," the Angel replied. "YOU HAVE SHOWN US THAT THE FLOCK HAS BECOME SPOILED. AND SPOILED MEAT MUST BE CURED. THE BLOOD CURSE SHALL NOT END UNTIL THE KING HAS FULFILLED THE SACRIFICE."
Leonus froze. "What sacrifice? Tell me what you want!"
The Angel did not answer. It simply pointed a finger at the survivors trembling in the corners of the room.
The horror began instantly. A Baroness who had hidden behind a pillar let out a jagged, wet scream. She didn't fall; she began to expand. Her skin turned a translucent, bruised purple as the blood inside her began to crystallize. Within seconds, her veins erupted through her flesh like red glass thorns, pinning her to the wall in a grotesque mosaic of gore.
Beside her, a young Deacon began to cough. He didn't cough up fluid; he coughed up his own heart, which had turned into a hard, obsidian-red stone. He reached for his throat, but his fingers had already fused into sharp, bloody needles.
Leonus and Alaric watched in paralyzed silence as the room became a gallery of living statues, each one a unique masterpiece of divine torture.
"THE HARVEST HAS BEGUN," the Angel whispered, its glass wings shattering into a million tiny, glowing needles that flew out into the city. "FIND THE SACRIFICE, LITTLE KING, OR WATCH YOUR WORLD BECOME A GARDEN OF BONE AND GLASS."
The Angel vanished, leaving only the smell of ozone and the sound of the city outside beginning to howl.
Leonus fell forward, his forehead hitting the bloody marble. He looked at his hands, then at the pulsating, crystalline remains of the Baroness. "The sacrifice..." he whispered, his eyes darting around the room as if searching for a hidden meaning in the gore. "He didn't say what... he didn't tell me who..."
Alaric knelt beside him, his own heart hammering against his ribs. "We'll find a way, Leo. We'll find a scholar, an ancient text... we'll fix this."
Leonus didn't look at Alaric. He looked through him. The desperation in the King's eyes was shifting, turning into a cold, predatory focus. He didn't know what the sacrifice was yet, but for the first time in their lives, Alaric felt a prickle of fear at the way his friend was measuring the air between them.
"Yes," Leonus said, his voice as hollow as a tomb. "We will find it. Whatever the cost."
Part 3: The Gospel of the Feast
The weeks that followed the Angel's descent were a blur of red and gray. The Blood Curse was not a swift mercy; it was a slow, agonizing transformation. In the streets of Gaan, the sound of glass breaking was no longer a domestic accident—it was the sound of a neighbor's veins shattering under the pressure of the divine rot.
King Leonus had locked himself in the Secret Archives of the Cathedral, a place where the sun never reached and the air smelled of wet stone and ancient, forbidden ink. He was not alone. The High Pope, the only member of the clergy Leonus had spared during his fit of rage, sat across from him. Between them lay the Codex of the First Dawn, a book bound in a material that felt uncomfortably like human skin.
"The Angel spoke of a sacrifice," Leonus rasped, his eyes sunken and bloodshot. "But he left us in the dark. Tell me the truth, Pope. No more parables. What is the Feast of the Gods?"
The Pope let out a dry, rattling laugh. He leaned into the candlelight, his shadow stretching across the wall like a hooked claw.
"The history you were taught, Your Majesty, was a bedtime story for a kingdom of children," the Pope whispered. "The Gods did not 'give' us this world. They planted it. We are not their subjects; we are their harvest. Every three centuries, the 'Owners' grow bored of the silence. They require a Feast of Despair."
Leonus gripped the edge of the table. "Despair?"
"Gold is dross to them," the Pope continued, his eyes gleaming with a sickly light. "They crave the energy of a soul that has been meticulously broken. The 'Feast' is a spectacle—a tragedy played out on a grand scale. The Blood Curse is merely the fire used to preheat the oven. To stop it, you must offer them a dish of such exquisite sorrow that they are satisfied for another age."
The Pope turned a page in the Codex, pointing to an illustration of a man being led into a dark wood by his own shadow.
"The sacrifice must be a 'Heart of Pure Faith.' A man who believes in the light so completely that his betrayal will echo through the Heavens. His hope must be converted into absolute, crushing despair at the moment of his death. Only that 'flavor' can sate the hunger of the Owners."
Leonus looked at the drawing. He thought of the training grounds. He thought of the wedding. He thought of the man who currently stood outside the door, guarding the King's life with his own.
"Alaric," Leonus whispered.
The Last Promise
The "Expedition for the Cure" was announced the following morning. Before they departed, Alaric went to the royal chambers to see Elara.
The Princess was a shadow of herself. The Blood Curse had not yet turned her to glass, but her skin was translucent, her veins a faint, pulsing violet. She lay amidst silk pillows, her breathing shallow and wet. Alaric knelt by her bed, taking her hand. Her skin felt like cold wax.
"I will bring it back, Elara," Alaric whispered, pressing his forehead against her knuckles. "The King has found the location of the nectar. I will go into the Grove, and I will bring back the dawn for you."
Elara opened her eyes—those sapphire eyes that had always been his sanctuary. She reached out, her fingers trembling as she touched the silver lion on his breastplate.
"Alaric..." she rasped, a single tear of pale red tracking down her cheek. "If the sun does not return... do not stay in the dark for me. Promise me... you will find your own light."
"I don't need the sun," Alaric vowed, his voice thick with a desperate, doomed hope. "I only need you. Wait for me."
He didn't see Leonus standing in the doorway, watching them with eyes that had already buried them both.
The Long Walk to the Grove
The journey to the Copper Grove was a funeral march disguised as a crusade. For seven days, Alaric led the elite guard through the dying countryside. He pushed them through the mist and the rot, his mind focused entirely on the vial of life he believed waited at the end of the path.
When they reached the heart of the Grove, the air turned to liquid lead. The trees were gnarled monuments to agony, their roots drinking from pools of black, stagnant water. In the center stood the Blood Hag's willow, its red moss swaying in a wind that didn't exist.
"Where is it, Leo?" Alaric asked, his hand on his sword, scanning the shadows for the Hag. "Where is the altar?"
Leonus stepped forward. He didn't look at the trees. He looked at the ground. "It's right here, Alaric."
Before Alaric could react, four of the Royal Guard—men he had bled with in a dozen battles—lunged. They didn't strike with blades; they threw heavy, enchanted chains of cold iron. Alaric was a master of the sword, but he was not prepared for a betrayal by his own brothers.
The chains wound around his arms and throat, the magical weight of them slamming him to his knees in the black mud.
"What is this?!" Alaric roared, struggling against the iron that bit into his silver plate. "Leonus! The enemy is in the trees! Order them to release me!"
Leonus walked toward him, his face a mask of absolute, hollow stone. He didn't draw a sword. He simply stood over his kneeling friend.
"There is no cure, Alaric," Leonus said. Each word was a drop of poison. "There never was. The nectar is a story for children. The only thing that can save Gaan is your heart."
Alaric froze. The chains rattled as he looked up into the eyes of the man he had called brother since they were children. "Leo... what are you saying? Elara... we have to save her..."
"Elara is dead, Alaric," Leonus whispered, and for a moment, his voice cracked with a flicker of the old Leonus. "She died the night before we left. I had the mages preserve her cold skin just to keep you moving. I needed your hope to be at its peak... so that your fall would be deep enough for the Gods."
The world went silent.
Alaric's mind struggled to process the words. Dead? The jasmine scent of her hair, the warmth of her promise—all of it had been a lie maintained by the man he loved most. The foundation of his world didn't just crack; it vanished.
"You... you used her?" Alaric's voice was a broken wheeze. "You used my love for her to lead me here... to this?"
"I am a King, Alaric," Leonus replied, his eyes turning cold and dead once more. "A King protects his property. And to save the millions, I have to spend the one. I loved you... but I love Gaan more."
The sky above the Grove dissolved into a bruised, pulsing purple. The Angel descended, its crystalline wings singing a song of mockery. It looked down at the "Iron Pillar" kneeling in the muck, a man whose faith had just been ground into the dirt by his best friend.
"THE FEAST IS SERVED," the Angel declared.
As the divine light began to flay the hope from Alaric's soul, Leonus turned his back. He didn't watch the Angel work. He didn't look at the man he had shattered. He simply walked away into the mist, his soldiers following him like ghosts.
Alaric lay in the mud, his fingers clawing at the earth as the "Pure Faith" that had defined him turned into a freezing, black void. He watched the hem of Leonus's royal cloak disappear into the fog.
"Leonus..." he whispered, but the name no longer tasted like brotherhood. It tasted like ash.
As his heart began to slow, the Blood Hag emerged from the hollow of her tree. She didn't let the Angel take the remains. She reached out, her obsidian nails tracing the line of his throat.
"The King made you a martyr," she croaked, her gaze filled with a dark, predatory delight. "But the Gods are messy eaters. They left me the heart. And a heart filled with this much hate... it never truly stops beating."
She snapped the iron collar around his neck.
The Iron Pillar was dead. The Lap Dog had been claimed.